Merrit now

Thought you might like to see how well he is healing. You can't really tell he has a black eye if his eye is open. We are amazed at how well he looks now.

Noah's blessing

We had a super time in Utah visiting family and enjoying time with Kari, Eric and Noah and especially attending his blessing. Unfortunately, Mom and I both came home with horrific colds that we are still fighting. We hope we didn't give them to Hillary, Charlie and their family (nor Kurt, Heather and Harvey the night they came over). Jim seems to be strong and constantly has a cough to he should be okay. I don't have much time to write, right now, because I need to go to class but I will try to add a few of the pictures we took at the blessing. I had enough time to get them all in (I think). Love to all.

Easter Egg hunt

On a lighter note, we still had our Easter egg hunt which the kids were so happy about. Check out our video clips:

Because of all the snow that fell the night before (we had about 3-4 inches), we had to do our hunt in the barn.

Well, we had quite the vacation this time. It wasn't what we planned on, but we are still happy to have been able to visit with so many friends and family. We arrived in Michigan early Friday morning, the 21st. We were invited to have dinner with some friends that had been in the Flint ward, but moved to Howell just before we moved to Wisconsin. Before we left, it had started to snow. It hadn't been snowing for very long and hadn't accumulated much so we decided to go to dinner. We've driven in snow before, after all. So we were getting onto I-96 to go to Howell and as Charlie was accelerating to get on the highway, he lost control and the back end of the van slid forward making us slide sideways down the highway. Before he could gain control again, a Dodge Ram hit the backside of the van right by the back driver's side tire. That hit pushed us into the Ranger that was on our other side. So we hit their front end with the back passenger side tire. Then we kind of pinched the Ranger into the median and we both stopped. Merrit hit his head on something and was bleeding and swelled up pretty bad and Makayla had hit her head on something and had a bump. We called 911 and someone who witnessed stopped and called Onstar. She was very concerned and was a great comfort to the kids. She was God sent. So the ambulence arrived and took Merrit, Makayla and I to the hospital (I was O.K. though, just going for the kids) and Charlie stayed to tie things up with the police. No one in the other vehicles was hurt and they were both able to drive their trucks away. We had to have ours towed. Charlie also got a ticket because it was his fault. It was the scariest things that has ever happened to me!!! I'm just so thankful that no one was seriously injured. It could've been so much worse. Merrit's face and head are healing well. He has a green colored black eye right now. I'm going to take him to the doctor here to get him checked out again. A friend of mine's dad is a nurse and he told me that close head injuries can take up to 90 days to show signs so I need to keep an eye on Merrit to make sure nothing happens. I don't feel like it will, but I figure it's better to be safe.

So we spent the rest of our vacation looking for a new van to take us home. Mom and Dad let us borrow their van to get around in while we looked. I was thankful to have had the whole week to look. If the accident had happened any closer to the time we had to leave it would've made searching a lot more stressful. I was so disappointed in the vans we looked at, mostly because they just aren't as big as the Aerostars are. We almost went with a Safari because they are still on the big side of mini vans, but in the end, Mom and Dad offered us their van (Windstar) at a very good price that we couldn't refuse. So we bought that one and were able to squish everything we had into it. Let me tell you that was a little miracle in itself. It got super good gas mileage on the way home yesterday too, which was nice. It was probably better that we bought Mom and Dad's van anyway because we put over 1000 miles on it while we borrowed it last week. We couldn't believe it, but with all the driving we did to visit people, it added up.

Here are some pictures of our van and Merrit's face. We still aren't sure what he hit his head on. At first we thought it was the window next to him because it was busted out, but the side of his head that was actually next to the window was not touched, it was the other side of his head that was injured. I think he hit the back of Jaxson's car seat, which was right in front of him, but we aren't sure and probably never will be - not that it matters. I'm just so thankful that he wasn't more seriously hurt. These ones are him in the emergency room just after the accident:

These pictures were taken Wednesday, the 26th, five days after the accident:

He looks so much better now than he did in these pictures, I just don't have any current pictures of him yet.

Amy's Baby and Eric's Interview

I went to see Amy today in the hospital and snapped a few pictures for you guys to check out. I know that Dad forwarded you all an email with pictures, but here is one with Noah and Mylie together on the bed...he is so much bigger than she is. I held her and it was like holding nothing because she is so much lighter than Noah. She's a little cutie and Amy is doing well.

