our cute kids

Addie on her first day of preschool. She LOVES her preschool (and so do I!). It is a cooperative school, which means it is driven by parents serving on committees and being very very involved in the classroom. We are meeting a lot of great families. Jason is actually going to be visiting in a few weeks to talk to the kids about their eyes. It's a good way to get his name out there, and we like being so involved. In true Addie fashion, though, when I ask her what she did that day she usually just tells me what they had for snack time...she loves food!

Here is Macie, playing Mom, acting all grown up. We started potty-training her about a week ago and she's doing pretty well. She is great at going #1, but still hasn't gone #2 on the potty. Oh well, we'll keep going. She's been fairly enthusiastic about it so far. On Labor Day we had her hair cut into a little bob, and her verbal skills have exploded over the last month or so. She's getting so grown up!

And Carson, our smiley little guy. He's happy as long as I'm nearby. He LOVES anything with wheels--cars, the rolling telephone, and especially our doll strollers. He spends a lot of time spinning and spinning and spinning the wheels, or pushing the toys around the floor infront of him. Still not crawling or even getting himself up into a sitting position, but hopefully soon. He has a doctor appointment in a week to track his weight gain. He's even smaller than Macie was, not on the charts, and actually declining on his own curve (and that is the real concern). I'm trying to beef him up with (what else?!?) lots of cream cheese! Mmmmm...

Can't wait to see you all. Sorry I've been MIA lately from this blog and our family blog. I'll try to be better about posting.

Fall

Marilyn Crofts, Betsy Bennett and I went to the Dexter Cider Mill on Wednesday. Kurt you could go on your lunch hour!
On Friday Dad and I went on our over night trip up North. It rained on Friday practically all the way the up, but we still saw some pretty colors.
I know you all heard me talk about seeing the Effiel Tower in Paris, MI, and here it is.
This is a big trout fountain in front of the historical museum in Kalkaska, MI.

This is a tiny church and the world's largest pie pan just south of Charlevoix, MI.
The clock tower on Little Traverse Bay at Petoskey, MI. We had dinner with Heather's parents at a bar where Ernest Hemmingway used to go. We went to several cider mills along the way and got to see a lot of the state that we've never seen before. Saturday was a beautiful sunny day, which made up for the rain the day before. We had a great time.

not a joke

something cool

http://visionsource-fredericksburg.eyehub.com/index.cfm?content.display&pageID=107

Thought it'd be fun to share. He's legit, y'all!! :)

Last Weekend

We went to Frankenmuth to do some Christmas decorating shopping and ate lunch here.
This is Joy after her bridal shower. So many people give the presents in bags now days that the bow bouquet isn't what it used to be.
Lucy looks thrilled about the adventure of apple picking.
Everyone else seems to be excited though.

We are all on the wagon ready to go. I'm sorry if you can't see someone's face, I tried to get you all, but I didn't succeed.
A little ingenuity on Charlie's part.
Not to be out done, Kurt invented his own head covering. Thanks to everyone for coming and making our time together so fun. I'm glad everyone got home safely. See you again in a couple of months.

Christams List

Just for a reminder who we are buying for for Christmas. Remember, it's just a whole family gift. Don't buy individual gifts for each person in the family and try to keep the cost low. I don't remember if we ever set a price before or not. If someone knows, please pass the info along. Thanks!

Hicks family buying for Petersons
K. Hutchinson family buying for Hicks
Hair family buying for J. Hutchinsons
Peterson family buying for K. Hutchinsons
J. Hutchinson family buying for Hairs

There was some talk last weekend about having Christmas during Thanksgiving when we will all be together. What are everyone's thoughts about this? Kari would also like to have a white elephant exchange. What are everyone's thoughts about this too? See y'all soon! Yeah!

Crochet and capes

Like we do every Labor Day, we went up to Prudenville to stay at Heather's family's cabin there. We spent the weekend mostly just hanging out. The high school hosts a big craft fair that weekend, so we walked around there, seeing mostly the same booths that we see every year. We bought a dog squeaker toy that the seller assured us his own boxer had been chewing on for over a year without getting the squeaker out. Dublin got the squeaker out in less than a week. As Heather remarked, "Either that guy was lying, or his dog has rubber teeth."

 Several years ago, Heather's aunts decided that we should do a group craft every year. And the planning for that has always fallen to Heather. Until this year, it's been some kind of beading craft. However, that's meant that a lot of the time "crafting" is Heather walking around helping people get it just right. This year, Heather took a page from Kari's craft book and we did the freezer paper screen printing. It was a huge hit! Heather did some really cool designs on a couple canvas bags. Others did sweatshirts, scarves, and pillow cases. And since it's so easy, Heather just did a small demonstration and then let everyone loose.

I spent the time making these little crochet guys from this book I bought, Creepy Cute Crochet. They're pretty easy to make, and I can do them in the car or while sitting around chatting. Thanks to Mom for helping me get started with the crochet.

There's also a couple pictures of Harvey in this sweet outfit he picked out the other day. From top to bottom: cape (made by Michele for the attendants of Simon's fourth birthday party), red pteranodon shirt, blue running shorts, and camo galoshes. As you can see, he can run pretty fast in that getup.

