Cutest Nephew Ever!

A few weeks ago Justin and I made the trip to Rayville to visiting John Hayden. I know I am a litte obsessed but I am not going to apologize for it.

This was the first time we have seen John Hayden since at the hospital when he was born. When he was born I couldn't really tell if he looked more like Abe or Lindsay, but now I definitely see some of Abe in his face.

John Hayden loves reading!

I just want everyone to know that this was my mom's idea. She got this handprint kit for JH. It has three tins for you to make handprints of your baby during their first year of life. JH did a great job and Lindsay was able to get a good handprint.

Making faces at the camera.

John Hayden is growing so fast. Be watching for another post about John Hayden's first trip to Aunt Sally and Uncle Justin's!!

He has ARRIVED!!!

Let me introduce the world to the cutest baby boy, John Hayden Hodges!!!

This was taken just about an hour after he was born.

He arrived on Friday, January 27th at 3:19 p.m. He weighed 8 lbs. 12 oz. and was 20 inches long. Let me back up just a little. John Hayden was scheduled to arrive on Monday but he just wasn't quite ready to make his grand appearance, so we all waited...and waited...and waited. Thursday morning my brother and sister-in-law put in a call to their doctor to schedule an induction. When the doctor called them back much later in the afternoon she told them to come to the hospital around 12 that night. They didn't expect this response, but began getting ready.

Around 6:00 Friday morning Abe texted me and said we should start getting ready and head their way. Thinking we had lots of time we got up and leisurely got ready. Around 8:00-ish he texted me back and told us that the nurse was thinking that Hayden would arrive around 12:00. Then, we got a another text just shortly after saying it might be 10:30. We went right into super speed mode and got ready in record time. I think we got to the hospital around 10:30 and ran to the room because we thought Hayden was already here. If we would have known he was still not ready to come and meet all of us, we would have taken our time getting ready!

Lindsay was a champ. She was uncomfortable, but she never complained. About an hour before Hayden was born we were told it was time for us to head to the waiting room to do just a little more waiting. We settled in thinking it would be another few hours before we would be formally introduced to Hayden. Well, those few hours really ended up being only one hour. During that one hour, I made many trips to the gift shop and cafeteria, trying to make the time go by faster. During one of my trips I found this awesome button.


Thinking we would have lots of time Justin and I went back to the gift shop to get Abe a bubble gum cigar. As I was paying, I got a text from my mom saying Hayden had arrived. Justin and I ran back to the waiting room. I could have hit myself for not being there, but at least we got Abe a bubble gum cigar.




This is the proud Daddy coming to tell us that we could come back to the room to meet Hayden. When Abe walked into the waiting room he had the biggest smile on his face. He was most definitely a new proud daddy.


Here my parents are meeting Hayden for the first time. Look at the smile on Lindsay's face. I don't think I would be smiling after almost 15 hours of labor but like I said, Lindsay is a champ.

We had to wait forever for them to bring Hayden back to the room. I think I spent most of that time waiting by the nursery window trying to catch glimpses of Hayden. They had to give him shots, run tests, give him a bath, and whatever else they do in the nursery.

FINALLY!!! I got to hold Hayden!! I think he is just the cutest and best baby ever!!

Here are few pictures of Hayden's nursery. Lindsay did a great job putting everything together. I know Hayden is going to love his room.

I think we are planning on going to visit Hayden this weekend , so stay tuned for a lot more pictures of him.

The Hodges/Garcia Christmas

I, like most people, love Christmas. Who doesn't love spending time with family, eating lots of good food, getting some time off work, decorating your house with lots of red and green, and driving around looking at Christmas lights? This year for Christmas my whole family was able to get together for a few days at my parent's house. We had lots of fun hanging out, seeing family, and just relaxing. One thing my mom always does is decorate the house for Christmas. Here are some of her decorations.

These are my baby shoes on her tree. She also has a pair of Stan's and Abe's baby shoes.

When I was little my mom made everything special and over the top. We had a wreath that had huge jingle bells on it that would hang on the back door. Any time you touched the wreath (or even the door for that matter) you would hear the bells. Some, how every Christmas Eve, Santa would come to the house to make sure we were being good and would take the bells and hide them somewhere around our house. Who ever found them the next day would win a prize (candy). When I was really little I loved this. When I got a little older this terrified me. I never let on that I was scared but inside I would cringe with I saw the wreath gone. You might be asking yourself why I was so scared. Well, wouldn't you be terrified that Santa could come into your house without anyone seeing him in the middle of the day. By the 4th grade I grew out of the scared stage, just in time to find out the truth about Santa. I have to give my mom credit for coming up with wonderful ideas for making every holiday special and memorable .

But back to this Christmas: We all spent most of our time in the kitchen. Stan, the chef in our family, made four wonderful meals. When I say four, I mean he made two dishes with shrimp and made me and Lindsay our own meals since we don't eat shrimp. Not only did he make four meals but everything was from scratch. I hope one day I can cook as good as Stan.

