project #2

Here's that cabinet inside and being loved.

 Yesterday we started our second furniture project: refinishing the top of our kitchen table.

 The plan was to sand it and paint it the same green that's inside the TV cabinet, but after we sanded it, I had another idea.  We had just watched a show on HGTV were they were making a table and they burned the top...so that's just what we did.

 This is right after we finished burning.

And this is right after we finished the last coat of poly last night.  We will bring it in tonight after the kids go to bed.  We love the way it turned out.

Kids' schedules

So for those of you who are in the area and would like to attend, here are the activities Lexi and Merrit have going on through the end of the year. I will try to post the elementary concerts as I get more info for them. Lexi's Choir Schedule Messiah Concert - Dec. 7 at Central Nazarene Church (I'll have to get the address later) at 7 p.m. Holiday Concert - Dec. 13 at the high school auditorium at 8 p.m. Holiday Collage Concert - Dec. 19 or 20 at the high school auditorium at 6 and 8 p.m. each night. You have to purchase tickets for these concerts so you need to let me know in advance if you would like to go and when so I can get the tickets for you. These concerts are really great. I would highly recommend going. Merrit's Cross Country Schedule 9/11 at Carmen-Ainsworth middle school at 4:15 pm 9/15 at Springfiled Oaks Golf Course (12450 Andersonville Rd. in Davisburg) at 8 am 9/18 at HOME at 4:15 pm 9/22 at Linden Community Schools Complex at 8:50 am 9/25 at Grand Blanc East middle school at 4:15 pm 9/28 at EA Cummings Center in Mt. Morris (where the county fair is held) at 4 pm 10/2 at Davison Regional Park at 4:15 pm 10/9 at HOME at 4:30 pm 10/13 at Huron Meadows Metropark (8765 Hammel Rd. in Brighton) at 11 am 10/16 at Silver Lake Park in Fenton at 4:15 pm The kids would love to see you come. Hope you can.

Fun in Philly

It's 4:30am and I can't sleep...again.  This pregnancy hasn't been hard physically, but the sleeping situation has been grim.  So...a post instead!

We decided we needed a family vacation several weeks ago, but for various reasons couldn't pin down exactly where to go (Richmond? Baltimore? Philadelphia? The beach?) or what to do (Aquarium? Children's Museum? Sesame Place? Camp?), until right before we left.  Literally.  Like the night before.  So, what happened was an ill-planned, though rather enjoyable, little trip to Philadelphia, PA. 

**PICTURE ALERT!  LOTS OF PICTURES TO FOLLOW!**

We started out early Saturday morning, and found Macie in the backseat looking like THIS.  What fun!

#1. Please Touch Children's Museum

Started our adventure at the Please Touch Children's Museum.  Pretty cool museum, although Jason and I agreed COSI still beat it.

Carson is OBSESSED with cars.  He found every single one in the entire building.  Even this itty-bitty, out-of-the-way, toy car on display.  

 My, what a handsome grocer they have in this store!

To scale replica of Statue of Liberty torch made completely of old toys!  Cool!

#2. Liberty Bell and Independence Hall

After church on Sunday, we ventured out to downtown Philly to see Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  Well, we didn't see much.  We DID see this guy, said his name was John, and that he was 50 years old in 1793. 

 Since it was Sunday, we only wanted to do free things.  Well, it started to rain and the line into Liberty Bell wound all the way outside and around the building, but Jason caught a glimpse through a window, and now you've seen it, too!

 Independence Hall is where The Declaration of Independence was signed.  Again, long lines to go inside.  So, here are outside, across the street, in a drizzling rain.

 

We did get to go into Old City Hall, where the first Supreme Court met.  That was pretty neat, but we didn't take any pictures.  Oh well. Haha.

#3. Surprise Fireworks

There was a park next to our hotel that night, and we had a great view of some surprise Labor Day fireworks! 

#4. The Crayola Experience in Easton, PA

Color-on Eraseable Car...Carson's favorite!

It was really just a fun place for Crayola to push all their products.  Didn't work on us, we didn't buy anything!  This room was awesome, though.  The Drawing in the Dark room.  The girls loved it.  Addie drew that cat.

Trying to keep Carson distracted with my phone, it had been a long day for him, and there wasn't much he could do there. 

Macie making wax art in the melted crayon room. 

 Our family in front of the largest crayon in the world!  Called Big Blue, it is 15 feet long, and weighs 1500 pounds!



 #5. Dairy Queen!

The girls asked to bring their piggy banks along so they could buy something on our trip.  Well, everywhere we went, everything was too expensive, so we decided to stop at Dairy Queen on the way home so they could buy ice cream--with sprinkles, of course!  They were so excited to hand their change to the ice cream lady!