(Remember you can see bigger version of the pictures by clicking that little four-arrow icon in the lower right hand corner of the slideshow.)

Steer go bye-bye

Picked up the steer tonight. Now with any luck there won't be too much of a problem getting him to the butcher tomorrow. Unfortunately, we are sharing the same horse trailer with someone else tomorrow and they have to pick up horses at 9:30 a.m. I have no time to get the steer to the butcher and back in time before that so he's going to have to go back off the trailer and sit at the horse person's house until they get back with the horses. Then we'll have to get him back on the trailer so I can take him to the butcher. Getting him of won't be the problem, it's getting him back on that I think might be. I hope this isn't as much of an adventure as I'm scared it will be. Wish us luck.

Joke

Saw this joke on facebook and thought it was worthy to share.

A guy took his girlfriend to her very first football game. After the game, he asked her how she liked it.
"Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and the BIG muscles, but I don't get why they were killing each other over 25 cents."
Dumbfounded, her date asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was: 'Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!' I'm like, hello? It's only 25 cents!

Charlie update

Charlie went to the orthopedic surgeon yesterday. There is no need for surgery and he didn't even get a cast. They gave him a different splint and told him to be careful with his hand. He goes back in a couple weeks to see how it is healing. Hopefully it will heal quick and correctly.

Now he has a major cold and had to take the day off work today because of it. He took yesterday off for his appointment. So since the first of the year, he has only taught one day and missed two. I hope this isn't an indication of how the rest of the year will go. He doesn't have that many sick days he can take.

Merrit and Alexis's concerts for the year

I always seem to forget to tell Mom and Dad about the kids' concerts in time for them to plan on coming, so I thought if I wrote them on the blog that they would be here in plenty of time for planning purposes. Merrit is continuing with band and Lexi is in the choir and the following are their dates for concerts through to the end of the year. Then, hopefully, I'll remember to write the rest of them at the first of the year.
Middle School Band concert: Nov. 15 @ 7 p.m. at the high school auditorium
Dec. 13 @ 7 p.m. at the high school auditorium

Holiday choir concert: Dec. 15 @ 8 p.m. at the high school auditorium
Holiday Collage concert: Dec. 20, 21 @ 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Dec. 22 @ 8:30 p.m. and 9:20 p.m.

Alexis and robotics club

Alexis wants to join the robotics club at school. She will be competing in competitions in the spring and preparing for those competitions throughout the year leading up to them. She seems pretty excited about it. She may even try her hand at the drama club later in the year, if she can fit it in. I don't have any dates for her yet except their kick off event which just happens to fall on the same day as our apple picking event. She is debating where she is going to go that day. There is a parent meeting next week where I'm sure I'll be getting more information. Yeah for after school activities.

Merrit and Cross Country

Merrit wants to wrestle this year. When we went to talk to the coach about it, the coach suggested that Merrit run cross country in the fall to get him into better shape for wrestling in the winter. So Merrit decided to do that. This week has been his first and it has gone pretty well so far. He isn't the fastest, but he isn't the slowest. I thought I'd write his schedule down for any one who might want to come watch him run in a meet. Most of his meets are during the week so I know it might be hard for you to come, but he'd love for anyone to come even if it's just once.
09/13 @ home @ 4:45 p.m.
09/20 @ Clio @ 4:45 p.m.
09/24 (Sat.) @ Linden TBA
09/27 @ home @ 4:45 p.m.
10/04 @ Linden TBA
10/11 @ Lapeer @ 5 p.m.
10/13 @ Davison @ 4:45 p.m.
10/18 @ Grand Blanc W @ 4:45 p.m.
10/22 (Sat.) @ Kearsley TBA

If you do want to come and need directions, just let me know. We are looking forward to seeing how well he does.

Apple Cider Donut Time!

What are the plans for the Peterson's visit next week?  Do you think they have this kind of apple at Erwin's?

What We Did On Labor Day

Dad has always wanted to go to a Toledo Mud Hen's game, so we went to their last game of this season today. Here is a little boy with a hot dog hat on.
These are their two mascots dancing between innings.
Here are some of the players warming up.
This is one of the two score boards, just prove that we were there. What did the rest of you do for Labor Day, if you took pictures - posts them.

Our news

Yesterday we went to fix the pen we have our steer in at Charlie's, sister's house in Fowlerville. He has been getting out and is rather mean sometimes when Kim has tried to corral him back into the pen. So we are going to slaughter him soon to get him off her hands. We decided that making him a smaller pen with reinforced fence posts will help him stay fenced until we can get him to the butcher in two weeks. So we went to make the pen lastnight and while we were there the steer started to get a little pushy with Charlie. Charlie smacked him a couple of times but he wouldn't leave him alone, so Charlie decided to punch him in the face. Unfortunately, he caught him right on the eye socket bone and hurt his hand. We went to the urgent care today to get it checked out and, surprise, it is broken. So now Charlie has to see an orthopedic surgeon to see if it needs surgery. What great timing considering school starts on Tuesday and it just happens to be his right hand. He isn't going to have very much fun for the next couple of weeks. It hurts, but we both think it's pretty funny!



