A Few Things

This is the best picture I have of Paul and his new bride Brownwyn at their reception on Saturday.  They were married Friday April 25-this past Friday.  I don’t have any pictures from the wedding, we weren’t invited.  But if Karen or Deena gets on, I’m sure they have pictures galore and ones better than this.

The other picture is of our baby-I took it yesterday-he is 3 months old!  Eric picked out his onsie, I think it’s clever.  He is getting so big-between 15 and 16 lbs we figure.  He smiles and laughs and we have a good time, most of the time.

Confusion, insanity and hope…….

It is rare that I get a minute to do anything but work and do things at home, but I threw over everything tonight and decided that I really should get on this blog.  I agree wholeheartedly with Shirley that I would like to see other families, especially our two computer geeks (kendall and rick) give us some news.  I know Amy’s baby blessing is coming up and there are many other things going on that we would love to hear about.  Maybe if we all e-mail them and overwhelm them with e-mails, they will finally get the message.  Trish, Mary, Sue, Judy….are you listening?!?  Anyway…..work is insane as always.  Glen is busy trying to get annual reports and quarterly reports done for the office.  Emily is busy studying for her finals at Snow for this semester.   She will graduate in December and then is thinking possibly of going to Southern Virginia University.   It is a good liberal arts school and she really would like to graduate in English, teach it and then be an author on the side.  She has about a billion notebooks full of stories.  We’ll see.  We are encouraging her to leave Utah, though.  We think it is a good idea to get out and enjoy other states and meet people outside the church.  It does wonders for your perspective.  One bit of news from our arena—-for several months now, my health has been going down hill.  Mainly because I can’t control the stress that I am under at work, mainly because there are some people at work who are not doing their job and we end up working 10-12 hours a day.  Anyway….Dr. Bob (Armstrong) and I discussed this and basically he said if I want to live, then I need to do something drastic and so we decided that I need to have lap band surgery.  So on May 5th, I will have a lap band put into place.   I actually am very excited for this as I do have the exercise bit down, but now the eating.  Food has become an escape so this will help immensely.  It is also the safest and fastest.  It is outpatient surgery and I am home that afternoon so it will be good.   The mortality rate for gastric bypass surgery is about 1 in 25 for women over 50 so I wasn’t ready to accept those odds.   Anyway…..this will be interesting because I can only 1/4 cup of food and for the first two weeks, all I can eat is liquids and then a little thicker liquids that I can suck through a straw—think blended vegetable soup.   So, we’ll see what happens.  I will keep everyone updated on my progress.  Hopefully it will reverse what is going on.  Well, I better go pay bills or they will come and turn off the electricity and then I can’t blog anymore.   Thanks, Sarah for helping me get on and I will try and get Emily and Glen to write something too—-are you listening the rest of you husbands!!!

Jelly Bellies

We went on a little family excursion today to the local Jelly Belly factory. It’s about 20 minutes south of us and they do free tours of the factory. All you really see is their warehouse and they drive you around in this little train and have you watch different videos that explain the process of making jelly beans and other candies. It was interesting to me, but not as much for the kids. They liked riding on the train though. We each got a hat to wear too, which our kids liked. At the end of the tour they hand out thank you bags with jelly bellies in them and then you exit our through their gift store (nice planning huh?). It’s amazing the stuff they have in there. Overall it was a fun FREE family thing that the kids enjoyed for the most part. Here are some pictures of us.

 

This is us waiting in line.  There was actually quite a few people there.

 This is us, with our hats, on the train. This is the kids in front of the train engine.  Sorry it’s so dark.

Our Little Family

First of all, I have to say that I am happy that Sarah put this blog together.  Our little immediate family of Hutchinson’s (Bill and his kids) started a blog of our own over a year ago and it had kept us all in touch and been a really fun and awesome thing to have.  So I am excited about this blog and I hope that it works to keep us all in touch.

So, our little family is doing well.  Noah joined us at the end of January and is growing big and strong and fat.  Eric weighed him on Monday and we are pretty sure that he is 15 lbs and he is only 2 1/2 months old!  CRAZY!  But we love him and it has been quite the experience for us.  This week we have started putting him to sleep at 9:30 and so far so good.  Tonight has really been the only night that he has given us any problems.  The one sad thing is that we will put him to bed sooner, but then he is awake every two hours after his first initial 4 hours of sleep.  We could use some help if anyone has some input to how we can help him sleep longer and hopefully sleep through the night. 

