Fun

Evangeline starts almost every sentence with "I have to tell you something" or "You know what's cool....".

Evangeline asked me tonight what the 10 commandments said.  I told her things like don't lie, don't hurt other people, etc.  (the kid friendly version)  She was quick to add, "and only pray to God and Jesus, definitely not to a baby calf!"

Evangeline loves to get creative with paper, tape, scissors, and whatever else she can find.  She made this lovely hat and some other accessories one day last week.  She made her self into a "Terra Cotta Lawyer". 

 

Kyle and I went to the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Festival for the third year in a row.  We always have a great time.  We had a prime camp spot, ate great food, heard some amazing bands and got a few new CDs.  While we were there Evangeline spent the day and night with Mom.  Uncle Zach and Candice came to play.  Evangeline is all about her Uncle Zachary. 

I've been enjoying watching Evangeline take swimming lessons this week.  She is working very hard with her teacher, Ben.   I'm proud of her.  I have gotten the biggest kick out of listening to what she chats to Ben about as she is kicking her little self across the pool. 

I made a delicious smoothie with roasted beats from our CSA....beats, raspberries, strawberries and yogurt.  That thing was bright pink.   It was stunning to look at and so yummy to taste.  I also made a tasty dish using my CSA garlic scapes and oregano.  The garlic scapes were very good.  They had more of an essence rather than a distinct garlic flavor, more mild I guess you could say.  The sweet peas were absolutely scrumptious.  Evangeline helped me prepare them and at so many of them raw.  On that note, she buttered all of the pieces of bread for our grilled sandwiches the other night and was pleased as punch with herself.  A big girl for sure.

 

Evangeline now has her first and last name down.  She is going to be all ready for school in the fall. 

A not so great part of my week was having a wisdom tooth extracted.  This was my first experience with dental work.  I had myself totally worked up.  Surprisingly it wasn't too bad and I was shocked at how fast they got it out.  It's going to take some time to shake the sound replaying in my head of the tooth being cracked out of my skull though.  Totally sick.

Sally's Wild Night

We always participate in the summer reading program at the library each year.  This year one of the activities they held was a furry-friend overnight.  The kids got to bring in a stuffed toy to spend the night at the library.  They had a snack and story with their toy and then tucked them for the night.  We picked our toy up the next day and got to see pictures of all the things the toys did during the night at the library.  Evangeline decided to bring one of her favorite dolls, Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Here are the pictures we got to show us what Sally did during the night.  Looks like she had fun. 

Ahhhh... Sweet, Sweet Summer

The slumber party was a success!  They girls had a great time and FINALLY went to sleep.  Savannah asked me to help her with some of the craft kits she got for her birthday.  I was more than happy to assist her.  The one she chose to start with was a stitched headband.  The little ones didn't want to miss out so they worked diligently on Evangeline's sewing cards.  It was so cute looking around at our little sewing circle. 


"Frozen" inspired toenails....


Well I may be a bit behind the times, but I just discovered Spotify and OH MY.....I think I have listened to Gillian Welsh's "Orphan Girl" about 100 times today.  Evangeline and I have also been dancing our selves silly to some of our current favorites.  One favorite is "Young Blood" by The Naked and Famous .  Since the word "bittersweet" is mentioned in the lyrics she asked me what it means.  I told her that it's kind of like when something good happens, but you're a little bit sad about it....like how Mommy feels about her growing up....it's a good thing that she's growing up, but it makes Mommy kind of sad.  She told me that she could just drink a lot of coffee and stay the same size.  I thought that was a pretty clever idea since I always tell her that she can't drink coffee because it will stunt her growth. 
So we love to dance....our "dance parties" as we call them are loads of fun.  We make up dance routines and then do tricks off the side of the couch.  She thinks I'm pretty amazing.  She is amazing.  Oh she is such my little bud. 

We picked zillions of strawberries last week and put up over 20 jars of jam with mother.  E.B. ate a ton of them.  I was kind of worried since they weren't washed first, but she was sneaking them right and left.  She was covered in tell-tale juice stains and had a red goatee.   Mom and I even found several green tops in our berry boxes when we got home. 

 

Here's my second CSA pick up!!!  YUM!  The raspberries got eaten in .2 by the little girl, and I roasted the beats for a salad that I'm planning on making tomorrow.  It's definitely a fun challenge to find ways to use all of these things.  A few of these veggies I've never prepared before (i.e. turnips and garlic scapes).  It's very exciting to go pick up our bag and check out what we got.  It's something Evangeline and I are both enjoying.  

 

We got a visit from this cute little fella today.  Turns out he doesn't trust purple ballerinas and decided high-tail it for the hostas.  

