Something to Stretch Your Brain Because I Apparently Don't Have One

So I'm in this great cooking group that does bulk cooking once a month at Hy-Vee (if you're interested in joining, let me know!).  I've always got a freezer full of meals to go with the three half-full bags of tater tots and the Costco bag of peas.  I went to pull some soup out of the freezer today and realized that I had done something really stupid.  Before it was frozen soup, I put the bag of liquidy soup on the shelf.  The bag proceeded to ooze around the rack and then freeze that way.  There should obviously be a warning label on the shelf.

Thoughts on how I can get this soup out of the freezer?  I have so far considered a hair dryer and making Johnny do it.

Christmas Coma 2013

I have two pictures to represent Christmas at our house.

Christmas Morning:



Christmas Afternoon:

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Bullies in Our Midst

We have an official bully in our house.  Sure she's cute, and she likes to say "Snuggle you? Snuggle you?" but don't let that fool you.  Lila is a menace who must be stopped.



Lately, Lila has been picking on Little Guy.  I'll be in the kitchen and hear him crying in the living room.  When I go in, I'll say, "What happened?" Lila will smile at me and say, "Push head floor," or "Poke eye," and then she will proceed to show me exactly what she did to him.  I'm not sure if I should appreciate the honesty or be horrified at her lack of empathy.  For now I think I'm going to go with, "Great honesty Lila!" Thumbs up.

The Hutsons vs. The Stomach Flu

Warning: Viewer Discretion Advised

Every year at Christmas I host a little Gingerbread House Decorating Party.  The entire week leading up to my party this year I have a horrible cold; I just keep praying that I will be ok by Friday.  Friday rolls around, and I am good as gold.  I go for a quick appointment at my OB, and she off-handedly says, "You should be happy that you didn't get that stomach flu that's going around." Bum bum bum.  After the appointment, I get everything together, ship my kids off to my mom's for the day, and am ready to go, blissfully unaware.

The party starts, people arrive, houses are built, and around 8:00 I hear the death rattle pterodactyl scream of my foster son, signalling that he is no longer asleep.  I run up the stairs only to find Johnny in the dark room wiping off what looks like Little Guy's entire body with a towel.  "He threw up." Fabulous.  We clean him up as best we can, and Johnny goes to rock him back to sleep.

Around 9:00, amid sparkling conversation and mulled wine (that I of course couldn't drink), I hear cries coming from my foster daughter.  I walk in the room, and hear "Mama, barf."  Fabulous.  I bring her into the bathroom to clean her up and hug her where she promptly vomits all over me.  I ask Johnny to go downstairs and inform the lovely party guests of the situation and to send them on their merry way.  I then proceed to clean both of us up while Johnny takes charge of the sheets.  Little Sister gets back in bed, and I go downstairs only to find that my friends have cleaned up all my dishes for me.  Best part of the whole night, I tell you.  No joke.

Johnny and I go to bed, both slightly grossed out.  Around 2:00am I hear a small cry from Lila, the token sound, and "Mama, barf."  I get her up and clean her off while Johnny once again takes care of the sheets.  The best part of this whole situation is the dread I feel about the coming day, knowing that Johnny is leaving at 5:00am for National Guard and that I will be dealing with three stomach flu victims alone.  The only thing that can make it worse would be if I get the flu too.

Which I do around noon, complete with contractions from dehydration.

My mom brings over some movies, and we all watch Barney for the rest of the day and by "watch Barney for the rest of the day" I mean that I have Barney on in the background while I explain over and over again to my kids why they can't eat anything and that I know their tummies hurt and I'm sorry that I can't do anything about it.

Johnny finally gets home from Topeka a few hours before bedtime and makes it until everyone is in bed and then proceeds to be sick the entire night.

Long story short, the next few days are filled with loads and loads and loads of laundry, many bowls of applesauce, and even more half-eaten crackers.  I am seriously just now getting everyone's sheets back on their beds.  So what should we do tonight?  Definitely paint the family room.

What the Girls Say

Rachel: Lila what are you going to eat for Thanksgiving?

Lila: Baby Jesus!

____________

Little Sister: Daddy?

Rachel: Honey, I don't know where Daddy is.

Little Sister: Sigh...Army.

Rachel: No...I think he's just in the bathroom.

_____________

Rachel: Lila, who's coming to visit for Christmas?

Lila: Baby Jesus!

_____________

After getting out of the bathtub and putting on a diaper...

Lila: No more naked baby!

_____________

Potty Training Time

Lila decided to pass the time by studying her shapes.