Eric isn’t going to medical school this year, but he did apply for graduate school and heard from them yesterday that he was on the alternate list.  We are pretty frustrated because we were hoping that they would just tell us either way so that we could start making plans for the future.  Those that were accepted have three weeks to let them know and give them a deposit-so we will wait until May 6th.  Keep us in your prayers because we really want this, but we do understand that if this isn’t what God wants, we will go where he guides us.

I am being the stay at home mom and the adjustment is slow going.  I have worked since I moved out of the house and I miss having something to do outside the house.  I was walking and then the weather turned awful.  Hopefully next week is better and I can get back out there and feel like I’m doing something for my body.  But I do love being a mom.  It is an experience that no one could have prepared me for and an experience that I wouldn’t give up for anything.  I learn something new everyday and it is soo exciting to see him discover things about the world around him and about himself.  I have been so blessed.

Included are three pictures.  The first is of me and Eric at the first anniversary of us getting engaged, the middle one is a picture of Noah when he was a couple of days old and third is a picture of him at his blessing which was at the end of March.  Enjoy!

Heather, Kurt, and Harvey

Well here’s the initial post for Heather and I.

We’ve been back in Michigan now for over a year, after two years in North Carolina while Heather pursued and completed her master’s degree in geology. She started working at an environmental consulting firm at the beginning of March, and she’s liking it. She’s excited to be able to finally work in the field she fell in love with back in her undergrad days. I’m working at the software company I was at before we moved to North Carolina, writing tax software. It’s interesting work.

Harvey is doing great. He’ll be six months old at the end of April, and the time has seemed to fly by. It amazes us how much he’s grown, both physically and mentally. He chatters all the time, and his object manipulation skills surprise us every day. He’s just barely starting to move around on his own. When we put him on the ground on his back, he rotates every which way and can cover some distance. On his stomach, he can do a sort of inchworm crawl when he really wants to. We’ll probably have to start baby-proofing soon, which I’m not looking forward to.

Here are a few pictures of him, taken in mid-February. I’ll get some more recent ones up soon.

My two cents

I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m officially on the blog too.  I think this is going to be a great way to keep in touch, especially when more people get on board with it.

Charlie and I are living with our kids in Racine, Wi.  I’ve been told that one of the characters from the movie “A League of Their Own” is from Racine.  Although I haven’t watched the movie since to find out.  Also, in the movie “Home Alone” the polka band that picks up the mom and gives her a ride is from Milwaukee, Wi and they mention Kenosha, Wi which is where our church building is.  Just a tid pit of Wisconsin trivia.  We like it here.  It’s a lot like Michigan, although we got way more snow here than they did this year.  We are up in the 90s of inches for the season so far.  Last year they supposedly only got 19 inches for the whole winter!  Big difference.  There was snow on the ground almost everyday this winter and it was rather depressing.  I purposely stayed indoors as much as I could.  The people at church are nice.  We have a few friends that we have hung out with outside of church a few times with. 

We’ve tried to buy two different homes so far and both times the transaction fell through.  There was a third house we wanted to buy but someone else put an offer on it before we had a chance to.  We’ve been a little discouraged about it.  We are now considering moving back to Michigan so it’s probably a good thing we didn’t buy a house yet (althought we wouldn’t have considered moving back had we already had a house).

The kids are doing well.  Lexi is 11 and in 5th grade and she’s had the hardest time fitting in.  She is a really nice girl, but most of the kids here have grown up together and already have their own group of friends.  She’s had a hard time being accepted into those groups.  She’s even had to deal with some bullying, but that has died down mostly now. 

Merrit is 9 and in 3rd grade and made friends with a boy in his class that lived on our street.  Merrit invited him to scouts.  This boy’s name is Tylor and he officially signed up with our troop and has been coming regularly, even though he and his family moved away from our street right before Christmas.  We had them over for dinner for Merrit’s birthday and hope to invite them to talk to the missionaries soon.  Merrit is such a good example for me about sharing the gospel.  \

Makayla is 6 (going on 7 in May) and in 1st grade and loves it so much.  She is so excited to be eight so she can be baptised.  She is a social butterfly and loves her teacher.  Her teacher had a baby in October and was out of school until after Christmas break.  Makayla was so excited to have her back.  She has picked up reading a lot faster than I thought she would and tries very hard to do her best in school.  All three of these kids get pretty good grades and love school.  I am so thankful for that because I don’t want to have to fight any of my kids about going to school.  They are all taking piano right now from a lady at church.  This is Lexi’s 3rd year and Merrit and Makayla’s 1st year.  They are doing well with that too. 

