More bows. I know, I know...

My usual down time is while Ian takes his nap and I fill that time with propping my feet up and reading or blogging. Well, that pattern has changed recently. I've been being crafty and trying out this bow thing. It's been fun. Josh keeps laughing at me, because he's never seen me get so focused on a hobby. I've learned a lot with advise from family and friends and from browsing the internet. I've become friends with my glue gun. We have each other figured out now. I figured out that I prefer sewing the middle of my bows, rather than using wire-my mom taught me to sew buttons and mend clothes when I was pretty young, so I guess I just feel more comfortable with that. I've also been checking the Gymboree, Children's Place, Baby Gap, and Old Navy websites for the latest and greatest in girl clothes. I already have my eye on some outfits that I will wait to go on sale. That's no new thing, I do this with boy clothes too and have it down to a science. Patience is a virtue in my shopping adventures. So there you have it. That's where my mind has been for the past week. Oh, and I've been planning for Ian's b-day party and preparing for my first lesson to teach in Relief Society this Sunday-at least I got to choose the topic: charity. I could go on for days about charity. That's all now. The End.

Bug Clips

This is what I've been doing in my free time and my
not-so-free-but-I-locked-myself-in-the-back-room time.
Thanks for all of the advice, peeps. This is a butterfly and bumblebee, both on a wrapped alligator clip. I made the korker ribbon myself. Go here to see how to make bug bows, korker ribbon, and other fun stuff (thanks Erika).

Must...Buy...Girl...Clothes.

Now, how was I supposed to pass up getting this cute tiny little dress
with those teeny ladybug shoes? Tell me. Look closely and you'll see the hair clip I made-clipped to the shoe hanger. I have some time to perfect that art. As soon as I do, you can rest assured that little Afton will have one in every color!

Poor Ian has to tag along with me and my shopping adventures. On this particular day, I was shopping for him-looking for birthday party ideas. I can't decide on Firetrucks or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The latter seems to be an easier task so far.

Girl!

Notice the punctuation change? Not a ? but a ! We had another ultrasound this morning. I had Coco Puffs and a Dr. Pepper to make sure the baby moved this time around. We have a confirmation that the baby is a GIRL! We're really excited!!! So....her name is officially Afton Sage. She's named after my mom's mom. The middle name could change, but for now we like it. Now, I need some assistance from Jessica Remington, Alacey, or any of you that have made cute girl hair bows. I bought some alligator clips and ribbon to make cute hair bows, but on my first attempt, the hot glue is just too messy and I bought some ribbon glue, but I want something that dries fast. Any suggestions? I'm not waisting any time on girly crafts!!

Birthday Report

The actual day of Josh's birthday, we went to our favorite place for lunch: Dempsey's.
We had their fried mozzarella sticks (the best in the world) and the French Dip with fries.
GOOD GRAVY! (Where does this phrase come from, anyway?)
Ian was with us at lunch while Ayden was in school. As soon as Ayden was out, the boys went to Aunt Robin's house while Josh & I went to see Valkyrie-great movie, and thanks to Robin.

Saturday night we had a joint birthday party for Josh and our friend/distant relative, Michael Billings. Together they made 57 years old! Or the age of Heinz, as our friend Phillip pointed out.
Jeni & Aaron were our poster children for "Happy!"

The birthday boys.

We had at least 20 people in our house and rocked out to "Rock Band"! We had a great time.
The kids loved helping daddy. Ayden got inventive by making drumsticks out of his
Tinker Toys and played his drum right on the beat with all of the songs.
Thanks to Melanie (Michael's wife) for helping plan and execute the bash!

A Mother Can Boast, Can't She?

I can't believe it took me this long to brag about Ayden's last accomplishment. I'll give a quick back story. Ayden has known the sounds of all of the letters of the alphabet for a while now. Recently he has been sounding out words while we're talking, and telling us what letter they all start with. I thought this might mean that he was ready to read, so I bought the "Bob Books" which are like the Old "Dick and Jane" books we had as children. Last week I sat down with him with the first book. After about 45 minutes of serious concentration, HE READ THE BOOK!!!!!!!! The following night he read the second book in about 15 minutes (it had all of the same words from book 1 and added about 3 new ones). I was so thrilled, I think I scared Ayden a little bit. He was like, big deal, mom. I tried another little excercise with him, and had him sound out "cat" and spell it on paper, which he did! Okay, mommy boasting time is over.

Birthday Boy!

On this day, thirty one years ago, the stars and planets aligned Capricorneously, bringing forth the most perfect male ever to exist on earth, Joshua Martin Hutchinson. He grew up a happy boy, despite the challenging curves life threw at him. He always knew there was a deeper meaning to life than what his eyes beheld. One glorious evening, a young woman's eyes beheld this glorious being and she was instantly enamored of him. They were a match written in the heavens from that day forth, and they have since built their own heaven together.
Okay, seriously. Josh, I love you more and more every day. I wish you a happy birthday and many more to come. I'm not listing thirty one things about you (okay maybe later, if you want) but I am letting it be known on the world wide web that you are an excellent husband and father and I am so lucky to be able to share my life with you!
Now a special tribute from the UK starring Dixie and Markus Mann: Brace yourself!

