Good-bye 2012 and Baby Food

A little while ago, I wrote about making Lila baby food.  I mentioned that it is difficult to find very many baby food recipes because it is so simple to make.  I have realized that it's also difficult to find recipes because babies don't eat it for very long. Lila has decided that her New Year's resolution is to no longer eat baby food, even though her mom just made a whole new batch of mangoes and peaches.  Sacrifices must be made.

So we have said good-bye to baby food and are starting to try some new foods.  Her all time favorite as of yesterday was peas.  I could take them to the store and feed them to her like candy when she got fussy.  But as of dinner tonight, Lila's new favorite is goat cheese.  That girl was grabbing it out of my hand before I could even get it on the tray.

She is also a fan of clementines, noodles, cheddar cheese, pears, carrots, and hard boiled eggs.  I think we'll try foie gras tomorrow.

I Dreamed A Show In Time Gone By

I wouldn't call myself one of those "extreme" fans of the musical Les Miserables.  I might be sitting here in my Les Miserables sweatshirt, and I may have thrown a going away party in high school when Les Mis went off Broadway.  I may own three different soundtracks, have seen the performance done professionally over ten times, and performed in it as Young Eponine at my high school when I was a sophomore.  I may already be grooming Lila to play Young Cosette...but extreme?  I don't think so.

Ok, so I like it a little bit.  I was super psyched when I heard that they were finally doing a movie, and Johnny and I traced the movie's progress over the last year.  I wasn't really planning to write up a review of it, but after a lengthy email chain back and forth between two of my good high school friends, I decided that the internet world could use a good one sided discussion of the movie, sorted by character.  So here we go!

Jean Valjean: I was very pleased when I heard that Hugh Jackman was going to play Jean Valjean.  Though my brother thought this was an odd prequel to X-Men, I have heard recordings of Hugh's performances in various Broadway shows, so I was excited to see what he would do with the role.  I loved everything that he did.  I cried crocodile tears throughout "Valjean's Soliloquoy," and even though "Bring Him Home" was a bit too high, he acted his little Australian heart out.  Great work, Hugh.

Javert: I always like a villain, but Russell Crowe just didn't do it for me.  I don't know if it was the tightrope walking across buildings and bridges or the lack of vocal chops (ok it was the lack of vocal chops), but he was way down on my list of favorite Javerts.  Johnny, on the other hand, thought he did great.  He liked his rustic-y-ness.

Fantine: Hands down, the best Fantine ever.  She was the perfect age, had the perfect look, and played the part with such feeling and truth.  Interesting fact: I went to high school with her cousin, Mike Hathaway, and we all thought he was going to be Jean Valjean in our performance of Les Mis, but then he didn't try out for some reason that I can't remember, and John Kultgen got the part and was spectacular.  Small world.

Young Cosette: So sweet, so precious, and no fake accent...or if it was, it sounded real.  

Monsieur and Madame Thenardier: These were the ones I was most worried about going into the movie.  Lately, I have felt that Helena Bonham Carter has just been crazy over the top (seen HP lately? yeah...crazy), and Sacha Baron Cohen doesn't really have a Les Mis-y background besides Sweeney Todd.  But I thought they were fabulous!  They were anything but over the top, and they were able to bring humor to the roles without doing the way overdone jokes that the stage Thenardiers resort to. (Ah I stole something and dropped it on the floor, so I'll look at the ceiling and make it look like it fell out of the sky. So funny...ehhh.)

Regular Cosette: No one cares about you, Old Cosette.

Marius: Sigh...he's so dreamy.  I usually am not a huge Marius fan, but Eddie Redmayne played the part so honestly and sincerely, AND he didn't wear eyeliner.  I hate when guys in movies wear eyeliner.  No actual revolutionary students wore eyeliner.  Oh, he was also not a Jonas Brother.  Major props to him for that.

Eponine: Poor Eponine.  She was my only real disappointment.  Not only was she WAY too skinny (let's loosen that belt a little bit, my dear), but I didn't connect with her at all.  She is usually my absolute favorite character, but I almost didn't even notice her in the movie.  A few of her things were cut, but not extremely.  I think they made everyone else bigger and left her alone.  Poor, poor Eponine.  Great singing, though.

