Miss America 2011

Kristi had a Miss America party on Saturday while the Miss America Pageant was on. It was really fun. We had to choose a state to represent and then come in a costume that represents that state, in formal wear or in a swim suit. Then once at the party, you couldn't eat anything until your state was eliminated from the competition. I chose Wisconsin because I thought Michigan would be highly sought after. I wanted to make a cheese hat and put together a costume, but I ran out of time. I just happen to have a bunch of formal wear dresses that I've kept for the young women for when they want to have a fashion show. One of them fits me, so I wore that. I tried to do my hair. I didn't have as much time as I would've liked so I don't like the way it turned out. Hannah told me it looked like a mullet and Charlie agreed, but all the girls at the party voted me as having the best hair. I was pretty excited. Hannah went as Miss Louisiana and dressed up for Mardi Grauw (sp) and Kristi was Miss New York. My favorite costume was Miss Kentucky. She wore a formal dress, but stuffed her stomach to look pregnant and told everyone that she was pregnant by her brother. She drew tatoos on her arms and the one arm had the name of a boy crossed off with another name of a boy underneath crossed off, etc. with several names written. She made her sash out of toilet paper that she held together with electric tape. It was pretty funny. I had fun and was glad to be invited. The lady from the party who went the farthest was Miss Hawaii. She got third overall in the pageant. She received a tiara and rose and did the walk.

An idea for the summer

I had an idea this morning and I thought I will run it by all of you. How about we hold our own William Hutchinson reunion this summer and go camping somewhere in Michigan. It would only be for 2 or 3 days and I think it would be fun for the kids to run around and get dirty together. I know Heather will be very pregnant by then, but that can be worked around. Dad doesn't want to camp, but I can work on him. With Jana moving and Eric in school it might be hard to find the time to do it, but if it doesn't work out, then it doesn't. Anyway, what do you all think?

Some baby news

We went to the doctor today to see if there's anything Heather can do to help with the bad headaches she's been getting every day. At the end of the appointment, the doctor said, "Let's listen to the baby's heartbeat." We got to hear it at our last appointment on the 7th, so we were excited to hear it again. But the doctor couldn't find it, after moving the Doppler microphone around for a minute or so. I was getting a little anxious, so I knew Heather was feeling ten times worse.

The doctor told us not to worry and went and got an ultrasound machine. Not only did we get to see the heart beating, the baby was kicking around! It was such a blessing to see. Harvey was in the room with us, and we told him for the first time that "Mommy has a baby in her tummy." He said, "And I'm going to be the brother!" He was excited and so cute.

Just wanted to share a bit of our joy.

My challenge

When Jana asked me to run a half marathon with her I laughed at her, at first, but have since decided that I will do it. I hate running, so this will be a challenge for me. I've been looking for the motivation to get back on the weight loss band wagon and I think this might be what I need. I've been training for 2 weeks now, but I don't know if you can count what I did in the first week. It wasn't much different than what I had been doing before. But this week, I've gotten more serious about things and have rode the exercise bike twice going about 14.5 miles/hour both days. I'm pretty proud of that. I hope to keep adding mileage at I go and hope to start running at some point. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it. Thanks, Jana, for the invite. This is going to be quite an adventure.

Something funny, a girl from church told me I should run in the Crim (which is a marathon that Flint hosts). I told her I couldn't because we needed to run in a race in June and the Crim is in August. My sister-in-law, Hannah, replied that I could do the race in June and then do the Crim too. I replied no way was that going to happen because once I run the first race I am never doing it again! So you could say this is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me.

hanging in there

Things here are going well...we are surviving.  Lucy doesn't sleep more than 3 hours or so at a time so we are pretty much wasted all the time-my goal is to have decent looking hair everyday and Eric's is to not fall asleep in class.  This quarter is going to be a bear for him and he is already starting to feel the strain, we are just praying these next 2 months go quickly.  I had my 6 week appt. yesterday and got a clean bill of health and found out I'm 2 lbs under my pre-pregnancy weight-that was nice.  We aren't doing any special diet, just trying to make a shift in our lifestyle to healthier foods, smaller portions and just more conscience of what we eat...I guess it's doing something.

 Lucy is still sick with a cold that seems to last forever, but we feel like slowly but surely it is starting to dwindle.  She eats like it's going out of style and weighs 11 lbs now.  She doesn't seem to be the mellow baby I was hoping for, she is quite a diva-making sure you know she's there and needing your full attention if she's awake.  My mistake though, her name is the same as the Charlie Brown character-like on her shirt-who is very bossy.  I'm kind of glad she's feisty, she's going to need to hold her own against her big brother. 

Noah is almost three and he has the attitude to match...the twos were fine, but it seems like the threes are going to be stressful.  He is still really amazing with his sister and doesn't seem bothered by her presence.  He likes to lie down by her when we do tummy time or tell her everything is fine when she is crying.  We started potty training him the week after Christmas and we are half way there.  He will only poo in a diaper, but if he doesn't start doing that in the toilet by his birthday in 2 weeks, the diaper won't be an option anymore...I'm hoping by the middle of February we'll be all set.  He just seems so much older in underwear-I just can't believe how quickly it all has gone.

So fat so good, I guess.  I feel like we are in a good rhythm, even if we are dead tired, and are looking forward to when we can play outside again.  We hope all of your new years started off to a good start, and wanted to say again how wonderful it was to see everyone at Christmas.

Doing Well

We went to the doctor this morning and got to hear the baby's heartbeat. I am 11 weeks 5 days. We'll probably go back in a week or two for a double check since I lost the last baby at 11 weeks. So, there is still some hesitancy on my part but we seem to be out of the woods. I'm sure that the only way my anxiety will truly go away is to have this little one in my arms. We haven't told Harvey yet and I'm not sure when we will. I'm sure he'll be excited, though.