Eric had his interview today in Missouri and he told me that he felt like it went well. He had three seperate interviews and they were pretty casual, he said and they mostly just talked about him, not really like interviews he's used to in jobs and the like. He said that out of the 6 people they interviewed today, he was the only one applying for the anatomy program and he thinks that might increase his chances; also they have only interviewed about 30 people and out of that they will take 10-12, I think that should increase his chances too. But they said that we should know by the 2nd to 3rd week in April. So, pray with us that he made a good impression and they choose him. We will definetly keep you posted.

Hairy Easter

We had a great Easter and I wanted to share some pictures with you. We went to our ward's Easter activity where they did face painting, bunny petting, a HUGE Easter egg hunt (they had over 2000 eggs!) and bunny baseball. Addie couldn't participate much in the activities, but we had fun anyhow. She wasn't into the giant Easter Bunny, but who can blame her? He DID look pretty strange. I threw in some of her Easter dress as well, she sure is getting big!

Heather's Grandma

I don't know how many of you know yet, but Kurt called us tonight to tell us that Heather's grandma passed away today. They were on there way up north when I spoke to them. I'm sorry to hear about this, especially since they were hopeful of her recovery. I dread the day that our grandparents pass on. It's going to be so sad for me because I haven't been able to spend much time with them.

Heather, you and your family are in our prayers.

Happy Birthday Eric!

Today is my lovey's birthday and I want to celebrate by putting it on the blog so everyone knows. Today Eric is 26 years young and as handsome as ever-especially in this picture.

Let me tell you a little bit about how wonderful my hubby is.

1) He is a AWESOME husband. Yesterday, without even asking, he gave me a back rub-just because he heard me say my back hurt.

2) He is an amazing dad. He feeds Noah every night and rocks him to sleep. The other night while he was walking with Noah to put him to sleep, I heard him singing "You Are My Sunshine" and my heart melted. What a great dad.

3) He is driven and motivated to better himself and our situation. He works hard at work and is working on getting into school to further his education.

I could go on and on about how caring and loving he is and how well he takes care of me and our son. He is so wonderful and I am so lucky to be married to him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!

Jana, How Are You?

Eric and I were talking and he asked me if I knew how you were doing from your surgery and I didn't know. So, how are you? Have you had cheese yet? Pizza? How is that going? Give us an update.

Sorry Mom

I didn't mean to go bad- I just played the hand I was dealt. But you guys were too smart for me. I just want to say that I had Dad killed out of mercy. I knew that he was going to be super busy with school and finals. I was trying to be nice.

The Barre of Guillain

As you may know, we went up north this past weekend to visit Heather's grandma, who had recently been admitted to the hospital. The doctors diagnosed her with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Basically the immune system starts attacking the nervous system and you lose nerve sensation and muscle control. It can be pretty serious if it gets to your heart and lungs, because they'll stop working, which did happen to her on Friday. Fortunately, they were able to resuscitate her. She was actually under sedation while we were there, to let her body relax and accept some of the treatment. The plan is to keep her mostly sedated until the worst is over, which the doctors say could take a few days. Hopefully after that, she'll start to get most of her feeling and muscle control back.

Her outlook is fairly good right now. She was able to squeeze hands, and move her tongue even while under the sedation medication over the weekend, and today she moved her arms. We're hoping and praying for her to pull through. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks.

Here is the other video that I said that I would try and upload. I'm not sure why these videos are orange. But in this video Noah is smiling and it melts my heart. I know you will all think he's adorable.

JIMMY IS OLD!!!

Today, our little brother Jimmy turns into a legal adult! AHHHHH!!!!
HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY, JIM!

I'm sorry

Well folks, I'm sorry that I don't check the mafia blog every couple of hours. I had no idea that people wanted me to explain anything. Unfortunately, all of yesterday I was at a friend's house and had no access to the blog at all. Oh well. This makes my life easy until the end of the game.

All I can say is: HA!! I was a townie!! WRONG PERSON

Neener...

~Jim

HELP!

I'm trying to make a seperate user name for Charlie to use on the Mafia game. I can't seem to be able to do it. Can someone please help me?

Our Cute LIttle Boy

Here is a video we shot tonight with him "talking" for you. It is almost 2 minutes, but he is soo cute. Plus he starts with a smile. Tomorrow I"ll try and upload one with him smiling even more. Enjoy!

