An A is not really an A, you just think it is!

The kids are so smart. They brought home reportcards this past week. Jacob has straight A's and nothing but! Ethan has only one B, in reading of course, and the rest are all A's. Kaylee was really disappointed with her grades. She brought home 3 B's, 4 A's. She was upset with the B's, but I pointed out to her that the B's were all honors classes AND she had a 93.4% in one of them, 93.2% in both of the others. (A 94%-100% is an A here. What craziness is this!?!).

Sucking Ducks, Stopping Hearts, Sky High Toes, and Chunky Monkeys!

Yeah, I know. I had you at the title, right??!! ;D So much has happened since I last posted that I don't even know where to start! Soooo.... let's start at the ducks, and work our way to the monkeys. Just like at the zoo. Zoo, Hutcherson house, they are pretty interchangeable anyway! Bryan went to log warrior... again... for a week. (army speak: "Log Warrior" translation: "camping in the woods and playing at being a soldier/cook, soldier/water boy, soldier/fueler, etc.") After he returned home, he decided that the family needed a special night out to reward the kids for being fairly good, and me for keeping them all alive! So we headed out to Jiang's. It is our all time fav, yum-o Chinese restaurant. We get there and we order our food. Our spring rolls come first and they are served with Chinese mustard and duck sauce. Silence descends on our little group as they (they being the kids... mostly!) inhale the spring rolls. Then the peace is broken by a "SSSLLLLLUUURRRPPP! AHH! SSSLLLLLUUURRRPPP! AHH!" Bryan and I look down the table and there is Jaden. He is sucking the duck sauce off his plate with his straw. Jaden looks at me like, "what mom? Licking my plate is bad manners, but this is duck sauce! I can't just waste it!" Sigh. Miss Manners would have a heart attack around my family. Speaking of heart attacks... had one this week. Really. All four of the big kids were in the family room. Two were playing a board game, one was watching TV, and Jaden was dancing around and just playing. I'm in the kitchen cutting up veggies for dinner, when I hear all 3 of the biggest kids start screeching. All I can make out of the noise is, "you're gonna kill him! You're gonna die!!" I'm thinking, oh crap Kaylee left her hermit crab out and Jaden has killed it. If only! I run into the family room in time to see Jaden strung up like a criminal in a hangman's noose! He had gotten up on the back of the couch next to Ethan and wrapped the cord from the mini blinds around his neck several times. Ethan, with out looking at him or seeing what he was up to, told Jaden to get down or mom was gonna yell at him for standing on the back of the couch. SO HE DID!! I grabbed him and unwound the cords, thankfully they weren't tangled, and held him tight. He was crying, I was crying, the other kids were crying. Scared Jaden more than hurt him, and he recovered pretty quick. He had a small rope burn all the way around his neck though. Hours later I almost dropped dinner on the floor because I was still shaking so bad. For the record: these mini blinds were supposed to be "safe". The little round things that gather up the cords don't work, obviously, when confronted by the wiles of a 4 year old, who is hell bent on sending his mother to an early grave! The cords have now all received their military hair cut, as in I chopped those suckers off all the way up at the top! Just hope no one needs to open the blinds anytime soon.
Speaking of tops... Kaylee is TOPS! On Friday night, she marched in her first ever half time show! She was so funny. She has fantastic toes! All of your band geeks out there know what I am talking about. Her toes were sky high when she roll stepped. I was so proud! Not to mention, she is in a euph line (euphonium, people, get with the terminology!) with about 5 other players. She's the youngest, only in 6th grade. The rest are 7th and 8th graders. She marched out there and hit her spot and stood at attention. All the euphs did good... for the first 5 seconds, then it looked like a free form marching band move. Kaylee standing perfectly still, at attention, feet together, head held high, statue still... surrounded by kids moving like you wouldn't believe. It was comically! And no, I am not just being partial! I am going to post the video on the blog as soon as I can figure out how... PROOF that my little girl is geek through and through!
Speaking of Geeks... well, more like CHeeks! Our little chunky monkey had his 6 month well baby check up on Wednesday. He is officially a weeble wobble. He is 26.33 inches long, 17lbs 10oz, and has "ham hocks" instead of thighs. He cannot roll himself over, but he can push up on to his hands, or his knees alternately, and he is sitting up unassisted. Like a weeble wobble. A fat weeble wobble. Just more to love, right baby?!

Hole-y couch, Batman!!!

Hutcherson 1: 1 "And then shall your couch cover be "hole-y" and not of good use. Woe, woe, woe be unto the four year old with scissors."
Hutcherson 1:2 "And your pillows shall be like unto it. And also the brothers stuffed animal, those shalt he also destroy and render useless."

I'm afraid that this doesn't need any explanation. And yes, it is as bad as you are thinking!!

Survival. Nothing more, nothing less.

