Sunday, August 24, 2014

6 year-old Tea (well, pink lemonade in this case) Party

Because of the hustle and bustle of school starting, we decided to wait a week to have Jesstine's friend birthday party! This year she wanted a tea party like Sofia the First's tea party! She of course invited Kylie and Carter, plus a couple of friends from school and church. We had small sandwiches, cheese cubes, fruit kabobbs, dried mango, carrots, veggie straws and LOTS of small treats! We opened presents and played "Pin the Teacup on the Saucer." Then the kids had time to play downstairs a little!! Here are the pictures!


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We have a new party store just down the street. We probably didn't save much money, but saved a trip across town to get balloons!


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Most of the girls wore princess dresses!

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Drank pink lemonade and water from actual fancy tea cups!


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Colored teacups and decorated tiaras and crowns!

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Another look at the grub!


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Handmade card from a good friend!

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I think she liked this one!

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It was a fun party! The kids all got a long really well which is a plus! Special thanks to my mom for coming over early to help me make the food!!! I couldn't have done it without her!


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You may have noticed this bad boy in the pictures above. Jesstine recently started piano lessons with Grandmom and my mom loaned us the piano I played on as a kid!

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Proof that she DOES indeed practice! (Albeit with very poor posture!)

Until next time!
In Him,
The Hutchins Family

Saturday, August 16, 2014

First Day of First Grade

Well, the day came and went. It was a busy last four days! Thursday was my first full day of really doing my job it was also Jesstine's birthday. We chose wisely to do her birthday dinner the night before her birthday so we weren't so rushed the next day. After work on Thursday, I stopped by and got her cake while Stephen picked the kids up. We rushed home and the kids bathed while I made dinner. There was a little bit of time for Jesstine to go ahead and open her presents before dinner. Then we had dinner followed by cake! After cake Jesstine and I had to rush off to her school meeting.
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Jesstine chose a Tinkerbell and Periwinkle (Tink's sister) cake.


The cake I chose!

The next day was the first day of school!!! It was also my first day with students, so I was unable to walk Jesstine in for the first day. Daddy was there to document the occasion though! I also took a few first of the year pictures that I have taken for the last couple of years, including her favorites.
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(I cheated! Knowing how busy the first day of school was going to be, I went out and took these on Thursday. We took a set of pictures while the little one was down for nap...only to find out that said little one had put fingerprints all over the camera lens. So, I had to take a second set. The only way Jesstine would do it is if I let her have one with her fairy!)
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When I grow up, I want to be a Doctor

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She wouldn't smile! So we promised if she cooperated she would get to do a silly picture. Emmitt got the perfect photobomb.

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And the unintentional photobomb by her teacher, Mrs. Coleman!

During Emmitt's nap later, my mother-in-love came over with some fabulous cakes!!! (Because of course the day after Jesstine's birthday is MY birthday!)

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She told the cake people that Jesstine liked pink and purple and she loved princesses and fairies...but absolutely NO sprinkles!


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For my cake, she told them that my favorite color was purple and that I was a music teacher. I think they more than nailed it!!!

Later that day, we all had dinner at Freddy's and then went to get a new computer for me because as of Monday, I am a college student.....sort of! I have to do continuing ed classes for relicensure.
 Oh and I almost forgot...on Sunday Jesstine lost another tooth! Her tooth fairy delivered with another dollar in the shape of a bow tie. I don't think she noticed though because by the time we got up, it was in the shape of a dollar! 



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Oh, and this time the dentist didn't have to pull it. It was so ready to come out. She was afraid to take it out herself. The new tooth was already in behind it. It was starting to get the same white spot on the gums that the last tooth left. So I convinced her that I could pull it and it wouldn't hurt too bad. We iced it with an Elmo boo boo pack a couple of times. I pulled and couldn't get a grip on it. I finally went into the kitchen and got a paper towel and with one small yank, it was out! She didn't cry! She said it didn't even hurt! It bled way less than the last one too!

Until next time!
In Him,
The Hutchins Family

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Camp Aunt Jenni

My nephew, Connor, recently got to take part in the Hutchins tradition of "Camp Grandmom" to learn to read. His mom thought it would be a good time for Jesstine to come stay for a few days as well. So as soon as "Camp Grandmom" was complete, I met Jenni halfway to drop Connor off and Jesstine went with them! She had so much fun!