Lexi and the math competition

The math competition was on Tuesday. They wouldn't allow parents to come to the competition portion but did allow us to come to the awards ceremony at the end. So I didn't get to see how well they did, but I got to see them not receive an award. They awarded the top 10 individuals and then the top 4 teams with plaques. Lexi nor her team won anything. Her teacher said she saw their test answers and that they were in the thick of things and actually did very well, just not well enough to win. At least they weren't in the bottom portion. I thought this was a statewide competition, but it turned out to be only the Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties. There was still quite a few teams there, though I don't know how many. Lexi said she had a good time. It was a good experience for her. Here's a picture of the kids she went with from her school.

New Job

Heather how did the first week of work go? How is Harvey liking day care?

mafia

The game has now begun. Check your emails to find out your roles, but keep it quiet. After tomorrow at midnight, check the mafia blog regularly to stay up on the action!

www.hutchinsonmafia.blogspot.com (I feel like a perpetual advertisement...)

Good News

Yesterday Eric got an email from the dean of the masters program he applied to at the school in Missouri, and they want to interview him. YAY! His interview is the 26th of this month-2 weeks from today, so we are scrambling to find the best airfare at the best times. I want to go with him, but we're not sure we can afford it. The good thing is that they make a decision at the beginning of April, so we will know pretty soon after the interview whether he made it or not. So please keep him in your prayers because if he makes it into the masters program, it's pretty much a guarantee into the medical school if you do well. We are just very happy that this one seems to be going somewhere. :)

MAFIA UPDATE

Ok, I would like to start the mafia game this week. The more the merrier, but it would be best if we had at least 10 people to play, besides myself, and this is who has said they'll play so far:

Hillary
Charlie
Kari
Eric
Jason
Heather
Mom

I am still waiting to hear from Kurt, Jim, and Dad. I will email a couple other family members today to see if they'd be interested. Also, I will need SEPARATE email addresses for every individual playing so I can communicate with you without your spouse knowing-- everything in this game needs to be very secret, except for what is said on the blog to try and figure out who is the mafia. I need Charlie and Eric's email addresses.

I will plan to start the game Thursday morning, if we can get a couple more people to join. Don't be afraid! It really doesn't take very much time to play, you just have to read the blog and comment as to who you think is mafia. If you have a role, you'll have to email me every other day to do your night role. That's it, it's simple! It really is a lot of fun.

Jana, so when do we start this mafia thing? Charlie said he'd play.

Wrong again!

Of course I voted for Kurt. It's pretty sad when you don't even recognize your own face! Merrit just saw it and said it was himself. I thought that was pretty funny.

Banana Phone

We showed our friend Michele the Harry Potter skit that was on the blog a couple of months ago and this came up with it. We all really like it, especially Harvey. Enjoy!

Hutchinson mafia, anyone?

Jason and I have loved playing online mafia via a blog with his brothers, sister, and cousin. It finished a couple weeks ago, and I think it would be fun to try and play with our family. I believe I could even get Sarah Lester and possibly some other cousins and aunts and uncles if there is enough interest. It would be a fun way to stay in touch. Let me know if y'all would like to play and I'll gladly set it up.

It's just like the regular mafia game where you sit in a circle and randomly choose who is mafia and who is the detective. The rest of the people are townspeople. Mom and Dad are probably not familiar with this game, but read on. I would be the blog moderator (at least for the first game because I know how to play it) and would randomly choose the roles from whomever is playing-- two mafia members (who conspire together to kill off townspeople one by one), a detective (who gets to find out member roles), and a doctor (who can, with a little luck, "save" the townspeople from being killed). The townspeople then try to figure out who the mafia is and vote them off. If the game ends with mafia, they win, if the townspeople figure out who the mafia is, the town wins. It's like being in a mystery novel. Mom, you'll love it!

Anyhow, that's a brief summary. All communication about the game is done on the blog using the comments. You can check out our old game at www.hairmafia.blogspot.com to get a feel for how it went. (There was one post that had over 200 comments. That is NOT normal, it usually does not take up that much time, Jason's brothers were just bored and sat on there all day.) It's a lot of fun and I think we'd all really enjoy it. You just have to be able to check the blog at least once a day to see what everyone thinks, but most of us check this blog that often anyway. We'd have to have at least 10 people, so if we got everyone (including Jim) and their spouses, that would be enough, but like I said, if we get enough interest in our family alone, I would love to invite some cousins and aunts and uncles. Let me know what you think! I was thinking of starting the game in about a week.

Brett Favre to RETIRE!

I know the whole world must be in mourning just like we are here in Wisconsin. Favre was the highlight of the whole world, even if you didn't watch football. Oh wait, let me pinch myself and come back to reality. It's really hard to do that here when ALL you hear about is Brett Favre. The people here are treating it like he's dead or something. It's really a strange world. The local ABC station did a spur-of-the-moment tribute to him lastnight during prime time TV. I mean come on, the world will move on, football world will move on, even the Packers will move on. Besides, now the Lions have a better chance of winning their division, right:)?!?!?