Christmas Cards 2013

It's that time of year again! When you sit in your backyard on a blanket and force your kids to smile for the camera, promising them cookies and whatever else you can think of to get a decent family photo.



One of my more popular posts last year had to do with how to properly write and address your Christmas cards, so I thought I would revisit that this year complete with photographic aid. I am revisiting this because apparently my post did not change the entire world.  I went to HappiNames a few months ago to order a present for my friend Sarah who was getting married.  I wanted the bucket to say "The Borlands," and the girl working there asked if I wanted a comma in their name.  A comma!  That poor girl didn't know she was in for a thirty minute punctuation lesson.  So here we go, and once again I apologize for the soapbox I will be standing on and if I insult you and your Christmas card writing and addressing practices.

Let's just make this short and sweet: Nowhere on your Christmas cards should you have an apostrophe.  "But Rachel..." Nope.  "What if..." Nope. "I think you..." Don't do it.  The purpose of an apostrophe (when you're using it with a name) is to indicate that those people own something.



Notice here that I have addressed a letter to my parents.  Their last name is English, so to make it plural since there is more than one of them, I added an "es."  If I had written "The English's" not only would my father probably rip up the card and then disown me (do you see how I was raised?), but that would be completely incorrect.  "The English's" doesn't make sense in any way, shape, or form.  Even if I wanted it to write a letter to the dog owned by the Englishes, I would have to pluralize English first: "The Englishes' Dog." And I guarantee you that their dog does not want to read your Christmas cards.

To reiterate the point, in the return address section you can see that I wrote "The Hutsons" not "The Hutson's."  This idea applies to the inside of your card as well: "Merry Christmas! Love, The Hutsons." Beautiful.

Of course you can always take the easy way out and just say "The Hutson Family."  That is assuming you are sending the Hutsons a Christmas card at all, which I expect you aren't because you don't want to endure my ridiculous scrutiny.

Merry Christmas!

Stupid Things That Rachel Does

I had this great idea today that while the kids were playing in our family room I would clean the stairs.  You know, sweep, mop, etc.  I grabbed the dustpan and broom and then remembered that my Swiffer is this size (obviously I don't clean the floors very often).  So I went ahead and pulled out one of those Swiffer dry cloths to just use with my hand, but not wanting to use the mopping pad with my hand, I pulled out the next best thing: Pledge.  I use Pledge on my wooden dining room table; why shouldn't I use it on my wooden stairs?



Sweeping: done. Swiffering: done.  Pledge: done.  I stand back and smile at my handiwork.  "I am so amazing," I think to myself.  Then I walk down the stairs in socks and almost die.  Apparently treating your floors like a gleaming dining room tabletop is a bad idea.  I have since spent the rest of the evening trying to dirty my stairs in an attempt to make them less slippery.  I am also now wearing shoes.

How Long Have You Had Those Kids?

This month marks eight months since our foster kids, Little Guy and Little Sister, came into our home.



Legally I'm not allowed to show their faces on the internet or write their names or really talk about their situation at all, so it makes it really difficult to share anything about that part of our lives.  One thing I can say, however, is that it's definitely the most difficult and challenging thing that Johnny and I have ever done.

I started doing a little reflecting after reading this article on fostering/adoption from the New York Times that my friend Anna posted on my wall.

My favorite part of the article went something like this:

  “When I first went into this, I had this idea that everyone should be doing this,” Maureen told me, referring to foster-care adoption. “But if you are going to do it, you better be darn well sure you can handle it.”

I couldn't agree with this sentiment more.  When we believe in something, I think we have a tendency to feel that everybody should be doing it, especially in the Christian community.  I remember feeling guilty at Wheaton every time I went to a speech or fundraiser or whatever for different causes throughout the world.  I think by Christmas of my freshman year I had opportunities to "adopt" world vision children, buy cows for farmers in third world countries, tutor underprivileged children in Chicago, give money and wear red to support AIDS research, and so on and so on.  I'm not saying any of those things were bad; I just didn't need to do all of them...or any of them.

That being said, I do think that Johnny and I have been called, at least for now, to be foster parents and possibly adoptive parents.  If that's something you are interested in and you have a good support system and you don't mind if you get crayon on your walls or that all your hair will turn grey by the time you're 27 or that you just might unexpectedly see your kid's biological family at the library or that everywhere you go people will either ask you if "all those children" are yours or glare at you for having children of different races, then go for it.  It's an understatement to say that there are tons of kids who need help.  Just while writing this I got an email from my case worker asking for an adoptive family for a sibling set of three precious boys.  Our agency's website has literally pages and pages of children needing families.