First they went to Ponca City for lunch with some friends and a free movie at the movie theater. She got to see Space Jam for the first time! It is now one of her favorites and we now own it (brings me back to when I was 14).
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Throughout that, Jesstine made it very clear that she just wanted to go to Aunt Jenni's house. So they got back just in time to go for a swim before it was time for bed!
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The next day they were planning a trip to a waterpark, but that kinda got scraped when the temps were in the 70's and rainy. So they instead went to a place called Incredible Pizza.
(I mislabled the video. I have no idea why it is so small. Yet another example of why I haven't blogged in quite a while.)
I set Aunt Jenni up for a mission! Jesstine's new school has a little bit of a strict dress code. In some ways I like that because it is conservative. In other ways it is difficult because Jesstine hates to wear jeans and they can't wear shorts. Skirts or dresses have to be down to their knees or touching their knee caps. Normally I would be excited about that as I strive to make sure she has appropriate length dresses/skirts anyway. But it is a challenge because things are made shorter these days. Also, Jesstine is skinny and tall. So, the clothes that are long enough fall off of her! I sent money and sent Jenni on a mission! It made for a built in Girls night for them as well! First they started out with dinner and mani/pedis!


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I love Jenni's caption for this on facebook, "Jesstine was mesmerized by the mani/pedi process...especially as she waited and watched the old man beside her get his feet scraped off."
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Finished Mani/Pedi.

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Dinnertime selfies.


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Meanwhile at home, Emmitt was enjoying being an "only child" for a few days. He came home from church with a bug box full of fake bugs. He has really enjoyed bringing the spider up to me and seeing me overreact as if in fear of it! He giggles so much! When daddy got home we tried to leave the lizard and bugs in various spots to startle Daddy as well! :-)

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When I dropped Jesstine off, I mentioned to Jenni that I had all sorts of hair stuff for Jesstine. Jenni looked temporarily terrified. She hadn't fixed girl hair except her own! Hehe! So, I said I don't expect her to I just gave it to her as an option and that usually parting it on the side and putting a clip works great! Jesstine really wanted time to just play at Aunt Jenni's house. They had been going places off and on since she got there, so since the weather spoiled their plans, they decided to just stay in the last day she was there. So that morning Jenni decided to fix Jesstine's hair and introduced her to a curling iron. From what I understand, She was not too enthusiastic about her first meeting with the curling iron! Don't let the pictures fool you! 

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She had a wonderful time and Jenni took such great care of her! She was ready to come home though and we sure missed her! It was back to business as usual for her and Emmitt when she returned. The next day they snipped and yelled at each other so many times! So, I leave you with one of my favorite pictures from Jesstine's time in OK.


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In Him,
The Hutchins Family

(Photo credit to Jenni for most of these photos!!!)

Sunday, August 3, 2014

In SUMMMERRRRRR!

Well, my summer comes to an end on Tuesday and Jesstine's comes to an end the following Friday. I figured it was time to get back into this blogging thing. I have noticed that I am not the only blogger who has fallen off of the bandwagon. A lot of blogs I follow have had updates less often than usual. But, I digress! One reason I have been behind is that it takes SO long to post pictures! That is mostly what I do, so you would think I would post pictures here and there so I don't have to take so much time. Yeah, that would make too much sense!!! So, here with the SUMMER!

We started the summer out with simming lessons for Jesstine. We started out with YMCA swimming lessons (see pictures). But after three summers in the same level and getting no where, I found a private instructor! I don't think I will go back to the Y for swimming lessons!!!

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(Jesstine is in the pink swimming suit, closest to us. She had been in the far group, but was too scared of the deep water, so she was moved to the next group lower.)



They were FINALLY able to get her to be more comfortable on her back in the water though!

Insert cute picture of Emmitt in church:

I have been babysitting once to twice a week for quite a while now. It has been about once a week this summer. We have done a lot of things from playing in the sandbox to playing with sidewalk chalk.









Of course there have been some cooler days this summer:

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(My van temp. is usually a few degrees high and if I recall this was not early in the morning either.)