HAPPY ANIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!!!!

Tell Me What You Think

This is a picture of Mehmet Okur-he plays for the Jazz and used to play for the Pistons. Everytime I see him play I think of Jimmy-tell me if you think I am right...I think the resemblance is uncanny.

A Great Time!

Time Out for Women was this passed weekend. I drove down with the lady who invited me. We went Friday night and came home and then went back on Saturday morning. We figured it saved us hotel stay, but I don't know how worth it that was because we didn't get home until about 11:30 pm and then had to leave at about 6:45 am in order to get back there for the beginning. It was hard to stay awake at some points on Saturday for lack of sleep. I'd probably go for the hotel stay next time. The conference was very good. I was surprised because the one that Mom and I went to in Toledo last year really didn't stick out to me as being all that special. I don't know if the speakers were just that much better, or if I'm at a point in my life that I needed it more now than I did then, but this one was better. I'm so glad I got to go. The points that stuck out to me the most were these:
I need to make more time for just Charlie and I, even overnights, without the kids
I need to teach my kids to govern themselves more, I even bought a book that will help me with this
I need to incorporate service into our family culture
I need to slow down and treat people like they are humans - for example, not yell at someone who has just cut me off, but try to put myself in their shoes and not get so worked up about their actions or don't be so impatient with people in check-out lines at the store because I'm not really in that big of a hurry, am I?
And finally, if I feel like I'm not feeling the spirit or receiving inspiration, what am I NOT doing to keep me from feeling those things? I think this one is pretty important because it's easy to get out of the habit of reading the scriptures and saying your prayers but those things help us to stay spiritually connected.
So overall, I got a lot out of this weekend that will help me improve many aspects of my life.

We received a new bishopbric yesterday. Our previous bishop has served for almost six years. They called his 1st councelor to be the new bishop and the young men's president is the new 1st councelor and the 2nd councelor also came out of the young men's program, but I'm not sure what his old calling was. Needless to say, there will be some other major changes in the ward in the next couple of weeks, but Charlie and I feel pretty confident that we are safe in our callings. It's pretty exciting to be a part of such changes. I'm looking forward to see what comes about because of them. The new bishop is such a great guy. His wife is just outstanding. She is the one that invited me to Time Out and is one of the ones in the ward that I would actually consider my friend (which is saying a lot because I don't really feel befriended by many yet, although I am trying).

Add it to the Collection

Here are two pictures of our beautiful baby sleeping. He has just starting figuring out that he can use his fingers to calm himself down. We took them and then thought about Dad's collection of sleeping pictures and would like to add these. We just couldn't resist-he is too cute!

Jim's big day

I finally got around to scanning Jim's newspaper article and will see if I can post it and you can read it (sorry, I did everything I could and can't make it large enough to read). We finally completed the bag pick up yesterday. We dropped off the bags a week ago, approximately 1200 bags and picked them up yesterday, as mentioned and had maybe a 10% response to the bags; the living room looks like a mini-store, with all the merchandise stacked around in boxes etc. Jim is in the process of estimating the value of what we gathered; he is already over $1000 and still has more to estimate. All in all, the Active Faith director should be very pleased with what she will receive as will all those in the South Lyon area who are in need who will benefit from this effort. Now we just need to get him through all the paper work (which is a bunch) and scout reviews that go along with receiving an Eagle Scout award and then we may have a nice party to celebrate. It just occurred to me that we might be able to schedule the Court of Honor about the time he graduates from High School and we may be able to arrange things to get most of you back here for both big events; we'll wait and see how it works out. Love to all.

Change of Plans

The company I took the job with requires a physical but they didn't let me know that until Wednesday of last week. So I had my physical first thing Thursday morning but the lab is backed up so they won't get results until Wednesday of last week. Long story short, I'm starting work on the 10th rather than the 3rd. Not a huge deal except that we already have daycare lined up for Harvey and all the little kids there are super excited about him coming. He's going to go for half days this first week which will give me a chance to give the house a really good cleaning before I go back to work. That's the excitement here.

adelyn bo badelyn...

Yesterday Addie was being particularly cute. We got a ton of great pictures, and I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you. Oh yeah, on our Hair Blog we uploaded a cute video of her talking if you want to check it out. She started attacking the camera and it's pretty funny (well, at least it is to her doting parents).