Chelsea is 4 (going on 5 in August) and in preschool.  She is so excited to be in kindergarten and go to the school with the other kids.   She goes for a couple hours a day, Monday through Thursday in the afternoon.  So I drop her off and then come home and put Jaxson down for a nap and I have a couple hours to myself.  It’s nice and helpful for me.  Chelsea is a social butterfly too and has made really good friends with a little girl named Ali.  We’ve had her over to play and Chelsea has gone to her house.  They look a lot alike and could probably pass as sisters.  Ali’s mom is really nice and she and I have switched taking the girls to school for each other. 

Jaxson is 3 and we are trying to pottie train him but he really isn’t interested.  I would really like to not buy diapers anymore so I wish he would pottie train, but it doesn’t look like it will happen any time soon.  He really loves dinosaurs right now and is learning how to dress himself.  He is almost as big as Chelsea is and sometimes they look as though they could be the same age.  He’s not quite so chubby anymore though.  He has gotten taller and slimmer over the passed year or so. 

Charlie loves his job.  He gets along with his co-workers and most of his students.  He was an assistant wrestling coach this year and had a blast.  He really loves wrestling.  It was good for him too.  I am glad that it’s over though.  It’s nice to have him around more often again.  He is the 1st councelor in the Elder’s quorumn presidency.  The president is a spanish teacher at a different school in the area.  They get along well. 

I turned 30 this year and never thought my age was a big deal until then.  It was really hard for me to approach my 30th birthday for some strange reason.  I’m over it now, but man it was weird for me to be out of my 20s.  I’m the den leader and the primary chorister.  I’ve been den leader since September, in fact the first Sunday we were here they asked me if I’d accept the calling.  I feel like the Lord made me den leader so I could ensure Merrit had a good scouting experience.  I wasn’t so sure I’d like it at first, but I’ve really grown to love it.  We’ve had lots of fun.  I was made the chorister in February.  I was the chorister before in Flint.  I had fun with it then so I knew I’d like it this time too, and I do.  The kids are great and know the songs a lot better than I expected.  They learn them a lot quicker than I expected too.  It’s nice.

Well that’s us in a nut shell right now.  Sorry it was so long.  I have a lot of people to write about.

Here are the hairy Hairs!

First of all, I will never get tired of my last name.  That’s why Jason and I dated for so long, so I could get used to the idea and come up with enough jokes about it to last a lifetime.

Here is a brief update: 

Jason, Adelyn and I currently live in Memphis, Tennessee.  Jason is going to optometry school at Southern College of Optometry and in three weeks he’ll be done with his first year!  It really has gone by so quickly.  Now we only have three more years to go!  He loves school, which is good, because he’s constantly studying for a test or practising in the eye clinic.  He actually studies at home quite a bit which I love, but it’s getting more difficult now that Addie is more interactive and wants to play with him so much.  He told me the other day next year he probably will have to stay at school more often.  Boo. 

I’m making friends and staying (somewhat) busy.  It’s been fun because I now have more time for my hobbies, such as reading and calligraphy, but I do miss being close to any family.  I really miss the big dinners at Grandma and Grandpa’s and playing Apples to Apples with my cousins.  We had such a fun time being there.  I am the 1st counselor in the Primary and was just called to also be our ward’s Girls Camp leader.  Between the two, I’m sure to keep my calendar packed with some kind of meeting.

Adelyn is growing, growing, growing!  She is now nine and half months old and is so much fun.  She is a very social little gal, always smiling and laughing at everyone.  She isn’t very interested in crawling yet, but I’ve been encouraging her as much as I can.  She loves crackers and hates broccoli…typical.  Well, I’m excited to hear about the family.  It will be fun to keep in better touch!

Just checking

Sarah and I are just checking this out to see if it will let me post to the website.  I will post an update on my family later as I am tired and still have laundry to do.

Hello family!

   Since I am the one who decided to start this, I thought I should make the first post. I don’t really have any wonderful and exciting news but I didn’t want the blog to just sit here empty. Here is an update on me.  About four years ago Jake and I moved to Panaca, Nevada. It is a little tiny town about eighty miles straight west of Cedar City, Utah right across the border of Nevada.  Our population is about 700 right now. There are two other towns nearby, one with about 900 and the other about 700.  All the towns go to middle school and high school together here in Panaca. Jake teaches Band and Choir to the high school and middle school.  About a year and a half after we had been here we had our first child.  Ethan has been the greatest kid in the world. He is a very happy, mostly well behaved little boy. He loves bugs, rocks, trucks, animals, tractors, and helping me out around the house. The biggest thing going on in or lives right now is that we are building our own house. It has been very tough, and I don’t recommend it to anyone.  Luckily we are on the down-hill now, and are getting very close to moving in.  So that is enough about me…what about you?