Evan has to practice reading for at least 20 minutes a day. Usually, Jon reads with one of them and I read with the other. This night, I ended up reading with both of them. It really is the only time of the day that they are quiet and still!
Friday, October 7, 2011
Reading Time
Evan has to practice reading for at least 20 minutes a day. Usually, Jon reads with one of them and I read with the other. This night, I ended up reading with both of them. It really is the only time of the day that they are quiet and still!
State Fair of Texas
After living in Texas for 6 years, all of our friends were so appalled that we had not been to the State Fair that we were coerced into going this year!
We went the first day of the fair after we got Evan from school....he had a half day for "Fair Day".
Our friends, The Gambles, were wonderful tour guides and we all had a great time! I got to ride all the roller coasters with the kids and Jon got to eat fried food...a nice balance for us!
Luke love the animal exhibit...and nothing else. No rides for my munchkin.
Evan rode everything and is totally ready for Six Flags!
We met up with lots of Evan's school buddies.
Big Tex
Very Belated First Day of School Pics
Luke, is not interested in these at all!
My handsome first grader:)
Cheese!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Maine
Better late than never! I have been working on a continuing ed class that has a 600 page textbook and of course dealing with back to school/sports craziness. Such a slacker...:)
Sunday, June 12, 2011
A happy day in the Hutcheson garden
After 2straight years of no tomatoes due to blight and bugs, our cherry tomatoes are the first to ripen. The boys were eating them right out of the garden. I am very happy that all my hard work this spring was rewarded with tomatoes:)!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Sports Dilemnas
My kids have this annoying game where that continually name two teams...in a variety of sports...and ask us if they played each other who would we cheer for. This is the result of growing up in a household that has allegiance to Reds, Cubs, Bears, Bengals, Buckeyes, etc, etc.
Sometimes the questions are nuts: "Who would you cheer for if the Reds played the Bears?"
This week Evan asked me, "If the Cowboys played the Bears in the SuperBowl, who would you cheer for?" I told him that they couldn't play each other because they are in the same conference. He said, "But if they could, who would you cheer for?". I told him, of course the Bears. He said, "What if I cheered for the Cowboys?" I simply told him, "I would find you a nice new place to live". He said, "Mom you are crazy! I would just go live with Grandma and Papa".
I told him Papa probably wouldn't even answer the door....little does he know that crazy is passed down from fathers to daughters.
I did let him wear a Mavs shirt to camp this week....I am not totally nuts!
Sometimes the questions are nuts: "Who would you cheer for if the Reds played the Bears?"
This week Evan asked me, "If the Cowboys played the Bears in the SuperBowl, who would you cheer for?" I told him that they couldn't play each other because they are in the same conference. He said, "But if they could, who would you cheer for?". I told him, of course the Bears. He said, "What if I cheered for the Cowboys?" I simply told him, "I would find you a nice new place to live". He said, "Mom you are crazy! I would just go live with Grandma and Papa".
I told him Papa probably wouldn't even answer the door....little does he know that crazy is passed down from fathers to daughters.
I did let him wear a Mavs shirt to camp this week....I am not totally nuts!
Look Mom, I Passed!
Last day of Kindergarten
Posing with his certificate of completion...don't get me started on the #%#)$% Minnesota Vikings shirt Uncle Hutch and Aunt Susie sent him. It has since been "lost".
He passed!Summer So Far...
I have been severely neglecting blogging. The end of school is always very chaotic...fun, with lots of events, but very time consuming.
Then for a little end of the year gift, I got knocked on my rear with a horrible sinus and ear infection that landed me in bed and down for almost a week. I was nice enough to share this with the boys and so they were sick their first week out of school.:(
We have managed to really enjoy our pool as we once again embrace another hot Texas summer!
This week Evan has sports camp at Jesuit high school and it exhausts even him...not complaining.
Lukey has been in swim lessons and we just signed up for another session because he is absolutely loving it. He is swimming a little bit without any floaties and I am hoping we won't need them anymore after the next session.
Evan is still playing baseball and after a rough start, has moved up to 4th in the batting order and is hitting .750. His fielding is also getting much better. My timid little person has also developed a bit of an aggressive streak and he has really blossomed on the basketball court and soccer field.
Both boys have been very into the NBA playoffs and we are actually grateful that the Bulls are not playing the Mavs in the final....there may have been some hard feelings here;).
Jon and I are treading water keeping up with everyone...trying to enjoy all the moments and also perhaps occasionally sit down and breathe.
Then for a little end of the year gift, I got knocked on my rear with a horrible sinus and ear infection that landed me in bed and down for almost a week. I was nice enough to share this with the boys and so they were sick their first week out of school.:(
We have managed to really enjoy our pool as we once again embrace another hot Texas summer!
This week Evan has sports camp at Jesuit high school and it exhausts even him...not complaining.
Lukey has been in swim lessons and we just signed up for another session because he is absolutely loving it. He is swimming a little bit without any floaties and I am hoping we won't need them anymore after the next session.
Evan is still playing baseball and after a rough start, has moved up to 4th in the batting order and is hitting .750. His fielding is also getting much better. My timid little person has also developed a bit of an aggressive streak and he has really blossomed on the basketball court and soccer field.
Both boys have been very into the NBA playoffs and we are actually grateful that the Bulls are not playing the Mavs in the final....there may have been some hard feelings here;).
