Swimming Pool

Just chillin' with mom getting some sun!


Where's my People magazine?


I am my mother's daughter


Where's my bottle?


Let me know when I need to turn...


Skylar loved her first swimming pool experience!

The Bear Claw Poppy

Skylar went on her first bike ride today. We went to St. George this weekend with Brett and Brittany Allred who are big time bike riders and we definately are not! Our idea of a bike ride is traveling 2 blocks on paved roads to grandmother's house we go. So, I was a little nervous when they wanted us to go bike riding with them. We didn't even own helmets until today which they told us we needed and I am glad now that we got them. After purchasing our helmets, what I was imaging our ride was going to be and what we ended up with were completely different! When we got to the trail I was a little nervous because it was all dirt and hills. I am thinking to myself we have our 5 month old baby how are we going to do this?! Oh but don't you worry Skylar was having more fun than me! It was like being on a roller coaster and ever time Bracken would stop she would get so mad and start screamsing but as soon as Bracken started peddling again, she was happy. By the end of the trail and mainly heading back to the truck (mostly downhill) I was loving every minute of it too. Thanks Brett and Brittany for taking us there, we can't wait to go back.



Sky loved her first bike ride. I think we all would if we got to sit in a posh seat and have someone do all the work!



Skylar fell asleep on the bumpy ride.



Bracken & Skylar (what a workout!)



Talia



Brett & Brittany

Easter with Grammy and Papa

Every year we get together with Bracken's family and we get to do an Easter egg hunt. We love it! Hopefully the kids (Hallee, Jack and Paisley) have fun too. We can't wait for Skylar and Ryder to get big enough to enjoy it as well. This year we had dinner at Sasha and Rob's house and we also made cute Easter cupcakes to give to friends although I ate mine before it could be given away! (It was really good so sorry who ever was suppost to get it.) Grammy gave all the kids cute bunny ears. As you can see all the kids looked so cute with their bunny ears, Thanks Grammy.

Kristopher Wayne Fairbanks

Two years today our sweet little brother Kris returned to his Heavenly Father. We love and miss you but know we will see you again.

Bracken's talk from his funeral:

I am grateful and honored that I have a chance to spend a brief moment to pay tribute to my little brother Kristopher and his life. I pray that the spirit will be with me as I hope to give each of you a better knowledge of the wonderful person and example Kris was to me and our family.

Kristopher - The guy that could never figure out how high or how low to wear his pants. For the first 10 years of Kris’s life he pulled his pants up about 18” too high. For the last 10 years of his life, Kris let his pants always hang down about 18” too low.

Kristopher - The older brother. Wayne remembered a time when he was going over to pick up Kris when he was probably about 10 years old. He was driving his truck and noticed that Kris and Cameron were riding their bikes around the neighborhood and Cameron fell. Kris immediately jumped off his bike to help his younger brother.

Kristopher - The meat lover. I hope they have live cattle in heaven because if not, I don’t know what Kris will eat. He was usually running a little late to family dinners at Outback but we knew what to order him. The largest steak on the menu as rare as it could come.

Kristopher - The outdoorsman. Whether it was wave running in Lake Powell, camping, fishing, snowboarding or just taking a vehicle into the mountains digging, Kristopher loved the outdoors. Many times the peaceful drive up the canyon turned into an overnight campout waiting for the tow truck the next day because he wouldn’t back down from any hill or climb. We thought about putting winches on all the family vehicles to cut back on tow truck fees it happened so many times.

Kristopher - The guy who never quit. I remember a trip we took to Hawaii a number of years ago. The most memorable part of the vacation for me was Kris and I learning how to surf together. He would not give up. Hours and hours into the “learning process” I was ready to call it a day and go take a nap on the beach but he wanted to stay out in the ocean and take advantage of the time we had to surf.

Kristopher - The hairstylist. We are not quite sure if Kristopher was meant to be in the family business of hair styling but it sure seemed like it. He took longer on his hair that his sisters and used a lot more product! One morning Kiley sat outside the door of the bathroom counting the squirts of hairspray used for the morning do. 129 – and now we know why his hair looked so good even while driving with the truck windows down.

Kristopher - The uncle. As Kris' obituary said, little children were drawn to Kris. Hallee and Jack absolutely adored Kris. He had a special way with them, and sure loved them. Hallee's most fond memory of Kris was the afternoon that just he and her went in his truck to Crest to get a Bug juice together, and then as Hallee says, went to get some stuff at Home Depot. He will be greatly missed by his neices and nephew.

Kristopher - The student. I’m not sure how many of you were aware of the grades that Kristopher pulled, but very rarely was there even an A- on his report card. He was very academically intelligent.