Dad, Daddy, Daddy-O, Old Man, Father of Wit and Wisdom, and Wayne too

The role of father also takes on many names around here and it's been a weekend of celebrating all the awesome dad's in our lives.  Evangeline and I went with my dad to Clay City, IN for the Pottery Festival on Saturday.  It was so much fun.  We ate a chicken dinner under a pavilion, watched a marching band perform local tunes, took a fabulous tour of the pottery factory and enjoyed an exceptionally beautiful day together.  The tour of the factory was so interesting.  This factory has been in production since 1885 and they still make their pottery in much of the same way that they did a hundred years ago.  It was very fascinating to see how they manufacture so much pottery at once.  Their huge, old kiln is how I picture the oven in the story of Hansel and Gretel.  All of the clay they use for their pottery comes from right there in Clay City.  Dad bough 50 pounds to try on his own wheel.  

 

 

Since a little person around here is still all about the Asian culture with an emphasis on China, I broke out one of my old tea sets for her to play with while we were visiting at Dad's house.  This one is from Japan.  I have some really awesome things Terry sent me from Japan when I was little.  They have just been waiting for someone to play with them again.  

 

Later that evening we attended the wedding of another one of my former youth group kids, Dana Miller.  Kyle was actually asked to do the sound for her ceremony, so we were considered to be part of the wedding party.  It was quite the busy day.

 

On Sunday we visited Wayne.  After lunch the girls played in the sprinkler and then Karen, Kristen and I took the girls swimming.  Kyle got to chill out and do two of the things he loves best, play his guitar and nap.  

 

At this very moment Evangeline is having her first slumber party.  Oh, she was so excited to pull out the trundle bed and use it for the first time.  As I write this I'm listening to three giggling and whispering girls in their beds.  I already had to go in and remind them that it's sleepy time.  Hmmm, maybe they already forgot.  They've had a fun evening putting on a "silly fashion show" and watching Frozen for the 1,384, 359 time.  They recited every word and belted out every song.  During "Let It Go" we had a room full of little brown-haired Elsa's dancing around and singing at the tops of their voices.  Reminds me of myself after "The Little Mermaid" came out.  

What a nice weekend.  I'm happy we got to spend such special moments with our Dads this weekend.  Evangeline, we sure do have a lot of wonderfully amazing men in our lives. 

Ni Hio

Evangeline and I went to the Indianapolis Children's Museum with Ammie, Kristen, Savannah and Lily.  It was all things China this time around.  There was an exhibit with some of the real Tara Cotta Warriors on display.  It was a few bucks extra so Peggy, me and Evangeline got tickets (the Hwangs already had seen it).  Evangeline had the melt down of a lifetime right before we entered the exhibit.  There was a big fancy Chinese door to go though where we would watch a film before entering.  She was not having any part of it.  We even had a sweet old man that worked there coming up to see if he could help.  They ended up letting Evangeline and I go through the exit and bypass the film and door terror.  She was freaked out for pretty much that whole part of the museum.  Who could blame her though, they are pretty scary....

The rest of our day was awesome.  Evangeline is absolutely enthralled with China right now.  It was fascinating for her.  There's a really neat section where you ride a simulated airplane to China.  When you exit the other side it is made to look like you entered a Chinese village.  The kids could work in a Chinese restaurant, visit a tea room, a panda reserve, opera house, etc.  Very cool.

 

The dinosaur exhibit was also a hit. 



 

The way my calendar is looking our summer is just going to fly by.  I'm really trying to enjoy each day off while it lasts and not dwell on the fact that it's so fleeting.  The Lashbrooks have been over the past several mornings doing lots of little repairs and tune ups to keep the house nice....one of the perks of renting.  Evangeline and I have spent lots of time at our library making crafts and snacks, and oh yeah, reading too.  Our library has really been stepping it up.  Evangeline always has her hand up to volunteer for things during the programs at the library.  She even got called on to read something yesterday.  I wondered how that was going to play out, but the lady in charge did a great job feeding her the words and by golly she "read" it.

Her second tumbling class went awesome.  She even did a surprise front walk-over.  It was completely accidental.  I can't believe how fearless she is.  Most all I can think about while watching her is how she was a low muscle tone baby.  The doctor told me she would never be an athlete.  I wish I could take that doctor to her tumbling class.

Today Evangeline had a friend over to play, Rachel Beard, one of my students from last school year.  They had a wonderful time.  To my recollection, this was the first time we've had a friend over come over unaccompanied by their mother.  It went great.  I was exhausted though.  They were all over the place...the play set out back, the waterfall, playing with chalk in the drive way.  Even though Rachel is 7 the two girls played great together.  I got the biggest kick out of listening to the two of them chatter away.  When they were playing on the swing set I overheard Evangeline say to Rachel, "Did you know that all of my Mommy's grandpas and grandmas died so she doesn't have any more.  That's sad, isn't it."

 

While eating grapes this conversation happened: 

Me: You girls are eating so many grapes you're going to start turning purple.

