Family, Fun and Fried Chicken

Lyndsey, Emily and Sutton, a few of my Texas cousins were visiting last week.  We had a big old Hoosier feast at the farm on Friday complete with Grandma Esta-style fried chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and gravy, spinach salad and persimmon pudding. 

 

Between Evangeline, Cale and Sutton there was some serious cuteness going on.  Mom patted Cale's bottom until he fell asleep for the worlds longest nap, Evangeline just trotted around helping out with various things, and Sutton was all over the place on his new found walking legs.  

 

The day lilies have completely taken over the landscape and the view from Zach and Candice's porch is simply perfection.  

 

Kyle had to work and couldn't be with us this day, but happy belated Father's Day to all the Dads in my life. 

 

"Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you......"

 

Evangeline sure does love this little dude.....she's not too sure about the crying and fussing though.....

 

Finally, we got to go to our first band concert of the year.  With the rain and our travels we've missed several.  We plan to attend as many as we can.  It's a perfect way to end a summer night. 

The lightning bugs have been absolutely incredible this year.  I've been up many a night during the wee hours and have see their splendor down in our woods.  I don't see how anyone could look upon the perfection of nature and deny a divine Creator.  It's all a miracle.



The Sweet Days of Summer

Monday was our annual berry picking/jam making day.  The crop could not have been better.  We only had to travel down a few yards in one row before we had our boxes filled to the brim with delicious strawberries.  Evangeline was really into it this year.  Her excitement was not to be contained.  "Mom, look at this one!",  " I found a whole orchard over here!",  "Grandma, look at my box!"  After we picked all the berries we could handle we stopped at their little market for some ice cream.  We spent the rest of the day making some mouthwatering jalapeno/strawberry jam, over 20 jars I believe.  Grandma can check "canning a batch all by herself" off of her summer bucket list.  She's got it down. 

 

My apologies to the man who's rear-end is sticking up in the background :) 

 

I have such fond memories of picking blackberries and raspberries at the farm with Grandma Esta and Zachary.  We would pick them for breakfast.  Grandma would put some in a bowl for each of us and add some milk and sugar on top.  When an ant would scamper out of our berries we would call her attention to it, she would remove the ant and reply, "oh, that's not going to hurt anything".   After seeing she had not a shadow of disgust about this, us city kids finished out breakfast without batting an eye.  

 

Maybe Evangeline will look back someday at her berry picking days with her Mommy and Grandma and smile too. 

A Girl's World

The softball season has come to an end.  We are all sad to see it go.  It was a lot of fun.  Evangeline did a great job at this sport.   Her last two games were awesome.  She hit every ball from a pitch.  Kyle did a great job practicing with her at home.   She's learned a lot. 



 

 

Evangeline was invited to the most girly birthday party I've ever seen or heard of.  It was for Chloe Landrus and it was held at Club Tabby.  What is Club Tabby you ask?  It's a place where they've taken every single thing little girls love and rolled it all in to one place at the mall.   The party started with picking out the perfect dress to wear while they had your nails, hair and makeup done in their own kid-sized spa area.  They could pick from 4 different looks.  They all went with the "rainbow rockstar".   After that is was a parade around the mall to show off their new style.  Then it was back to Club Tabby for some freeze dancing, games, cake and presents at the "party palace".  The girls were loving ever minute of it.    

 

We met Amy for dinner after the party and Evangeline got a lot of comments, complements and questions, which she gladly indulged.   She couldn't wait to get home to show her dad!  

 

And here are a few for your nightmares...... This is what happens when a 5 year old is sent home with a goody bag of real makeup.  Yikes!!  

Disney World

Us Hutsons just returned from a JAM PACKED week of Disney magic with Wayne and Karen and the Hwangs.  The phrase "I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation" never rang truer.  We had such an amazing time and it was worth every pregnant, exhausted, hot and sweaty, swollen ankle moment of it. 

 

*You can read all about our trip in the separate book I made exclusively about our Disney vacation.  (It's the book with the word "vacation" spelled wrong right smack on the cover, which is classic Adrienne.)



Summer Kick-Off

Memorial Day weekend is a great way to kick off summer vacation.  It was nice to have Kyle home for 3 days to hang out with us.  We've been busy playing outside.  Kyle found this snake in our driveway.  It was a big one.  He was fun to watch.   



 

Lately it's been Evangeline's dream to have some kind of stand in her front yard.  A few weekends ago it was a library.  She put a bunch of her books in a suitcase and made bookmarks and cards to stamp for each book.  Then she just hung out in the yard next to her little suitcase full of books thinking someone was just going to come by and check one out.  Seeing as there would be no neighbors waltzing by anytime soon, we called the grandmas.  They both came and made her little library dreams come true.    