Gavroche, Enjolras, and the Students: Spectacular, perfect, stunning, wonderful.  I don't know what other words to use.  They didn't need big name actors for those parts, so they were able to find people who had the vocal ability and the acting ability.  I want to take Gavroche home with me, fix his teeth, and raise him as my own.  He can put his elephant in the backyard.

The set was fabulous.  The costumes were nice revamps of the originals.  They brought in some aspects of the book that can't fit in the stage production (like Javert admitting to turning in Monsieur Madeleine, Gavroche's elephant, etc), which I thought made it even better than the original musical.  One of my favorite things, though, was that the bishop at the beginning was played by Colm Wilkinson, the original Jean Valjean.  Sigh, I love him.

If you haven't seen it, I don't think I ruined anything here...except that there are no Jonas Brothers in it...or Taylor Swift.  Praise the Lord.

Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas! Here are some scenes from Lila's very first Christmas morning.

Lila's stocking was full of new snacks.  Her favorites were the freeze dried yogurt and fruit puffs.

 Grampie got Lila a tutu and hair clips in Florida Gator colors, and Grammie got Lila an adorable tea set.  Lila is opening it here.

I made Johnny a six pack carrier for his homebrew.

Lila has gotten really good at smiling for the camera. 

 Lila also got two books that Grammie and Grampie recorded for her...

...and a beautiful ballerina dress.

We all know that her favorite present was really the wrapping paper, though.

Johnny and my big present to Lila was a wagon that we got for free from the Abrams family. 

She loved the straps.

Here's the carnage after all the presents were opened.

After a brief nap, we packed up the rest of the presents and headed over to my parents' house.  Everyone on our list got some of Johnny's homebrew Stout and a monogrammed beer mug...or if you are my brother and sister, pajama pants.

And if you didn't make it to Les Mis today, you HAVE to go see it.  I cried through the entire movie.  I realize that I love Les Mis more than the average gal, but you will definitely not be disappointed.  It wasn't quite as good as the home videos that we watched of me dancing around in a swimming suit and tutu with my underwear sticking out, but it's a close second.

Nine Month Photo

Lila turned nine months old on the 18th, and I finally got around to doing her nine month photos.

Weight: 20 lb 15 oz (85%)
Height: 28.25 in (75%)

 

 

 

Home Videos

After posting on Wednesday, I realized that I didn't have very much recent footage of Lila and all her cool moves.  We're not super camera happy with her as I assume some of those modern parents are, but I still want some videos.

Here's Lila showing off her crawling.  Crawling has been a slow process just because she only does it if she really wants something, and she won't even crawl all the way to the thing.  She will stop part way there and reach for it. (The ornament is plastic, by the way.)

Here's Lila waving good-bye.  She wasn't even mimicking me; she just heard, "Bye bye" and did it.  We're preparing her for breaking up with a lot of boyfriends.

For the last few days, Lila has been pulling up onto her knees as you saw in the last post.  But two nights ago she pulled herself up to standing!  Very impressive.

The Herd is On The Move

We've all been a little sick around here the last few days, but Lila never lets a cold get her down.  Look what was waiting for me when I went to get her up from her nap!



Lila pulled herself up on her knees in her crib all by herself!

Lock up all your valuables.

Lila is on the move!

Just in the last few days Lila has gained lots of new abilities.  Her crawling is actual crawling now and not just up and down, up and down.  She can say, "Mama," and she can go from crawling to sitting.  I realized that I have no video of any of this.  Oops.

Ready or Not

I posted a few days ago about the next step our family is taking, becoming a foster family.  I mentioned that things are moving quickly, and we realized a few days ago that we are looking at mid-January for our first placement.  That meant I needed to get my rear in gear and start shopping...on craigslist!



I got a great sleigh crib on craigslist for $50 and got the lady to throw in the almost new mattress for free!