Rachel:  Mrs. Hutson, can people really turn into fruit?

Me: No.  People can't really turn into fruit.

Evangeline:  Yeah, that's just an old tail feather.  (said with her wrinkled nose face)

Me: You mean old wives tail?

Evangeline: Oh, yeah. 

(We all got such a kick out of this.)

 

Also while eating grapes Evangeline said to Rachel, "You know what, one time I went to Grandpa's work and he gave me a bag of grapes.  That was nice, wasn't it?"  This incident she spoke of actually happened a year ago.  Those grapes really made an impression on her, I guess. 

 

We actually got to have some lazy summer mornings last week.  I love starting my day with coffee and Chutes and Ladders with my girl.  Oh, how I love being a summertime stay-at-home mommy.  I wish it could last forever.



Food and Faith

Homemade and homegrown; this is going to be the theme of my summer.  I've been drawing inspiration from Mary Jane Butters, the ultimate farm chick (I got a surprise subscription to Mary Jane's Farm in the mail).  So far I've started off with a bang.  This week my shadow and I made two loaves of Struan and vanilla ice cream.  You simply can not beat homemade....such flavor, such gratification.  I've been telling Evangeline this over and over again.  

We got real local this week with a trip to our egg lady, the meat locker, and our first CSA pick up from White Violet Center.  Since I've resigned myself to the fact that I can't grow anything in the middle of the woods I decided to invest in a crop share.  Our first collection exceeded my expectations.  We got kale, strawberries, mustard greens, turnips, carrots, radishes, head lettuce, some other kind of leafy mix and rainbow chard. 

First of all, the whole experience of picking up our share was wonderful.  Evangeline and I got to St. Mary's earlier than we needed to so that we could take a walk on the grounds, which is one of my favorite places in the world.  We visited the stations of the cross and the cemetery for the nuns.  Oh my goodness, you could just see the little wheels turning in Evangeline's mind.  We used to come here last summer, but she is understanding a lot more now that she's a little older.  She has been having a struggle excepting anything to do with death and she is full of questions on the subject.  She is so sensitive about it.  It's so hard for me to decide what to tell her.  I want to protect her from the thoughts of pain and loss.  I'm trying to focus on the positive side of death.  Anyway, as we were walking around the cemetery we happened upon an older woman (a nun) that asked if we had seen a few Sisters in full habits walking around.  We spotted them headed to the Shell Chapel.  She invited me and Evangeline to visit the Shell Chapel of St. Ann along with them.  Like an idiot I asked her who St. Ann was and she had to explain to me that she was the mother of Mary.  (I'm not sure that factoid is in the protestant Bible.  If so, I've totally missed it.)  We entered the Shell Chapel and there were the three nuns praying on their knees.  I could feel Evangeline's hand tightening around mine.  She wasn't sure what was going on.  The shell chapel was amazing.  It was very small and entirely covered in shells....from the Wabash River no less- they were big shells too, huge bivalves!  The sweet woman explained that Mother Theodor prayed to St. Ann for a safe passage across the sea.  If they made it safely they would build a shrine to her, hence the Shell Chapel.  She also gave us a relic of Mother Theodore.  I looked at it closely and it said that it was made from linin that touched a bone from Mother Theodore.  There is so much about Catholicism I can not wrap my head around, yet it fascinates me.  Evangeline's mind was blown.  As soon as we left the sisters their was question after question.  I didn't have the answers to many of them and if I did it just lead to more difficult questions that were nearly impossible to explain to a 4 year old.  She loved the whole experience though.  I can't wait to go back.  St. Mary's is a special place.

 

E.B. decided she wanted to give tumbling a try this summer.  She had her first class Wednesday afternoon.  She had a great time.  It's just her and another little girl, so there is no waiting in line time.  She was non-stop from the second it started.  

 

I started tapping with the dance instructor at Fusion on Monday nights. I feel very awkward and out of practice, but what fun!!  Next week I'm bringing Evangeline to watch her rusty, old mom in action.  

Lil' Bud

We kicked off the first week of summer vacation with Vacation Bible School.  No rest for the weary around these here parts.  Evangeline and I have had a wonderful time.  I've said it before, but we have the best church family.  I love those people.  Evangeline and the other children have had a very meaningful and special time at VBS this year.  I have enjoyed being the craft teacher.  E.B. has gotten a kick out of me teaching the craft lesson each day.  She lights up when she comes to my station and wants to be right up with me the whole time.  The past few years I've been a "shepherd" with her age group.  This year it's been fun watching her interact with her peers without me right there the whole time.  Ahhh, she's growing up....and into a mighty fine little person I might add.

Summer beauty is all around us.  We enjoy walks together and she chatters non-stop about things like her birthday and plans for her party.  I love listening to her little invitations of machines that make your dreams come true.  This was the topic of our 20 minute walk tonight.