All in all, a very successful short road trip.  It was SO NICE to get out of our basement for a few days, spend some time together as a family, swim in the hotel pools, eat junk, and have fun doing new things.  Yay!

the cabinet

 Before we moved we sold our tv stand for a few reasons-we didn't like it, we didn't want to move it, and I wanted a furniture project.  My friend Melissa (Allen) Franson has her own furniture refinishing and building business that is small but she makes pretty good money and I was hoping to follow in her footsteps in a couple of years when the kids are older and we are making some money.  Anyway, I looked and looked on craigslist for days and found a gem.  

The guy that posted this said that his great grandfather built this for his great grandmother as a jelly cupboard.   I love the way it looks, it is a perfect height and I love the history.

 Three weeks ago we started taking her apart (yes she has become like a family member ;) for a date night.  We thought it would be a rather easy process, but it turned out to be a nightmare.

In stripping the paint we found a green layer of paint that was like elastic sludge...it was horrible and super hard to remove. But underneath on the side and on the inside of one of the doors we found writing that suggests that this was made out of an old crate-just whatever the guy had on hand.  This says Wet Penna-we know that Penna can be an abbreviation for Pennsylvania, but can't find anything for the wet part.  And the inside of the door says Bank Bros Allentown, PA...we think it's an old grocery store, I found vague references to it online but nothing concrete.

We both worker really hard....

And after stripping, sanding, 2 coats of poly, and 2 coats of green paint inside, we rehung the doors and put the hardware on last night.

 I just love love love how it turned out.  The poly has to cure for 72 before use so we can't bring it back inside until tomorrow night and I am just itching to get it in here (and get our garage back) so I can use it and look at it all day.

I have definitely caught the furniture refinishing bug...it was so fun to turn this piece into exactly what I wanted.  Up next: our kitchen table.  Can't wait!

More Walter Pictures

Here are more pictures of Walter doing what he does best - sleep!

 This picture shows the white hair all over his body.

I hope all of you who haven't seen him yet have gotten some idea of what he looks like!

Walter pics

At long last, here are some pictures of Walter. I'm sure some of you have seen some of the pictures that have gone up on Facebook. I think Heather put up at least one, and her mom put up a bunch. But these! These are the definitive pictures from our camera. Starting from 15 minutes after birth up to about an hour ago! Can't get more up to date than that. In fact, as I type this, he's still lying in the same position as the last photo. Without further ado, here he is, Walter Murphy Hutchinson.

Walter

Here are a couple of pictures of Walter.  I think he looks like his brother.  He's adorable, don't you think, or am I just partial?

Pictures Coming Tomorrow

For the non-facebook crowd, wanted to make sure everyone new we are going in to the hospital tonight and I'll be induced first thing in the morning.  Pictures of our new little guy will be sent asap.  We'd love to see anyone who wants to come to the hospital.  They do have a strict visitor policy so give us a call if you're coming and we'll arrange a visitor pass hand off. 

Large Animal Auction...

The kids sold their goats at the large animal auction for the first time today. They usually sell in the small animal auction and we've been trying to get them moved for the last couple years. This year the goat committee voted and put us in the large animal auction. We are so glad! Last year, the best price our goats got was $1.75 per pound. This year Lexi got $3.00 per pound, Merrit got $2.75 per pound and Makayla got $4.00 per pound. We are so happy!

Update

For those of you who don't know yet, Charlie didn't get the job in Wisconsin. Oh well. Moving on...

Blahhh...