Kristopher - The guy who you could hear coming from a mile away. More important that having a vehicle that ran, was having a vehicle with a loud stereo. Every Christmas when you asked Kris what he wanted, more often than not it was an amplifier or some speakers.


Kristopher - The mechanic. Whether he was fixing his truck after wrecking it on a few different occasions or helping a family member with car problems, Kris could always been found under the hood of a vehicle with a wrench in hand ready to fix anything.

Kristopher - The protector. Kiley remembers many occasions when Kris was there to help her through hard times. Whether it was a drink run or just talking on the phone, he was always a great support to her.

Kristopher - The painter. If I said he was the fastest painter in town, too many people in this room would bust up laughing. It seems like he has painted more garage floors, doors and walls that any one company in the valley. Half the problem was, he wanted to chit chat while on the job so a 2 days job always turned into a 2 week job but boy did it look good.

Kristopher – The guy who thought his two-toned white truck with the blue hood was way cooler than it really was. Enough said.


Kristopher - The perfectionist. It was unbelievable how clean, tidy and perfect Kristopher always kept his stuff. If you were to ever look in his truck, his clothes he always packed around were pressed and hanging in the back. His cd’s were always in their case and in the back of the truck, his tools were stacked nice and neat. Everything he did, he did with care and perfection.

Kristopher - The plumber. For many years, if you needed to find Kris, he could be found on a construction site plumbing with his dad. He learned by watching and working side by side with Wayne and I can only imagine how great of an experience that was for both of them.

Kristopher - The communicator. I don’t know how to put this other than just bluntly but it was always the joke in the family and we always laughed about Kris calling each of us to chat will sitting on the toilet. It was his way of keeping in touch with each of the family members. He would go down the list of phone numbers until he finally reached someone to occupy his time. It was almost a competition in the family to see which one of us got the call.

Kristopher - The musician. Not only did Kris have a good singing voice, he could also play the guitar quite well. In fact, I’m quite sure he is entertaining the heavenly hosts right now with his rendition of Adam Sandler’s “Lunchlady Land”.

Kristopher - The grateful. Of all the things we have talked about as a family over the past week, it would be how grateful and thankful Kris always was. It didn’t matter if you bought him a 99 cent Jr. Cheeseburger at Wendy’s, you would have thought you just gave him a million dollars. No small act or kind deed ever went towards Kris without him telling you how much it meant to him and how thankful he was.

Kristopher, my younger brother. If anyone in here has ever grown up with only sisters, you will appreciate my point of finally getting another boy in the family. I always wanted a brother and at the age of 9, I finally got one in my life. Kris was my little buddy and I can’t wait until the day when we can reunite again. We love you and will miss you bud.

I just want to close by saying how grateful I am for the gospel in my life and the knowledge I have that I will be able to reunite with my younger brother and my family again. I am grateful for our Heavenly Father’s plan which allows us all to return to his presence with our families and I am so grateful for that knowledge.

Best Husband

I'm Sorry Brack I know you are not going to like this. So here I go anyway,I can't sleep cause I'm thinking of all the great things you do for me and I just want to know how much I love you and how lucky I am to have you. Because there are so many things I decided to do write the top ten from this week.....

Okay eleven - Your Hot!!!!

10-You got up with Skylar 90% of the time this week.
9-You colored Easter eggs with me.
8-You take care of our dogs so I don't have to.
7-You booked our Cruise.
6-You didn't get mad when I backed the Hummer into another car causing 1,800 dollars in damages. oops. (sorry)
5-You mopped the whole house.
4- You came running every time I called crying.
3-You spent 5hours cleaning the school and salon.
2-You help so much with Sky.

And the #1 reason that I love you so much is because after all the Dumb things I did this week you still love me. (I Think)Ha ha

Easter 2008

Following church, we went to "grandpa" Pete's house for his annual Easter egg hunt. Definately not to mistaken with any Easter egg hunt however. He has about a quarter acre of land in his backyard and probably spent the past 3 days hiding eggs. I believe at last count there were over 25 dozen eggs to be found. The kids loved it and so did we because there is always a special tree for the adults where money will be found inside of the eggs.







Aside from all the Easter activities, I am particularly grateful for the reminder and time to reflect on the resurrection. I believe it really hits home when you have a close love one pass away and it causes you to think about them and how lucky we are to have the gospel in our lives. It will be 2 years ago this week that our family lost our little brother Kristopher and thanks to Jesus Christ, I know we will have the opportunity to be reunited with him again. What a gift and blessing the gospel is to have that knowledge.