Then I was able to find 17 Bum Genius cloth diapers (if you haven't heard of my love toward cloth diapers, click here) for $8 a piece! They are normally $20 a piece.  Originally, I snubbed my nose at buying used ones, but this lady kept hers in better condition than I keep mine, so we're probably better off with hers anyway.  Lila eats a lot of prunes...enough said.



Then we were surprised by the Houghs at youth group last night with a car seat from a friend of theirs.  It even matches the one we already have! Lila could go in either this one or the infant one we currently have, so we'll just wait and see how big our next baby is.

Meanwhile, let's keep it real, this is a glimpse at what the rest of my house looks like.  Yes, those would be coats on my kitchen table as well as three cake stands, an unmade graham cracker house, an empty tin, and some mail.  I also still have a table in the middle of my living room, the dining room halfway painted, and cheerios EVERYWHERE.   When we visited Johnny at work today, we told his boss to let Lila crawl around on the carpet.  She was worried that it was too dirty, and Johnny said, "Our floors are probably dirtier." I didn't argue.

Gingerbread House Party 2012

One thing that I absolutely love about the Christmas season is hosting a Gingerbread Graham Cracker House Decorating Party.  I love planning it, getting the food ready, and frantically texting Katie to bring Parmesan cheese thirty minutes before it starts.  I build all the houses ahead of time and just let people decorate throughout the night with whatever they can find on the candy table.



I had a record turn out this year.  Even Lila's best friend Hayes got to come!



For food, I served bacon wrapped shrimp, candied pecans, sparkling candied cranberries, spinach dip puffs, sea salt caramels, mulled wine, a cheese platter bien sur, and...

...three kinds of macarons! After my long battle with the macaron, I have finally, for the most part, figured them out and was able to make Candy Cane Macarons, Gingerbread Macarons, and Chocolate Chunk Macarons.

Everyone did a great job making their houses.  Some people, like my cousin Melody in the front, have been making these houses with me since first grade when my mom threw our first decorating party.

In the background you can see our almost finished dining room.  I promise to post before and after pictures once we have things like curtains.

I really enjoyed myself at the party this year and even got to decorate a house because everyone passed Lila around .

In my mind, it's officially Christmastime!  Merry Christmas!

The One Where Johnny and Rachel Do Something Crazy

UPDATE: Since this post, we have flung ourselves feet first into fostering.  If you'd like to learn more about our fostering experience, tell me a little about yourself and ask to follow our private fostering blog, From Foster to Family.  The blog is private due for confidentiality reasons, but if you are interested in fostering, we'd love to share our experiences with you!

This is one of those posts with no pictures.  If you want to skip it, I understand.

Some of you might be thinking, "Gosh, Lila is already 8 months old.  When are Rachel and Johnny going to have another baby already?!" I know, I know, we are just so unreasonable, but we actually do have some sibling plans in the works; it's just not necessarily the way we originally thought we would grow our family.

We knew that moving back to Kansas was obviously an act of God.  Johnny was interviewed and hired at a company where he didn't even attach his resume to the initial email.  We sold our house in Philadelphia after three days on the market, and I was able to start right back up working with the Adams.  What we didn't realize is that in moving here we would be able to reconnect with our Wheaton friends Tate and Abby at the Global Orphan Project benefit last year.  In talking to them there and numerous times later on, we were able to hear about their passion for helping local orphans through the foster care system.  As we learned more about the system, God continued to throw other friends in our path who had made similar decisions.

Johnny and I had talked about adoption before as something we might be interested in at some point, but after learning more about fostering and seeing the help that our friends were providing these children, our hearts quickly softened to the idea.  A few months after Lila was born, Johnny and I decided to start pursuing becoming foster parents with the intent to hopefully adopt out of the system. (The primary concern as a foster parent is to reunify the child with the biological family, but adoption becomes a possibility if the original plan doesn't work out.)  We began taking our ten weeks of classes in October, leaving us at this point with only two left.  After the classes are over, we have a few little things to complete, and then we will have our house inspected.  We thankfully don't have too much to do; nothing like Tony Felich having to cut larger windows into his basement walls.  We were initially thinking that our first placement would be sometime in March or April, but we realized last night that it is likely we would have one much earlier than that, as soon as we have our temporary license. 