So before I start rambling, here's the gist: fostering is hard, hardest thing we've ever done, don't do it if it's not for you, jump in head first if it is.  

Dark White is the New Black

Little Sister is having a difficult time with taking baths, so I thought it would be a good idea to get her a special bath time baby.  Until I had to shop for an African American baby doll I had no idea that dark skinned baby dolls don't seem to exist.



This baby doll is the only African American version of the Water Babies brand, and it's maybe two shades darker than Lila...whitest child ever.  Is it too much to ask for there to be baby dolls in the same shades as people?  (By the way, what in the world is this baby wearing? It's supposed to be the "angel" baby, but I don't see why the baby has to be wearing a shear white negligee to portray that.)

Cereal for Breakfast

This is why we use Baby Bjorn plastic bibs with pockets.

 

 

Delicious.

Put On Your Freaking Tutu and Get in the Car!

I was originally going to title this "A Hutson Halloween," but I think the current title is more fitting: Halloween was clearly not invented by a parent of young children.  Here are a few snapshots from our Halloween festivities.

We carved pumpkins on Tuesday, and once they were carved, Lila kept saying, "Me sit pumpin."  She then encouraged Little Sister to sit on the other pumpkin, but Little Sister's lid kept falling off, so she did not understand the appeal of pumpin sitting.



This photo was taken right after Little Sister put Princess Tianna inside the pumpkin.  I believe she is kissing her to make it better.

After naps on Halloween, we rushed over to Johnny's office in full costume to go trick or treating.  Little Guy was a dinosaur.

And the girls were two pretty peacocks.  I realized when we walked in the door to his office that I didn't explain Halloween beyond, "You have to put your tutu on because this is the day that everyone wears a tutu, and Daddy will be so sad if you're not wearing a tutu so put on your freaking tutu and get in the car!"  I quickly gave them a run down about saying trick or treat, but they clearly had no idea why all of Daddy's friends were giving them hand fulls of candy...or why Mommy said after one piece it was just for looking at.

 

After trick or treating at Johnny's office, we had to deal with the reality of having a family made up of two families and splitting holidays.  But after being driven all over Kansas City, Lila got to end her day handing out candy at Grandmommy's.  Once we pulled into Grandmommy's driveway, Lila was very excited to show her the costume that only thirty minutes before she had pushed to the floor of the car.  She was all like, "Um Mom get my tutu!" and I was all like, "Um Lila where was that enthusiasm an hour ago?" Geeze.

Happy Halloween!

Dear Target Customer

Dear Target Customer,

Thank you so much for parking your blue minivan exactly one foot away from my car. As you know it was pouring down rain, so the closeness of your car really added a lot of fun and challenge to getting three children into their car seats.  But you couldn't have known that I would need to put lots of children into the car except for the three large car seats and the stroller, wagon, and diaper bag in the far back.  You also, I'm sure, had no idea that I am rather large due to something called pregnancy and that I rarely have the opportunity to squeeze myself into such small spaces.  How thoughtful of you to afford me that opportunity.  

Thanks again!

Rachel

Socks

In case you were wondering, each of Lila's baby dolls has at least one pair of socks on...

in a variety of colors and combinations.

They also often wear bows.  Clothes aren't as necessary.

 

Christmas Photo Shopping

I'm excited about our Christmas photos this year because even though you are not allowed to post pictures of your foster kids on the internet, you are allowed to include them in the Christmas pictures that you send out in the mail.

So with that in mind, I took Lila and Little Guy shopping for our Christmas photos.  The entire time we shopped Lila was either standing quietly inside the rack of jeans, collecting packets of socks, or trying to try on white fuzzy boots.

She was also very good at carrying escorting our purchases.

Why I Haven't Been Blogging

**This entry is not for the faint of heart.  You have been warned.**

October seems to be a difficult month for blogging.  I haven't been blogging for two reasons: 1. The girls are moving into twin beds in Lila's old room, so all of my free time has been spent making new duvets for the twin beds along with three Halloween costumes and the beginnings of Christmas presents.  2. My days are ridiculously ridiculous.

Here is an example of how our morning went.

Today was picture day at Little Sister's preschool.  So right after I get the girls up, I get them dressed in the last two acceptable outfits that are in their closet.  Little Sister has been fighting a cold and likes to cough excessively, and I mean excessively, when she has a cold, so she's hacking and hacking all throughout breakfast.  Now Little Sister also has an extremely strong gag reflex, so I'm keeping an eye on her all throughout breakfast, just waiting for the coughing to engage the gag reflex and her breakfast to appear all over the floor.