Jon and I are treading water keeping up with everyone...trying to enjoy all the moments and also perhaps occasionally sit down and breathe.
Family Pictures
We recently had some family pics taken by our favorite photographer...Ms. Chera:).
The boys were mostly well behaved, but I am always amazed she ever captures anything with 2 little boys goofing around....3 if you count Jon!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Happy Mother's Day
I know I have posted this before, but Anna Quindlen always seems to say it best when it comes to motherhood...I always love to revisit this on Mother's Day because I just love it!
All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past. Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, have all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there some thing wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China . Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, 'Remember-When- Mom-Did Hall of Fame.' The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pick up. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, 'What did you get wrong?'. (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking? But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get onto the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.
All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past. Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, have all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there some thing wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China . Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, 'Remember-When- Mom-Did Hall of Fame.' The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pick up. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, 'What did you get wrong?'. (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking? But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get onto the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A Little H-O-R-S-E anyone?
Evan is really into shooting baskets right now and Luke has his own little basket so he does not get too frustrated.
The boys think it is mildly amusing that Jon and I frequently play late night H-O-R-S-E tourneys on the weekend after the kids go to bed. Now, it is Jon and I so there is always a little vino involved, so it gets amusing.The boys always ask us in the morning who won....I think we are dead even right now.
Jon always comes up with clever testosterone induced shots. One night there was a small piece of dog poop on the driveway, so he called one of his shots, "the dog poo bank shot".
So, now the kids know about this shot and they call for a "dog poo bank" whenever we play horse. Yet another moment in which the male fascination with bodily functions enters my very girly lifestyle;)!
The boys think it is mildly amusing that Jon and I frequently play late night H-O-R-S-E tourneys on the weekend after the kids go to bed. Now, it is Jon and I so there is always a little vino involved, so it gets amusing.The boys always ask us in the morning who won....I think we are dead even right now.
Jon always comes up with clever testosterone induced shots. One night there was a small piece of dog poop on the driveway, so he called one of his shots, "the dog poo bank shot".
So, now the kids know about this shot and they call for a "dog poo bank" whenever we play horse. Yet another moment in which the male fascination with bodily functions enters my very girly lifestyle;)!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Muffins With Mom
My sweet boy was feeling well enough to go to school today. This morning, we had Muffins With Mom before school and then went to Mass together. Isn't he handsome?:)Sunday, May 1, 2011
My poor Evan
We made it 6 years without Evan having strep, but we ended that streak this weekend. He came home Thursday feeling yucky and stayed home Friday. He felt great Saturday , but after his baseball game, he asked to take a nap on the couch...so not like him. He had a fever and felt awful. We took in him in today and had a feeling he had strep. Hopefully, with antibitoics he will feel better soon.
Despite the strep, my little guy had a hit at his baseball game. I do find some humor in the fact we made it through cold and flu season with no illness for him and ended up sick in May. Such is life.
Despite the strep, my little guy had a hit at his baseball game. I do find some humor in the fact we made it through cold and flu season with no illness for him and ended up sick in May. Such is life.
Flank Steak with Spicy Cream Sauce
The cream sauce had chives and parsely from the garden and that's my lettuce!:) The spcie in the sauce was horseradish.
Hutcheson Upgrades
Our new Keurig
My anniversary gift....with its cute pink case!Generally, it takes Jon 2 years to buy anything digital/electric without doing tons of Consumer Report driven research:). He surprised me with a Kindle for our anniversary. I LOVE it, it is every readers' dream.
We have been discussing a Keurig forever. Jon has one at work and lots of our friends have one. I have been hesitant, but everyone I know that has one, loves it. So, I surprised Jon with it for our anniversary. It is better than I could have imagined. I love that I can just have one cup if I want. Jon and I also like different types of coffee on the weekend, so this solves the problem. I cannot say enough good things about it.
Lettuce!
My first lettuce harvest....so exciting and delicious! Even my, less than organic hubby, thought it was amazing!
Friday, April 22, 2011
We are officially in the "asthma" club
After many episodes of breathing, coughing and wheezing issues even with several allergy meds, Luke is officially on an inhaler. This has been an ongoing issue during allergy season and whenever he gets sick since he was about 18 months old. After being treated with oral steroids last month, we were back at the ped today after 2 straight days and nights of wheezy coughing.
The upside of the inhaler is that a year of the inhaler equals the amount of steroids in 4 days of oral steroids. Less steroids in his system=much happier mama.
We chose a less time consuming method of med delivery and he did great with it tonight. He has felt so crappy with the cough that I think he is more than happy to do whatever it takes to feel better.
The upside of the inhaler is that a year of the inhaler equals the amount of steroids in 4 days of oral steroids. Less steroids in his system=much happier mama.
We chose a less time consuming method of med delivery and he did great with it tonight. He has felt so crappy with the cough that I think he is more than happy to do whatever it takes to feel better.
The downside of starting competitive sports at 5...
Icing ankle inuires at 6! Evan has soft tissue injury on his ankle and icing a 6 year old even when Mommy is a veteran of sports injuries, is challenging.
Easter Egg Extravaganza!
The best egg of the day...according to our vote! It was a neon green Luke creation.
Evan hard at work
Luke creating egg masterpieces
Love the smile from my first baby boy!
How fake is that face?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
