a little late...

Well, it occurred to me looking at my blog, that I never posted this years "first day of school" picture! The only one on here is last years!! Better late then never I guess, so on this last week of the 1st semester, here it is.

AAAAAAAAA and Hair!

Well, this past week on Tuesday night, the whole family got to go to the High School auditorium and watch as Kaylee and Ethan walked across the stage to receive their "All A Average for the 2008-2009 School Year" medal. If the actual percentage earned over all four quarters averages out to an A for all subjects/classes (which in this school district is a 94% or higher I might add!) then they hold a special awards ceremony. Usually it is held just before or just after school starts, but they were late this year for some reason. It was Tuesday night. Kaylee and Ethan both received medals!! I am so proud! Of course, Ethan had to ruin it by bringing home two reading tests on Friday... both D's. Sigh.

On another note, Kaylee finally got her hair cut!! I am so excited! It looks so good on her. She wanted to keep the length and frankly because she can pull her own hair into a ponytail I was all for that too, but it needed something. It got a good trim and long layers added and, drum roll please.... BANGS! She has started to get my little fringe, I think some people call it angel hair, but I call it my "@!#$% freaky no I didn't let my 3 year old cut my hair" hair. It grows along the edges of my hair line. Its short enough to look ridiculous and it reaches only a certain length and then breaks off. It never grows out, it never looks even. It's obnoxious. Until recently here, Kaylee really didn't have any to speak of. As she's gotten a little older I started noticing spots here and there. In the last 3 months she's had a "freaky, etc" hair explosion. It got to the point that she noticed it and hated it. I asked her if she wanted to cut bangs as they hide the worst of it and she readily agreed. I think she looks fabulous!

Another Hairy adventure we had this week (Ha, Ha, Ha!) was "Crazy Hair Day" at school on Friday. Once a year the school does a day that the kids get to wear crazy hair (it coincides with H week for the kindergarten classes). The kids had a blast making their hair wild and crazy. We ran short on time to take pictures before school, but miraculously, their hair stayed put for the most part and I got pictures after school instead!

And yes, before you ask, Jacobs hair is in a purple mohawke with red and green spots!

Snicker, snicker, snort!

OK, so this afternoon I kinda cornered Bryan and made him talk a bit about names for this new boy. I want a name like yesterday, and he seems to think we have all the time in the world to decide. We both agree that there can't be anymore J names. Jake and Jaden are confusing enough in times of stress, or exasperation, or frustration... basically all the time! So we were looking in a baby name book and we came across "Blake" we both liked it a lot. Until I said, "ummm.... Blake and Jake? Are we really that dumb?" Bryan started to laugh and it set me off too. Bryan says "Yeah, Blake and Jake is as bad as using another J name!" All of a sudden he starts rolling in laughter again. He says, "It sounds like you are swearing at Jake" Huh? Then it dawns on me "Blankin' Jake". We lost it. Probably not our most dignified moment, but man, it WAS funny!

Love That Deco!!

My favorite Christmas Decoration of all time, isn't the fragile angel in the tree top, or the handmade blown glass balls that we got in Germany. It isn't even the homemade ornaments that adorn 99% of our tree. No, it is my nativity set. I never really appreciated it until this year. A few years ago, I found a Little People's Nativity play set on sale during an after Christmas sale. I bought it thinking that it was something that the kids couldn't break. This year, I got smart. ( Yeah, yeah, I already hear the shocked voices "YOU did??!!"). I cleared off the shelf that is Jaden's shoulder height on the bookshelf in the living room. I put that Nativity on that shelf and set it all up nicely. It took all of a day for Jaden to notice it and start looking at it. He looked at it all for a good 20 minutes until he finally asked me if he could touch it. When I said yes, his eyes got big and round and he was so excited. He and I played with that nativity for an hour at least. I told him the story over and over. The whole rest of the month that the nativity was out, Jaden would go and play with it, carting the baby Jesus ever so carefully all over the place, and he started telling me the story. He would show me a piece and tell me all about that person's role in the story. He told me "Mary. Jesus mommy." and "Baby Jesus... so cute!!" It was great. I love to see my little man learn more about his Savior. The excitement a small child shows is so refreshing! Not to mention... I love the donkey. He has a mohawk!

Christmas

Yeah, I know, I know!!! I've already been "informed" from several sources that it appears that I "forgot" to blog about Christmas. So not true!! I only had time for one post last time and I was too excited about Jaden being in Sunbeams that I couldn't help myself. For all you anal retentive types that reading about a January event before a December event, well... so sorry. My advice? Read 'em out of order! Christmas this year was really good. Really quiet too! We decided that we were really needing to stock up the family time since Bryan is never home and so we kept our holiday "commitments" to a bare minimum!! Bryan HAD to go to his works Christmas party. It was MANDATORY! Can you believe that? To add salt to the wound, it was $30 a person!! Needless to say, he went alone! We went to our wards Christmas party and the wonderful, stupendous Mallorys put together a "night in Bethlehem" for us. It was really nice. No Santa. Awesome!! Just what I needed! We got snow the night of the ward party too! Several inches before all was said and done. I'm good for the year, my snow quota has been met... just in case anyone with influence in the weather department is reading my blog! Christmas Eve morning we went to the Dubes' annual Christmas Eve Breakfast. YUM! They always cook a breakfast fit for kings and invite a lot of people to come and eat it! Christmas Eve we did the whole new Christmas pajamas thing. I hoped that it wasn't a mistake after I saw the way Jaden reacted. I thought, "Great. What did I just do??!! Now there is NO WAY I'm gonna get this kid to bed!!" To say he was excited over his Mickey Mouse Pj's WITH feet is an understatement. Which, by the way, is the picture that goes with this post. All the kids liked their PJ's and went to bed without too much fuss. It was a late night for all, but thankfully, Santa's elves were a little smarter than last year and had everything already wrapped. Christmas Day was nice too. It was quiet... well, Hutcherson standard quiet! It was just us. We did the whole "mom's turkey with Grandma's stuffing" thing that we missed out on at Thanksgiving. Our oven lost an element on Christmas day so we didn't eat turkey until like 6:00!! We had planned on a 3 or 4 pm meal, but the turkey took forever! It was sad too because it was dry and I NEVER make dry turkey! All was good though, 'cause we were together. I miss Bryan now that his company command makes him very, very scarce around here, but days like Christmas I am reminded off the years that we spent Christmas without him at all. It was a wonderful day.

Sunbeam!!

Today my BABY started Sunbeams!! Can you believe it???!!! I know I can't! He did great. He was a little confused that we didn't stop at the door to the nursery, but didn't make a fuss when I told him to keep going down the hall. This past week, we have talked up the fact that since he was 3, that he would get to go to the "big kids primary" now! He seemed excited about it and we were hoping for a smooth transition. Fortunately, we were surprised beyond just a smooth transition! He went to his class with no fuss, tears, or shyness! He sat still during class and then again during sharing and singing time. He wasn't fidgety or wiggly. He didn't talk out of turn or (more impressively for him) he did talk when called upon!! The only thing he did that wasn't perfect was during sharing time. He was humming "I am a Child of God" too loud! When I went to pick him up after it was all over, I asked if he had been good. He told me yes, and his teacher told me that it was the best behaved Sunbeam class that she had ever seen! I guess it helps that there are only two of them. Go Jaden and Kayla!