Football (the real kind, not futbol Americana)

A game just isn't right without some nachos and cheese!

Post-game storming the field (see Ayden in the orange shirt?)

Ayden and Dakota getting some energy out (thank goodness)

Robin and Dakota rode with us to New Orleans on Saturday (and Jeni, Aaron & Calyn met us there) to watch Brent coach his soccer team. It was a perfect day to be outside. Catholic High tied Jesuit, so it turned out to be a good game too. The kids enjoyed exploring the bleachers and dragging around a scrap piece of turf. I didn't get very many pictures because we were all too busy corralling the kids. Good times.

?

Little foot

Profile with fist in mouth

There you have it. Girl? "Those look like girl parts to me, but I can't be certain." is the direct quote from the ultrasound tech. We have another ultrasound scheduled on Jan. 23rd, because our baby was non-compliant and didn't give us a good view of her spine, face, or umbilical chord. So, we have an indefinite result here. Having only experienced seeing little penis's, we are pretty sure that it is a girl, because from that same angle we have obvious male parts for Ayden and Ian. We'll be sure (hopefully) in another 2 weeks. Ugh. In the meantime, I plan on browsing around the other side of the children's clothing stores for the first time just to get familiar with some new colors!
For all of you recent moms of girls, what do you think?

This Is a Test...This Is Only a Test

I know I've been posting a lot lately, but I've been frustrated with not being able to post any videos for a while now. I finally got one to work! This is me chasing Ian last night. Ignore our messy house, please.

Pregnancy Update

I'm not sure if everyone looks at the sidebar every week, but that's where I've been putting weekly updates for a while. I reached 20 weeks and realized that I don't have any belly pictures. Josh is back to work today and Ayden is back in school, so I had to use the self timer on my camera to get this shot. I tried about 6 times before I got this one. It was really funny because I only gave myself two seconds to get in position. I will not share the other results, just the best one I could get. This Friday we will finally find out the gender. Josh and I have both had strange dreams about finding out. Josh actually shrank and journeyed inside my womb to talk to HER in his dream. In my dream, I gave birth to a hermaphrodite. Not pleasant. Anyway, I'm excited to reach the halfway mark. The second trimester has been pretty easy for me. I'm just tired, I get the occasional round ligament pain, and if I do too much my feet feel bruised and my hips feel like they might crack in half. I can live with all of that!

Robin Kinchen and the Voodoo Revue

My Aunt Videt called me about a week ago because she saw one of my best friends on the line-up at the House Of Blues in New Orleans. Robin and I have been out of touch lately, but she's one of those friends that I can call and we talk like we just saw each other yesterday.
Naturally, I HAD to go see her gig, so Aunt Videt came with me. We had an adventurous night. I had to drive through torrential rain-at one point hail was hitting the van so hard I thought the windshield would break. We had NO umbrella, so we got soaked walking from the JAX brewery parking lot to the House of Blues. The opening act, which lasted about an hour, was HORRIBLE. They were equivalent to my Junior high Jazz Band, seriously. Noise, noise, noise. After surviving all of this torture, Robin finally started her show at 10:15pm (my usual bedtime) and I was FLOORED! I already knew she would sing great, but she was backed up by an amazingly talented band. Anyone who knows me well enough, knows that I'm pretty darned critical when it comes to music. She really has a good thing going. I hope she makes it big. She had a lot of originals and a few covers. If you google search "Robin Kinchen and the Voodoo Revue" you can find her my space page with a couple of songs, but let me tell you, she was a solo act with those recordings. She sounds so much better now with her band. They haven't been to a studio yet-they've only been together for three months-but as soon as they have one, I'm getting a cd and spreading the love. P.S. you can imagine how my Sunday went after getting home at 1:30am and having to make it to church at 9:00am. Let's just say I had a good nap that afternoon. I'm such an old fogey!

Happy 2009 Everyone!

Another failed attempt at trying to catch a golden moment.
Nowadays, I can't get any footage of Ian.
If he sees the camera, he wants to look at the pictures on it.
Imagine Ian hanging back like Ayden and you'll envision what I tried to capture.

Playing "dress up" at our house is a little different with no girls.
No princess dresses, tutus, or little plastic high heels.
We had a few friends over for New Year's Eve.
Of course it's not a party until Ayden puts on his cowboy gear topped off with a Kool-aid smile.
Isn't Brooklyn the cutest Buzz you've ever seen? They had so much fun together.

The whole group. Josh made delicious burritos with tortillas made from scratch.
We had lots of munchies, watched LSU finally play a good game, and played "Encore". I have some video of that, but I can't post any videos lately. Bummer.