It's not casted, just splinted right now, but if he needs surgery, I'm sure he'll have to get a cast.

Chelsea's baptism quilt

Here are the quilt pictures. Thanks, Mom for helping me finish it (and all the rest).

Trek 2011

These pictures go in order from the first day (you can tell these pictures because the kids are still clean and smiling) to the last day. The last two pictures are of Charlie's beard right before we cut it after we got home from Trek.
The first afternoon it rained really bad until about 9 p.m. That made for setting up camp real fun.
The second day was dry, but cool. We did the ravine that morning. Unfortunately I was too involved with the pull that I didn't get any pictures of our ravine pull. We did the women pull that afternoon. The only picture with me in it was me and our "daughters" after the women's pull. We had a good stretch of mud to pull through. That was lots of fun. Our girls were so pumped that they ran the cart up a tree.
The third day we only pulled a little. We had some pioneer games and square dancing that day. It was a lot more laid back which was nice. Then we had to take our cart apart and go home. The last picture is of our family flag. The two pictures just before that are of our kids from the ward asleep in our van on the way home. Everyone was pretty tired.

Summer catch up

Our family went with Les and Kristi and their family to this hands on museum in Toledo. It is the same place the Cosi was, but it's under a new name now. It was lots of fun. It might be our second most favorite hands on museum.

Here are some pictures from Chelsea's baptism and birthday party. I think I have one of her quilt, but I have to find it. I'll post it when I do.

Here are the pictures of the kids with their goats during the goat show. They all did very well during the show.

These pictures are of Makayla participating in the super showmanship competition. She won the junior goat showmanship class on Monday and the super showmanship competition took place on Friday. It's a competition that she competed against the winners from pigs, steers, dairy, and sheep. In this competition she had to show all five animals. She did really well. She scored a 19 out of 25. She tied for last, but she was also the youngest kid to compete. We were pretty happy with how well she did.


Some other things we did but don't have pictures from are that Lexi went to EFY. She had lots of fun and can't wait to go again. Charlie, Lexi and I went on a pioneer trek for youth conference at the end of June. I posted pictures on facebook, but I will post some on the blog for those of you not on facebook. It's been a fairly busy summer, but lots of fun.

Teeth! This picture was taken over a week ago, and now Carson has FOUR teeth on top, not just the two shown here. I love his toothy grin.

Sunday afternoon naps. The funny part is that Jason took some of me and I took some of him the same afternoon, without either of us having any clue. In fact, I didn't even know these ugly pictures of me were even taken until I came on here to post. What a cozy afternoon. And oh yeah, we are still lovin 'da couch.

ethnic enrichment festival

First off, Noah started preschool last week- he LOVES it.

On Saturday we drove the 3 hours to Kansas City to partake in the 32nd Ethnic Enrichment Festival.  

According to the news there were over 60 countries represented.

Every country had food to sell whether it was something you could eat for lunch or just a dessert and most of them had trinkets you could buy.  Here is Eric buying Noah one of those jumbo hot dogs.

We had something a little more grown up-Jamaican jerk pork...delicious!

We also shared turkey dumplings from the Nepal booth-sorry no picture-and it was to die for.

 (she's reading about the festival)

The kids were FREE!  And there was a kids tent where Noah made this totally awesome newspaper hat.  Too bad it was raining...the hat didn't last long.

We ended the festival with Krinkle from Norway-it's a danish and we got one with strawberry and one with raspberry filling...so yummy.  Lucy got so tired and it was raining or we would've stayed longer.  There were dancers we never got to see and we didn't look at the trinkets at any booth.  We wish we had known about this before and could have partook earlier-it was so cool.

Recent Photos

This is the Detroit Temple.
This is early morning fog by Curves at 11 Mile and Pontiac Trail. Sorry about the double one.

Some of the historic baseball players at Greenfield Village.
Over the weekend there was a War of 1812 muster at Greenfield Village, these men were marching by in their wool uniforms on a hot and humid day.

I made peach jam from some peaches I got at the farmer's market. Isn't it pretty?

Chelsea's Baptism

Here are some pictures from Chelsea's baptism and party.

Hillary made this giraffe cake, which is her favorite animal.
Here the kids are lining up to play a game. Hillary, will you post a picture of Chelsea in the white dress and one of her with her quilt? I'd like to see those.

Pictures from July!

Sorry, I'm working on a slight delay. :)

Here are some things we did in July.

Heather made some beaded flowers for her friend Alison's wedding, and Harvey modeled them.


We went up north for the July 4th weekend. We're all snazzed up to go to a wedding. Then we did some relaxing on the links. And finally, Harvey begrudgingly drove a tiny car in a parade.


They hosted the Maker Faire at "The Henry Ford" again this year, and Heather and I attended. It's full of do-it-yourself attitude, presentations, ideas, and fun mayhem. Heather learned applique!


Last but not least, we picked the first home-grown watermelon from our garden. As you can see from the second picture, it wasn't quite ready. (Yes, it's completely white in the center. And it had no flavor.)


Now that I've finally got our new picture backup server running, it should be easier to post pictures. So hopefully you'll get to see more of them! Yay.