Somebody Say Howdy

Each week we 3 Hutsons watch The Marty Stewart Show together on Rural TV.  Not only is it a fun show to watch, but they always have great music and special guests.  It's just all-around great family broadcasting.  Anyway, somehow Kyle found out that Marty Stewart and His Fabulous Superlatives would be in Windsor, IL, which is about an hour from here.  We couldn't miss it.  They were playing at their town's Harvest Festival.  We debated on telling Evangeline ahead of time, or keeping it as a surprise.  We ended up telling her.  She was as excited as we were!  The fair rides were just icing on the cake.  

They put on a great concert.  They even played the theme song for The Marty Stewart Show and he said his catch phrase, "Somebody say howdy to me right now!"  Evangeline screamed howdy.  Her mouth hung wide open for about the first 5 minutes of the concert.  After the show we got to meet the whole gang: Marty Stewart, Cousin Kenny, The Apostle Paul and Handsome Harry.  Evangeline said, "it was pretty cool that Marty Stewart told me I could say 'howdy' to him whenever I want and that they said happy birthday to me!" 

Kindergarten

Here's the official first day of school picture.  My goodness.  It was emotional for me.  I walked her down to the gym where the children drop off their backpacks.  From there she was ushered outside, away from me and off into the real world of her school years.  

 

 

I looked out for her every chance I got that day.  The kindergarten playground is right outside my classroom window.  The kindergarten has recess during the 1st grade snack time.  I saw her climbing on the spider web the moment she got out there which instantly made me nervous since she's never been on it before.  I've always coddled her on the playground due to her unsteadiness, her size and her low muscle tone.  (I've done it ever since she was able to walk and old habits die hard.)  I kind of expected her to go right for it as soon as she got her first taste of freedom.  Sure enough, she got stuck on it.  I passed out snack to my students and kept peeking out to see if she ever made her way down.  The situation was weighing on my and I had this vision of her panicking if she was still stuck up there and the bell rang.  I saw her little buddies up there trying to instruct her on where to stick her foot to get down.  I couldn't take it.  Professionalism went out the window (literally).  I opened the window and yelled to one of her classmates to get the duty teacher and tell them that Evangeline was stuck on the spider web.  It took a time or two of this yelling, but finally I got the attention of an adult who had to climb the web and get her down to safety. 
Things have gotten easier for me over the past 2 weeks.  She's doing great out there.  She's mastered the spider web, so that's one less thing for me to worry about.  When I see her in the hallway we flash each other the "I love you" sign in sing language.  I love having her at school with me.  The next picture is one of those perks of being a teacher mom.  I get to see her just a'swinging away as I leave for my lunch break each day. 

 

Here are the first two papers she brought home.  

Here We Go...



We are at the pinnacle of tomato season, which means I am a very happy girl.  I can eat my weight in these little delights of nature.  I don't care how they're fixed up if even fixed at all.  This particular day I made a tomato, basil and goat cheese tart and all was right with the world.  

 

Well, ready or not school has begun....for me at least.  Evangeline had her preschool orientation last Thursday.  Sadly, I will never be able to attend these things with her since I will be giving my own classroom orientation.  Kyle took her.  She was so excited.  She got to bring her backpack full of supplies.  Peggy took her to pick out her backpack and she chose Ever-After High.....hmmmm, interesting choice.  Her first full day won't be until Monday, but I took her picture anyway.  She wore her little sailor outfit and her hair in pigtails.  Sigh.  I can't take it.   

 

Me: "I can't believe my baby will be in Kindergarten."

Evangeline:  "But you know your baby will be having fun."

She was only at orientation for an hour and then Kyle took her to Ms. Linda's for the rest of the day.  She was so exhausted that evening that she fell asleep on the couch at 6:30 while I was cooking dinner.  I couldn't even wake her to eat.  She really needed a bath after playing at Ms. Linda's all day, but their was no rousing her.  I ended up transferring her to her bed and there she slept the whole night through.  She woke up in her little sailor outfit, hair still in piggy-tails.  

 

Oh, we have had so much fun with Amy.  We are so happy she has moved back to us.  It just wasn't right with her gone.  Evangeline will have to deal with twice the silly now that she is back.  

Through the Eyes of a Munchin

I reluctantly handed over my point and shoot camera to the hands of little Evangeline the other day.  She asked if she could take some pictures.  I'm always nervous she's going to drop it and it's already on it's last leg.  She was very careful with it though and I very much enjoyed looking through her pictures....her subjects, her vantage point.  They're a little window into her world.....

 

If you look closely in this last picture you will see my dad on the porch recovering from some pretty major sinus surgery.  We had to nurse the poor guy back to health one day last week.  He was not happy about having to be watched all day long, but I was happy to be able to take care of him even though I practically had to knock him out to get him home with me, suborn old man.



Jammin' at the Cabins

We took a little day trip to the Lincoln Log Cabins last Sunday.  Evangeline had been there before with Peggy so she was very excited to show me around and was a lovely little guide.  Kyle joined in a bluegrass jam and played for a few hours with several other musicians.  We had fun watching him play with the group.  He did awesome and rocked all of his solos.  I was pretty proud of him.  The cabins were great.  One cabin was an original and the other was a replica of the home of Thomas Lincoln  (Abe's father) and Sarah Bush Lincoln.  The original was lost when they disassembled it and took it to the State Fair in the early 1900's.  They call the Lincoln Log Cabins "living history" and had several people playing the parts of the people who once lived there going about their daily chores.  They never broke character.  We also stopped off at Thomas Lincoln's grave.  Kyle stated, "if it's historical the Hutsons are there". 

Around Here

Summer break is winding down just a little too fast for me.  I've spent many an hour in the classroom and there is still just so much to be done.  Thanks to Peggy's help with some deep cleaning around here, at least my house will be in order before we start back.  

 

Oh summer, I shall hate to see you go.... 

 

Here is an Egyptian on a pyramid Evangeline recently drew....

and how I love her flowers.....

 

Kyle put a target up on the backside of the window for archery practice.  All three of us have had a lot of fun with the bow and arrow she got for her birthday. 

Evangeline:  "Daddy was creative.  He's a genius."

 

We've also been easy-bakin' up a storm.  In fact, the night of her birthday party she actually slept with one of her mixes.  She was in my face the next morning asking if we could promptly "get to baking".  We did.  I couldn't bare to make her wait any longer for fear she'd burst. 

This morning I was sound asleep when a little face appeared inches from mine saying, "Mommy, how come you didn't say 'bless you'?"  She apparently sneezed and missed it.  I promptly said, "bless you". 

Evangeline and I went to the White Violet Center for a garden tour to see where our vegetables grow.  It was a rainy, cool day, but we had a nice time walking around in the squelchy garden.  There were a lot of different foods prepared by the workers that were made from the produce.  Evangeline impressed a lot of people as she strutted around munching on kale and drinking green "garden juice".