While Stan and Justin slaved over dinner we made sugar cookies. Well, Lindsay made them and I just helped to decorate them. We had so much fun and the cookies were delicious.



For as long as I can remember our family has had a contest to see who could be the first person to say "Christmas Eve gift" to my Mom on Christmas Eve. If you happened to be the first to say it to mom, you got the Christmas Eve gift. This year I won!!!! It has been a long time since I have won. Needless to say I was very happy. I set my alarm for 12:00 but thought my mom would not like it if I woke her up. So I waited until 6:30. The best part of winning is when your brother or dad thinks he beat you to it and you are able to hold up to gift and say "I already won!!"

While driving to my grandparents house on Christmas Eve we had to entertain Justin with bubbles.

This is my cousins sweet baby!!! He was so fun to play with and watch open gifts.

This year we went a less traditional route with our Christmas dinner and had steak and chicken. Again, this was another meal that Stan with the help us Justin made. It was wonderful!!!!


Christmas morning was fun, like always!!! We all still get excited to see what Santa has brought us. This year I was the first one up and ran around the house waking everyone up. Since we have gotten older we no longer open our presents right away. Now we all drink some coffee, start making breakfast (monkey bread), and then divide up the gifts. Once breakfast is in the oven we all head into the living room and see what Santa has brought us. Here is some of the loot Justin and I got this year.



We had a great time with our family and are looking forward to celebrating Christmas next year with John Hayden, who is expected to make his appearance on January 23rd. For those who don't know my older bother and his wife are having a baby in less than 3 weeks!

Thanksgiving 2011

I know I am a little late blogging about our Thanksgiving, but we have been busy pretty much every weekend since Thanksgiving.

After a few planning derailments, we all ended up at my parents house the day before Thanksgiving. It was great having both Stan and Abe home together. It has been a while since we have all been home at the same time.

Now, on to the all the family fun...it has become a new family tradition that the girls cook one night, my mom cooks thanksgiving dinner, and the boys cook the night after Thanksgiving. We started this last year and it was really fun and it keeps my mom from being in the kitchen the whole holiday. This year we changed things up just a little and just the girls cooked. Last year we had so much food left over from 3 big meals that the guys decided not to cook this year. I don't think the amount of leftover really had anything to do with it, I think it was that they didn't want to cook. We (the girls) decided to cook pizza. Since there are 3 of us (me, Lindsay, and Priscilla) all made our own pizza so we would have a variety. I made a chicken pesto pizza. Check out our delicious pizzas.


Our whole family is very competitive so when we are all together we turn everything into a competition. Because of all the competitiveness, this weekend was fulled with lots of game playing. The entire weekend was spent either eating or playing games. Each night we would sit around the table playing Taboo. After we went through all the cards (both front and back) we changed to playing fish bowl. I don't think I have laughed so hard in years. On Thanksgiving day the girls challenged the guys to a game of bocci ball. All the Hodges kids are very competitive and lucky for me so is my sister-in-law Lindsay. None us of had ever played bocci ball before so we all came to the field with the same skill level. I'm pretty sure that the guys thought they had it in the bag but they were wrong. The girls dominated!! Not wanting to lose to girls they challenged us to a rematch and they lost again.

When the fun of bocci ball was over we started playing in the pile of leaves we raked up. I know this is something that small children do, but there is something about going home for the holidays that turns us all into children. The fun started when Justin threw my parents cat into the pile of leaves. It only took seconds for the cat to race out of leaves and hide from us. After the cat, Justin thought it would be a good idea to jump into the leaves. Then it went downhill from there and for some reason we started kicking leaves at each other.





My mom not only made a great Thanksgiving dinner she also made a great centerpiece for the table. She is always making the house so festive.
Continuing with the competitive theme of the weekend Abe & Lindsay challenged Stan & Priscila to a game of corn hole.

While they played corn hole, my dad took me for a ride on his motorcycle. Don't I look styling with my pink helmet?
We ended the night making gingerbread houses. It was a contest (I told you we were competitive) I'm sad to say that Justin and I didn't win. Stan & Priscila won. I can only blame Justin for this loss.
Going from left to right, Stan & Priscila, my mom's, Justin's mom's, mine & Justin's, and Abe & Lindsay's. I really think we should have won, since we had both a reindeer and Santa on our roof.

Since, we are an hour and a half from any good shopping we didn't get to experience any of the Black Friday deals. We did however send the afternoon shopping around Winona (all 3 shops). Friday night we had a talent show...yes, that's right we had a talent show. (Did I tell you we are a competitive family?) I didn't get any pictures of this and I'm still hitting myself for not taking pictures. I played the recorder, Stan & Lindsay salsa danced, and Abe & Lindsay wrote and preformed a song. Justin was chosen to be the judge since he really has talent. Abe and Lindsay won the show with their on rendition of Carol of the Bells, Thanksgiving style.

We had a great time and always love when we are all together.