1 week down. 35 more to go! Yay! We all survived the first day of school. Its shaping up to be a really great year. Jacob has "a BOY teacher!!! How cool is THAT?". Mr. Kooiker seems to be an amazing teacher. The kids all call him Mr. K as his name is hard to remember (think fancy oriental goldfish + ick! + errrrr). Jacob only has 2 other kids in his class that were in his Kindergarten class so he is busy making lots of new friends. Ethan has Mrs. Whipple for 4th grade! DUN DUN, DUN! 4th grade? Really? He is trying to become one of the library helper students, something I NEVER thought would happen! Ethan wanting to be around books all the time! He truly has come a long way from the 2nd grader in remedial reading to the 4th grader whose goal this year, now that his sister is out of the running, is to be the top AR (accelerated Reader) points earner. Then we come to Kaylee, our scared-to-death-gave-herself-a-tummy-ache-the-night-before-school-started-because-she-was-so-nervous middle schooler. Who did GREAT on her first day. She loves all of her teachers especially Mrs. Crinkley, her honors math teacher and Ms. Higby, her band teacher. Her biggest concern right now? Which instrument to play! She would like to play, in order of preference: euphonium, french horn, or saxophone. We shall see after this coming week when she has the chance to try out instruments. I'll keep you posted!

Jaden started speech again last Friday with Mrs. Keeslo, incidentally referred to as MRS. K! He has exactly 1 year to finish catching up on his speech before Kindergarten starts because, yes, my little BABY will make the cut off next fall for school.

Grayson, my little chubs, turned 5 months old this past Thursday. He is doing well. He sleeps better and better at night. We will get to a full nights sleep soon, I just know it! He has started to play with toys and chews things excessively. Until recently he has been doing really well with regards to his tummy problems. This week, he has taken a step backwards. sigh. He tagged Daddy at church today... twice in 5 minutes. That's my little guy! He waited till it was daddy's turn to puke! (Daddy only gets him for a total of 20 minutes during church because of his calling playing the piano in primary.) This afternoon was not good. He couldn't sleep if I laid him down. It burned too much. He napped on my chest for a little while before waking up and resuming his screaming. :( I broke out the antacid that he hasn't needed in weeks and weeks! He's had 3 doses just today. After the last one 20 minutes ago, he has passed back out, again on my chest. It's so sad to see him in pain and so frustrating to know that there is nothing really that I can do to help him. It may be time to go back to the specialist!

T minus two, and counting!

Well, 2 more days till school!! Yay!! $200 dollars on school supplies from the official "list", new shoes for all, and a cramp in my hand from writing names on every freakin' crayon, pencil, marker, marker lid, and glue stick (can anyone explain why my 6th grader needs 22 glue sticks???) and we are all set for school. Finally. My little night owl (Kaylee) now has to be ready to leave the house by 6:50 a.m. I don't know how either of us are going to survive! The little boys still have to be at the bus stop at about 7:55, so at least I should be able to concentrate on getting Kaylee ready and out the door before I have to wake the boys up. I am hoping that the separation helps cut down on the morning war zone (aka the kitchen table battle).
Yesterday, Daddy took all the kids, minus Grayson, to "Lucky Lake". Lucky Lake is a gem and mineral "mine". The kids had an awesome time sifting out the rocks, minerals, and gems from the dirt. Of course, that means that now there are even more rocks in our house for me to not see before it's too late and my vacuum sucks them up... and dies, again!

Swimming Update!

We got the official results of the Championship meet back and we are so excited!! All three kids did very well. Kaylee got 16th place, BUT her goal was "to not come in last!" and she didn't! She also shaved 3.5 seconds off of her personal best time. Go Kaylee! Ethan took 14th and although he did not have a new personal best record time, he did win his heat. Go Ethan! Then there is Jake. In freestyle he took 12th. He would have taken 3rd if he had swam to match his best time, but alas! In backstroke though he did FANTASTIC! He took 6th place AND he was swimming in the next ability level for the first time ever (meaning those he was swimming against were faster then he was used to). He also dropped off another 5 seconds off his personal best time!! How cool is that? Go Jake! (Technical difficulties are keeping the boys swim team pictures of the blog... check back soon!)

Waterlogged!

Swim team is officially over and I have to admit I am glad! It is just too stinkin' hot to sit with Grayson and Jaden on the side of the pool for 2 hours a day and watch the big kids practice. They all did AMAZING this year! Jacob had 1st place in freestyle and backstroke in every regular season meet except the last one (He took 4th in freestyle in that one because he moved up an ability group!). Racing in the Championship Meet, he took 12th in freestyle. He also swam backstroke and he swam a 4x100 meter freestyle relay. We don't have the results back on those events yet, we are just waiting for them to be posted on the swim team website. Kaylee swam backstroke and did VERY well. She only competed in 2 regular season meets (placed 6th and 7th) and that was good enough to qualify for champs. She has really improved this year I am excited to see what next summer brings! Ethan also swam backstroke. He won his heat in every single meet that he competed in to include Champs! He placed 6th twice and a 5th in the overall standings. We are still waiting to hear back on both of their results from Champs. I am so proud of all of them. They all worked so hard and tried their VERY best!!