So will you see me driving around in the Partridge Family bus sometime in May with a bunch of teens, preteens, and toddlers?  Most likely not.  For Lila's safety, we are only planning to take kids around her age and younger.  So that means we'll be looking at kids under two, but as she gets older, the ages we accept will continue to grow.  We're also planning to only take in one at a time because I don't think I can get into the grocery store with three children under the age of two.

Obviously a lot of thought, prayer, and planning has gone into this decision, but I won't bore you with all the details.  I am not writing about this so that people will think we're great for doing this...or crazy as most people seem to see it.  The main reason I'm writing about this is because we need help.  We do have a lot of fears going into this.  I worry all the time about raising a child as my own and then having to return him or her to a family I don't necessarily approve of.  I worry about more sleepless nights with an infant.  I worry about Lila getting used to having a younger sibling and possibly losing that sibling.  But none of these worries or fears seem sufficient to me to not do my part in saving a child in danger.

So how can you help?  Here's a list:

• Prayer.  If you think about our situation or the situation of others who are fostering, lift us up quickly because we could surely use it.
• Clothes. We are pretty set on little girl clothes, but we have very few little boy clothes (though we do have a few because we all thought Lila was a boy. Sorry Lila!).  If you have some lying around that you're wanting to get rid of, throw them our way.
• Big Items. We need another crib, baby gates, another high chair, a bigger stroller, another car seat, etc.  *I will say that Johnny and I are financially stable people.  I am not asking you to go out and buy us a crib; we will be able to get these things.  But if you have things to get rid of, we are happy to take them.
• Love. These little kids are going to need a lot of extra love, so if you have some to share, feel free to pile it on our little extra kids whenever you see them.

Fostering is a very confidential thing, so I won't be able to tell you much about our child's background or even be able to post pictures of him or her publicly on the internet.  I am, however, planning to start a private blog to chronicle our experiences with this next endeavor.  I will be happy to tell you when I begin that, and if you want to be a part of the audience, I can let you on in.  Thank you already to everyone who has been encouraging us with this process; we've very excited to see what happens!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

 Christmas has gotten off to a limping start in the Hutson household.  After a failed attempt at going to youth group on Wednesday night (we were halfway there, Lila was screaming because she was hungry, we forgot the diaper bag, church is 30 min away, you get the picture), Lila conked out and gave us an opportunity to get enough done in our dining room that we could move the dining room table out of the living room...making room for a Christmas tree!

But not until after hanging out with my family on Friday night, eating Twinkie cake, and listening to Donna the Deer Lady on youtube.

Finally, though, on Saturday night, we were able to go out and pick our Christmas tree!

Lila wasn't totally sure what was going on, but she was very excited and wanted to touch all of the trees.

 

Notice that Johnny is wearing short sleeves and Lila doesn't have a coat on.  It was crazy warm.  Last year, I remember not getting out of the car because it was so cold, and I was pregnant, that has to add at least ten degrees to your regular body temp.

Lila waited very patiently for Daddy to tie the tree on the car.  At this point, I realized that I didn't really clean all the carrots off her face.  Poor kid.

Anyway, we got the tree put up last night and started doing a little bit of decorating this morning.  You can see a sneak peak of the dining room color there in the corner.  I'm really pushing to get it finished this week so that our Christmas decorating can be finished, you know, maybe before Christmas.

 

Christmas Play Dresses

I decided to break in my early Christmas present (a new Bernina sewing machine!) and make Lila some simple pillowcase dresses for Christmas time.



I followed this tutorial from aestheticnest.com, but there are a LOT of tutorials for pillowcase dresses available.  Lila got one long one with Christmas trees...

...And one short one with people Christmas shopping.

My plan is to make an apron for myself out of this same fabric.  And if Johnny is lucky, there might just be enough for a bow tie. Matching family!  I can't wait to hear what teenage Lila will think of it.