Which made for some pleasant trips to the zoo with friends:

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Jesstine was invited with some other little girls from church to attend a tea party put on by the sister-in-law of a member of the church we attend.


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Complete with fancy dresses, fancy sandwiches, cookies and cupcakes and of course, fancy hats!


They even made "God's Girl" necklaces.




The next day after the tea party, we headed out for our summer vacation to the Great Wolf Lodge. We stopped at the Deanna Rose Farmstead in Overland Park on the way. While at the Great Wolf Lodge, we took a couple of trips to the Legends Mall. Jesstine's best friend and her family came at the same time we did. We did some things together, most not. 

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Milking a "cow."







And of course, we were right near Sporting KC park, home of Sporting KC, formerly the Kansas City Wizards.



Emmitt was a little overwhelmed with the big bucket that dumped water and the overall noise level of the water park. So, we spent a lot of time around the hotel and the mall a short distance away.

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His favorite place to visit was the arcade. Even without tokens he loved "driving" the batmbile and the motorcycles! Daddy's boy!


We had a great view of the Kansas Speedway from our balcony.

Jesstine, doing a little planking before heading down to the park after a nap.

Mommy and Son selfie.

Jesstine and her buddy, Violet. They each got to pick one toy to take home with them.

Emmitt chose a dinosaur from the T-Rex Cafe. His name is spike!


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The kids got wolf ears this year for staying at the Great Wolf Lodge. They went to storytime with Kylie and Carter. Emmitt got a little restless, so Daddy took him back to the room and I stayed with Jesstine so she could get her picture with Wylie.


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Last time we went to GWL in KC, Jesstine was TERRIFIED to go in this store/resturaunt. She only did it at the time because she was desperate for a dino of her own! This time, she didn't care for it, but she managed to go around the store less anxious (by far) than last time!

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The last time we were here, Jesstine needed some shoes. At the Legends Mall, there are a couple of shoe outlet stores. We had good luck at the Nike store. We got her a pair of shoes about $20 cheaper than we could have just in another shoe store. Once again on this trip, she needed a new pair of shoes and Emmitt would need one very soon. While we did find a great deal on a pair for Emmitt, we almost struck out with Jesstine who needed a size 13.5.....which NO ONE HAS! I don't know if it is a popular size or if it is on the bubble of toddler/youth shoe sizes. Regardless, we were able to find her a pair that fit and she will probably wear for the upcoming school year....in a size 1!!!! She LOVES them though! They are leopard AND zebra print in pink and blue (her favorite colors).

On the last day, always in the past we have simply just taken in some of the sites/shopping places around the KC or Dallas area (depending upon which GWL location we were at) rather than swim any. This time we wanted to get as much waterpark time in as possible. So, I took Emmitt with me to meet my uncle and walk around Legends some more (looking for a Sporting KC shirt for Emmitt) and Jesstine went with Daddy back to the waterpark. We loaded the car up and checked out of our room before hand so we were ready to eat some lunch and hit the road. We had to be back for Music Theater later that evening. Here is a picture of Stephen getting one last go of the bucket that dumped a ton of water every 2-3 minutes. 


And here is Jesstine bleary eyed and ready for the trip home.

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We knew things were going to be rushed when we returned, so before we went on our trip, we celebrated Babe B. and her birthday! Yearly we go out to the cemetery and release balloons for her. It was a bit add hawk this year (which I don't feel the greatest about), so we ended up with just 7 latex balloons. We sang happy birthday to her and released them.

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I hit the garage sales this summer pretty hard. I sold some things too. I was able to score some great things for the kiddos. Mostly Cars stuff for Emmitt, but Jesstine got a few cool things as well! Here are some of our finds:
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Would you believe all of this cost just $10?! It was at the home of a friend of mine. She had to go back in and beg Lightning McQueen off of her children who had found this set in the garage sale and decided that Mom could sell all but Lightning McQueen. This is actually a geotrax set (three different sets to be exact) and three different Cars Megablock (kind of like leggos) sets.
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This is from another garage sale. It was a box labeled "Lightning McQueen and Thomas Lego Set, $15." I tried to talk the lady down to $10 because I didn't have any manuals to put the legos together. She wouldn't budge insisting there was at least an entire Mack truck set in there. Um, no...there wasn't. The one in the picture is the one I had from the set in the previous picture. So, I decided to wing it! This was what I came up with! We now have two Maters and two McQueens. It looks pretty cool!