New Picture?

idea!!

Let's do a family half-marathon!

Ok, ok, this may sound crazy, but hear me out! I've been wanting to do a half-marathon for a long time. I was training for it when I got pregnant with Macie and, because of what they thought was a blood clot, I was told to stop running. Well, NOW IS THE TIME. Jason graduates May 20th and Hillary said school for Charlie is out June 18th. I've been looking and there are a few races in the spring and summer. That leaves us plenty of time to train. I thought it would be awesome to do it as a family! Some of them offer marathons, half-marathons, 10Ks (approx 6 miles) and 5Ks (3.1 miles). Some of them also allow walking. You could do any of the races offered for the race we choose, but it would be so cool if we all did it together!

What do you think? Before I put more effort into this, let me know if any of you are interested. I think this would be such an amazing thing to do together!

And Hillary, what is your address? It's not listed on the sheet I have.

Hicks Children Christmas Programs 2010

We have been fortunate to attend two different Christmas programs, which involved three of Hillary's children -- Merrit, Makayla, and Chelsea. Merrit played the trumpet and Makayla played the viola in their school's Christmas concert. Chelsea had one of the speaking parts in her school's Christmas play and also sang, with actions, all of the songs. I have uploaded all of the pictures from those events into snapfish and here is the link.

ttp://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2926623025/a=1521596025_1521596025/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

One thing you might wonder, why are some of the pictures somewhat bizarre? I let Chelsea, Makayla, and Jaxson take some of the pictures at the Christmas concert. Chelsea's and Makayla's pictures turned out pretty good but Jaxson was more into the abstract variety of pictures. I think they all enjoyed exploring that aspect of their talents.

Needless to say, both events were very enjoyable and it is nice to see Hillary's children sharing their musical talents with others.

Family Pictures -- Christmas 2010

I have finally had time to upload the family pictures onto snapfish and will post the link in this blog. We sure had a nice time with all of you here over the last few days. Since we seem to experience our share of illnesses at Christmas time (maybe because of the winter, etc.), maybe we ought to plan these types of gatherings in the late (or early summer) when school will not interfere (just a thought).

http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2915840025/a=1521596025_1521596025/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

We hope that you all will have a most enjoyable Christmas and a very pleasant New Year.

We love you all so much.

P.S. Kari -- Will you please send this link to the Petersons? Thanks.

Chelsea's play

Chelsea did really well tonight in her play. She said her part well and sung all the songs well. We are so proud of her. She a fun kid. Thanks Mom and Dad for coming to support her.

Dad, could you post the pictures you took of Makayla and Merrit at their band concert?

This is Makayla and Merrit in one of the parts of the program that we had for our ward Christmas dinner. This part was about the symbols of Christmas and Makayla was the candle and Merrit was the evergreen tree. Makayla also played a caroler in a small play and Alexis and I had parts in the 12 Days of Christmas song. Lexi was the three french hens and I was the eight maids a milking. The dinner turned out great and everyone did pretty well with their parts. I think it was a good mixture of fun and spiritual.

Another snow day!

Yeah! We have another snow day today too! The roads are covered in ice and it's too cold for the salt to work so the kids and Charlie have another day off. I had to go to class lastnight. It was my last one for the semester. I had a group presentation to do, otherwise I probably would've skipped because I hate driving on ice and snow. We did well, though, I think. One of our group didn't make it because he was stuck in a ditch. He was O.K., but it made things a bit interesting for me and the other guy in my group. I'm just glad to be finished now for a few weeks. Yeah!

Kendall's new address

I just posted a comment to Jana's post requesting pictures but realized it may not be read by everyone. Kendall's new email address is:

khutchinson@assistcornerstone.com

Any mail sent to his old address will not be received by him.

Thanks.

No School

So all schools in our area have closed (except Flint) and our kids are pretty excited (Charlie and I are too). We love snow days at our house. The storm is pretty bad and not over yet. I'm glad they canceled school. It wasn't fun to drive in to get to church or get home from church either. I prefer to stay nice and warm when it gets nasty outside, and now I get to. Yeah!

request

Mom mentioned that their digital picture frame is getting rather out of date. They'd like some new pictures from all of us, sent either to Dad or Kurt, so they can load them. Kurt, I hope that's ok, she said you were the one who did it before.

ALSO, Grandma and Grandpa would like new pictures for their frame. These can be sent to either Kendall (kendall_hutchinson@adp.com) or Trish (plhutch@juno.com). Dad, correct me if those are their old email addresses.

I love this picture. Haha.

I'm going to try and post pictures from past Christmases (is that how you'd spell it?) every day until we leave. Check back often to see who is featured!

Look at small baby Harvey! Adorable!

your wish is granted.

Someone needs to post something, so I will

I'm super busy this week finishing up my classes, and getting ready for the primary Christmas activity and the ward Christmas dinner. I can't wait for this week to be over. Talk about prioritizing. This week has given me some great practice. Makayla and Merrit have their first concert tonight playing their instruments. It will be fun to see how far they've come. I'll post pictures later.

Can't wait to see everyone in a couple of weeks, not even now. I love family-get-togethers. Thanks Mom and Dad for having so many kids. I know I didn't always appreciate it, but I sure do now! Our big family is so fun now.
One minor request, Jana, do you think you could change the background? Thanks!

she is beautiful

Lucy Mae was born at 10:17 this morning. 7lbs 9oz, 20 inches long.  Noah is loving her and so are we.  See you all in about 2 1/2 weeks!!