Friday "Game-Night"

We decided to return the favor to the Hill's and have them over for dinner and games. Talia made an excellent taco-salad and we drank some margarita's (unleaded of course). After dinner we broke out rook, sequence and 9's. As you will see from the following pictures, the girls not only lost, but they didn't win at any of them. It was a complete SWEEP! Thanks for playing ladies; better luck next time! :)

The "other" Hudson's

We are excited that it is finally warming up again so we can take our dogs walking. Dasiy is our laid-back lab who loves playing fetch with her "rope". Talia begged for her when we were living in our house on Traverse Mountain and more days than not regrets that decision simply for the fact that she is now too big. For those of you out there thinking about a dog, don't forget that they grow, need to be fed and they drop bombs all over the yard!



Sammie our Walker hound loves jumping the fence in our backyard and roaming the neighborhood. When she is ready to come back, she will come and open the front door; or better said, scratch the door until it opens!


Bracken felt it was only fair that if Talia got a dog, then he should get one too. She is a bear & cougar hunting dog but has only made it out a few times so far. Hopefully that will change!

Let's settle this once and for ALL!

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Free

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

SkI DaY

We ll we decided since we haven't been skiing this year that we better go at least once so we went to Sundance on Saturday . It snowed a little but It was really pretty up there. We met up with Ryan and Mandy Hill for half day. It was a lot of fun even though I forgot how to ski, thanks to Ryan and Mandy for the lessons. I really need to go more then once a year. Thanks aunt Sasha & uncle Rob for watching the baby, she told us she had lots of fun!I'm lucky I have such a sweet husband.

Brack & Ryan

Ryan & Mandy Hill
Thanks guys for all your help!!

My sexy Husband!!!

I think I forgot how to ski...

Game Night..

I am only posting this because it was part of the bet. First thank you
Mandy For the nice dinner it was wonderful. Now let me remind the boys
why they seem to win a lot. Once again it's cause we know that your big
ego's would be hurt if we were to win every game. You're also forgetting
that the girls really did win at Nines and the boys won at Rook so we
had a tie breaker. Don't worry the girls aren't going to be so nice
next time, so boys get ready to pay up!!!

Big Girl Chair

Thanks Rissa for telling me about the Bumbo Chair. Skylar loves her new big girl chair she sits in it while she watches Super Why! She really looks thrilled to be sitting in it. Ha Ha

SO I know that bracken and I are a little crazy about our little Skylar, and everybody keeps laughing at us because ever little thing she does or every little milestone she makes we just go crazy, as if no other child has done this before ours . I don't know if it's because we went through a lot to get her here, but what ever it is we just can't get enough of her. So you can only imagine how much fun it was for us to give Sky her first taste of cereal, I would say it was better then riding on the Ferris wheel. Her look of surprise and shock was so sweet and funny. I can't wait to give her fruit and veggies next. I know that we are a little nutty, I just never thought this would be so much fun.

Sky sky's first taste of cereal!

Rascal Flatts

My sweetheart gave me tickets to go see Rascal Flatts in concert for Valentine's Day. The concert was on Friday, and it was so much fun. Thank you Brack, I loved the concert and loved having a night out with just you. Thanks Tyra for watching Sky. We are very lucky cause we have been to a lot of really great concerts thanks to Papa Hal. He's always the first to know about who is coming and lucky for us he likes to go and likes to take all of his kids, and we love going with him. We have a lot of great memories with him at concerts. Thanks Papa Hal.

Brack thinks Kellie Is Hot!!

The stage was awsome.

Four months old!

I cant believe how fast our little Sky is growing It's bitter sweet. Brack
wanted me to take a picture of her getting her shots,(that's child
abuse). So we got this cute picture instead. She weighs 14 pounds and is
24" long. I miss the days that we were okay sharing our weight with
everyone!!HAHA

2008 3rd place champs!!

Congrats on the 3rd place finish in the handicap women's division! Way to go HQ!!

As long as.....

my score was higher than Sasha's, I told myself I would post it. Had it been lower, I couldn't not have put this on here! Things have always been a competition between us since we were young. I think it has something to do with us being less than 11 months
apart! Nothing like a little trash talking on the blog! She is probably better and faster at everything else but apparantly not typing!!!

119 words

Speedtest

Talia's blogging........

Well as most of you know Bracken is the one that blogs at our house, I think It's cause I'm Scared of the computer, and he does such a good job, except that I Hate all the pictures of me that he keeps putting on it. I think it should be a rule that no one can take pictures of you for at least a year after having a baby, we don't need reminders of how much weight we have gained. Anyway I decided that I wanted to give it a try so here is my attempt at blogging.

French chef

Our primary kids said that skylar looked like a french chef, a very cute one! Thanks for the cute outfit Grammy.

Pretty in Pink

I know everyone is wondering if Skylar owns anything other then pink..... I'm wondering that too. I know when she is old enough to talk the first thing she is going to tell me is, I don't like pink and mom stop kissing me! I just can't help myself I kiss her honestly a hundred times a day.