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I had one of these in Jesstine's room. I had purchased it at a garage sale for about $15!! I was so pleased with it! It was quite functional! So, I have spent the last year looking for one for Emmitt. I didn't want to pay $99 for a brand new one, but it had about come to that. Until...my friends on facebook came to the rescue and invited me into a bunch of garage sale sites. They had posted that I was looking for one and people contacted me. I ended up buying this one (had to clean it up, but that is the joy of a plastic toybox; easy to clean) and it was not too far away from my house! The toybox didn't come with the Cars bin. That came with another shelving unit from a different garage sale. I didn't have the space for it, so I used the bins from it to organize this! :-)

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This was at a garage sale where the guy had multiples of BRAND new name brand toys and building sets! I spent a lot of money there! The best buy was this bike! It was $25 new in box (unassembled)! Online it is a $50 bike! :-) As you can see, Emmitt LOVES it! He is still slightly small for it, but he will grow into it.

Emmitt also made some big changes this summer. He is fully potty trained which caused some problems because he was also still in a crib. There was an incident where he couldn't get out of his bed to go to the bathroom so he went in his bed...and made a HUGE mess of it! So, after throwing away a crib sheet and washing blankets and such, I decided it was time to let him sleep in a toddler bed. Just like with potty training, I was afraid that he would be difficult...and he pleasantly surprised me! All it took were some Cars sheets (store bought AND provided by Aunt Ola) and a car every morning he stayed in his bed! It just had to be a red car or a Cars car.

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The cars pillow at the top is also a garage sale find (don't worry we cleaned it!).

I held a thirty-one party this summer and scored some really cool discounted items. My friend Kelly (Kylie and Carter's mommy) co-hosted it at my house and ended up with over $900 in sales! We were able to each get a hostess exclusive (I got Emmitt a backpack), I got two halfprice items and $25 to spend. She got $125 to spend!!! So all told we shared two exclusive items, $150 and two half price items!!! Here is a little peek of what I got:
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Emmitt's backpack. I plan to get a lunchbox to match! Jesstine has a pink dot backpack just like this.

The two blue/aqua bags and the navy striped bag in the top were all from my party. I purchased the large navy striped bag a few weeks before because it was on special in June! This is my new shopping system each week! :-)

Perhaps my favorite thing was this purse! Now I just need a wallet to match! :-)

I also hosted my niece for about a week while her mom and siblings were at camp and her dad was working. We had a lot of fun, but she ended up joining her mom at camp a little before I had intended. She got a little freaked out when our friend Kristina came over. Kristina recently had surgery. She has a genetic condition that caused her skull to not grow when her brain and other parts of her body do. She also was born without fingers or toes. She had surgery to basically move her whole face forward to where it would be when she becomes an adult. Part of this procedure involved breaking her jaw. She had to wear a halo that had a piece that attached to her mouth as well. So, my niece was too scared to join us that day. We took her out to camp to be with her mom.We had a lot of fun before that though!

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Dress up.

Her daddy is a Green Bay fan. She picked this blanket out at bedtime one night! :-)


A trip to Chickfila play place!


And of course a trip to the splash pad!


We took her to City Bites to give her a little taste of home! Actually, it was close by to where we were registering Jesstine for school. Afterward we took Jesstine to the Dentist.

Charis LOVED Jesstine and Emmitt's dentist office!

So why were we at the dentist you might ask?!

She had a tooth that had been loose for a couple of months. She was too chicken to just pull it. It started to cause a gum infection because she had the new tooth already coming in behind. So the dentist pulled it!

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Her first look inside her mouth.

She even got a little cute box for the tooth!

She left a note with the tooth for the tooth fairy. It was a great idea (so she thought) to have the tooth fairy bring her a power ranger or two instead of money.

The tooth fairy, named Petal Yewglitter to be exact, left a note in return explaining how hard it is for her to bring toys. :-)

I think that about sums it up. We will be getting back into the swing of things here this week. We took the paci away today. One more step to Emmitt being a big boy. I go back to work this week and Jesstine starts school on August 15! We also have some birthdays coming up!!! Until next time!

In Him,
The Hutchins Family