We've been getting ready for the Genesee County Fair all week (well really over the whole summer so we wouldn't have to cram at the last minute, but here we are still cramming). I think we are almost finished with our preparations. We are actually going to camp at the fair grounds this year (1st time) and that means that I have to get the camper ready and figure out a menu and food for the fair too (something I haven't had to do before). Plus, of course, our regular lives don't pause for us to be able to do everything we need to for fair either. It's been a "fun" week. Can't wait until it's over. We've had some fun weather the past two days too, to top it off. It's been rainy and in the 60s. Not what we've been used to this summer, but I'm not complaining. I actually like the rain and cooler weather. I also have an update, sort of, about Charlie's job search. He put in an application for an assistant principal job at the same school in Wisconsin that he taught at 4 years ago. He told me he did it only half thinking that they might call him back. Well they did call him back and he has an interview there on the 13th (of course it's the day our kids show their goats at the fair too). We've been doing a lot of praying and talking about our options in the future and here is kind of what we've been thinking... If Charlie is offered the job and we decide to accept it (we are pretty sure we will accept if it's offered, but not 100% yet), then he will move to Wisconsin and I will stay here with the kids for this school year. We don't think we could sell the house that quickly, and there are several things we need to finish in the house before we feel like it would sell well anyway. We think we could probably get those things finished within a year. Charlie would probably only be able to come home once a month so we'd be skyping a lot (which sucks!). We've thrown around the idea of buying him a small fixer-upper to live and work on and then sell at the end of the year. That way we could potentially have a little more money to put down on a new house and we would have a place to stay with him if we were able to go visit him. We think this might be cheaper than renting an apartment, but haven't really done any serious looking into it yet. We think he could also rent a room from a member of the church there. We still have several friends in that area from when we lived there before. In fact, Charlie is staying the night at the bishop's house the night before his interview. So that's another cheap option for his living accommodations. I only have 10 classes left before I finish my degree. We think it's the best thing for me to just get finished so I don't have to transfer anywhere if we have to move. So this fall I will be taking 5 classes a semester so I can finish and graduate in the spring. I'm a little freaked out since I've been only taking 2 classes at a time, but I think I can handle it. I just might not get the grades I like to get. I will be doing this even if Charlie is in Wisconsin or not, so it's going to be ten times harder without his help. If he doesn't get the job, he'll just remain teaching at Beecher (which he's really ready to be done with) and we will still fix up the house, just in case we need to move next year for an administration job. The kids are glad that we won't have to move quite yet, especially Alexis. They really want to stay in their schools. I don't blame them. I know it's hard to start over at a new school. I think they may not feel so happy to be staying once we've been away from Charlie for a long time (if that becomes the case). So here we are, living in limbo again. Waiting to see how things will play out. I kind of wish I had a better idea of what was going to happen. Oh well.

a non-update

Our mangled trampoline straddling the goat fence.  A tragedy.

So, our non-update:

We were buying a house.  A short sale.  A bad idea.  After five months, two appraisals, two different lenders, a daft seller's agent, and oogles and oogles of worry and heartache, we've decided to drop it. We found out a week ago that another lien on the house showed up (after all this time!) and we couldn't take it anymore.  Boo.

We put an offer on another great house about two weeks ago, but lost the bid.  It was a foreclosure and there were three other offers.  I'm still sad about it.

So, here we are, still waaaaaay out in the country without any prospects.  We're enrolling Addie in kindergarten (kindergarten!!! I can hardly believe it!!!) and will continue to look at houses on a more relaxed schedule.  We decided yesterday to rent closer to town, but decided against it today.  Who knows what we'll think tonight. 

Jason has left the decision, more or less, up to me. 

Right after an entire day of errand-running in town with three kids, two of whom have missed their naps, in 90 degree HUMID weather, and still with a 45 minute trek home, I'm apt to say LET'S MOVE CLOSER!  But on the mornings that are relaxed (like today), and I realize our rent here is cheap (no utilities either!) and Macie will be in preschool two mornings each week (so I'll only have one kid to take around town to do errands), I am apt to say LET'S STAY HERE UNTIL WE FIND SOMETHING PERMANENT. 

Who knows what we'll do???

And now, some pictures, since we have long been absent from the blog-

Norah (5) and Amira (7), Jami's two girls.  She now has a little baby boy, Naim, who was born about 2 weeks ago.  This is when Addie had the stomach flu while we were in Utah, thus her awesome face.

Jami is hiding her big prego belly

Jason and Jami's husband, Mohamed.  I swear he looks exactly the same as he did when we met him nearly 9 years ago.  I don't think he ages.

All of our kids LOVELOVE corn on the cob, they can't get enough!

Outside Addie, the only Addie we have

Best Friends in fancy clothes

Men watching the Olympics

A rare picture with me in it!  Taken by Addie

This boy of ours is OBSESSED with the recycling.  He takes the cereal boxes and milk jugs everywhere.  It is hilarious.

Holiday Plans

I'm stuck on bedrest now, so please forgive me jumping the gun here a little bit but all I have is time on my hands.  I thought it would be a good time to start the Thanksgiving/Christmas conversation.  Kari and Jana - since you're the out of towners, what are you guys brewing up for the holidays?  The Hairs are going to be in Utah for Christmas, right?  Its cool that Jason's brother is returning near a major holiday, make it a fun double celebration.  What about the Peterson's?  Any plans yet?  Would everyone be able to make it if we celebrated Christmas at Thanksgiving again?

Whatever get together plans we decide on, what year is it for the presents?  Are kids giving to kids or is it a family present year?  I think we did family presents last year but I'm not sure.

Quick update from here - no baby yet, obviously.  I'm having more frequent and intense contractions but I haven't actually moved into labor yet.  I'm now on to full bed rest since it is the only way to keep the contractions down.  Give me a call to chat anytime.  I'm either here or at the Dr.'s office.

My Recommendation

We just read a book for book club that I'm sure you all would like.  It's called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.  Give it a try.