 

Here's a picture of the book marks and cards she made for each book.  The card on the left says, "When you are ready to bring it, you can bring it."  The one on the right says, "If your child wants to keep it, say no."

 

This past weekend it was a lemonade stand.  She went ahead and made signs and set everything up on Saturday afternoon.  Once again we called Ammie to come over to patron her stand.  We whipped up some delicious lemonade and were thrilled to see that Granny was accompanying Ammie when she rolled up the drive.  Even more sensational....Ammie told her friend about it and she came with another friend!  That's a total of 4 customers!!  It was very exciting.  Evangeline decided not to charge for her lemonade and as an added treat to her supporters she put out what is left of her Halloween candy for her guests.  

 

I think I forgot to mention that on the night of her big library open house she had her first experience with a wasp sting.  She leaned back on one of the nasty little critters on the front porch.  Kyle saw it all happen.  He tried to calmly tell her not to lean back thinking it wouldn't scare her, but it was too late.  She ran into the house screaming like a banshee, eyes as big as silver dollars.  There was just no comforting the poor creature.  She screamed and cried for a good 10 minutes.  We tried everything I could think of...ice packs, lavender oil, popsicles.  She keeps screaming random things like, "I can't help it! I can't stand it!  I've never been stung before, I never thought I would!".  When she finally was able to cope again I reminded her that she could tell her friends that she got stung by a wasp at school the next day.  This idea brought her a little flicker of happiness. 

 

Evangeline's first day of summer break was on Friday.  I had to work that day so she stayed with Ammie.  When I picked her up from Ammie's she immediately came home and asked for a dress that was hanging in her closet, which she wanted to change in to.  She was going to have to wait a few minutes because I had to carry a few things in from the car.  She met me at the door saying, "Mom, I am totally a 1st grader.  I got the dress down all by myself"!  Pleased as punch. 

 

She said another funny thing the other day as she burst into the house in total disgust..."O.M.G. someone littered!!!".  She came in carrying a nasty Styrofoam cup she found in the yard and promptly threw it in the trash can. 

 

Kyle and I celebrated 8 years of marriage last Tuesday.  It's hard to believe, and at the same time it isn't.  We've crammed a lot of events into the last 8 years.  It's been a wonderful 8 years and I'm so happy I get to share my life with him.   I'm looking forward to many many more wonderful years together. 



Cale's Baptism

Cale's baptism was this morning at the beautiful St. Stephen's Episcopal Church.  It was a lovely service and Cale was so sweet and bewildered through the whole thing.  Our family and Candice's family went to Sunday brunch at St. Mary's afterwards.  Such a special day.   

 

 

Evangeline wanted to show her grandpa the Shell Chapel so they walked over together to check it out.  She was wearing her new shoes and got a blister on her toe.  It was straight up drama.  

 

 

 

Cheer, Cheer, Sniffle, Sniffle

We really know how to make the last week at South School the most stressful, jam-packed week of the year.  Tuesday was Activity Day which means LOTS of fun for the kids, and also means no breaks, no lunch and exhausted teachers!  The theme was "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".  The kids wore their athletic gear.  There were 4 bounce houses, Zumba, and tons of games.  I watched Evangeline when I got the chance.  She was a Zumba queen.  It was hysterical to watch her and her classmates breaking it down from across the way.  Reagan's mom took some pictures for me of their soccer dribbling contest. 

 

Today was the last day of school for the little kiddos....that's where the cheers come in.  This also means it was Evangeline's very last day of kindergarten (insert sniffles).  I can't believe how fast the school year went.  She had an amazing year with an amazing teacher.  She has a nice foundation in reading and I can't wait to see it really take off next year in first grade....um, wait....yes I can wait actually.  Let's slow down the clock a little.  

I have been going through one of my super sentimental phases lately and yesterday I heard a Taylor Swift song (of all things) that nearly brought me to my knees:

 

"To you, everything's funny
You got nothing to regret
I'd give all I have honey
If you could stay like that
I won't let nobody hurt you
Won't let no one break your heart
No one will desert you
Just try to never grow up"

 

There.  I did it.  I can't believe I just quoted a Taylor Swift song, but geez, this one just sums it all up.  I want to keep her as she is, under my mommy wing forever.  Even in the first grade I'm flabbergasted at what they hear and learn from other kids.  I'm not ready for it.  Anyway, this whole done-with-kindergarten business hasn't been easy for me.  I'm ready to enjoy my sweet, innocent, precious, adorable, fantastic, amazing little girl all summer long.