Because I am always right, about two minutes after Little Sister is done with breakfast, she coughs one last cough and proceeds to throw up breakfast all over her picture day outfit.  Johnny takes charge of standing next to her and asking, "Are you done?" to which she always responds, "Yes," and then proceeds to barf more.  And like the loving daddy Johnny is, he waits until she's done and cleans up the mess.  I, meanwhile, am deciding whether I should take off Lila's clothes and give them to Little Sister or just go put something together from the leftovers in their room.  I decide to go with leftovers.

After I redress Little Sister, I notice that Little Guy (who's been jumping in his JumpeRoo this entire time) probably needs a diaper change.  I pick him up, and sure enough he is soaking wet.  I lie him down, take off his pants, and go to remove his onesie when I somehow stick my hand into a huge pile of poop that is not in his diaper but is all over his legs.  I yell for Johnny that I'm about to vomit, and my wonderful husband comes and cleans up his second disgusting mess of the morning.  I might add that it's not 8:30 yet.

So far Lila seems to be the only one not causing any problems, but as I am pretty much shoving everyone down the stairs to get to preschool because it is over my dead body that we are missing picture day after all of that, I realize that Lila is eating a clementine...



...that I have not peeled for her.  My plan for tomorrow is to just not get out of bed in the morning and see what happens.

Overprotective Husband

Upon leaving to walk to book club at Melody's house.

Rachel: I'm going to go.

Johnny: Do you have your phone?

Rachel: Yup.

Johnny: Call me if you fall over and can't get up.

Good Morning!

We had a very full weekend.  With actuarial exam number four and my friend Sarah's fabulous wedding, the absolute first thing we wanted to do on Sunday morning was wake up at 5:00 am to one of our seven fire alarms chirping.

I am sure you can imagine what happened.  Johnny would get out of bed, take one off the ceiling, take out the batteries, listen for a minute and then get back in bed only to hear another chirp 10 seconds later.  This continued for, I kid you not, thirty minutes.  Our bedroom quickly became a graveyard of fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.



Johnny finally narrowed the chirping down to the fire alarm in the girls' room.  He managed to get in and out without causing too much of a disturbance.  As I was drifting between sleep and giving much wanted advice on what Johnny should do, I had distinct memories of my own father storming into my room in the middle of the night, cursing under his breath, trying to make my fire alarm shut up.

When I told my dad about this on Sunday night, he informed me that the reason fire alarms always run out of batteries at night (aka worst time ever) is because heat keeps batteries going longer, thus they are more likely to die in the cold air of the night.  Who knew?

Being Glamorous

As you all know, I lead a very glamorous life.  And as all glamorous housewives are wont to do, I decided yesterday to figure out why my vacuum was not sucking as it should.



This lead to an hour of sticking a wire coat hanger into the tubey thing and pulling all this junk out that was clogging the vacuum.

The best part was that when I was done, the reward was that I got to vacuum.

Snuggle Bunnies and Forts

I have not been posting much lately because the last few weeks have been a bit of a blur.  Johnny has actuarial exam number four coming up next Friday, so every ounce of extra time that he has is spent with a calculator in one hand and a composition notebook in the other.  That means that I've been pulling a little bit of extra mommy time, and oddly enough, things just don't seem as funny or interesting when you're working overtime and screaming about not sitting on the baby's head for the fourth time in one day.

We have had a few exciting things happen in the last few days, though.  Little Guy has started crawling, and it's just about the cutest thing in the world.  By pushing with his left leg and pulling with his right arm he can get just about anywhere and eat just about anything in reach.

We have also broken out our snuggle bunnies, or as the rest of the world calls them, "footie pajamas."  The girls like to hug each other for "cozy hugs" and rub each other's backs.  You may notice that we have also stopped fixing Lila's hair.



Lila has never been a huge fort fan, which depressed me because I love making forts.  Thankfully, though, Little Sister is a huge fan!  She is taking after her Aunt Jessie who started a fort building club at Barstow in high school.  I think there was a picture in the year book.  She might have been the only one in it.  The picture and the club.  Anywho, Little Sister is currently reading books in her fort that has taken over a large portion of the kitchen.  But since we got rid of our kitchen table, it's not really a problem.

All of our curtains have also become hiding places, our couch and coffee table have become gymnastics apparati (spelling?), and the gate at the top of our stairs has become a tennis net.  I'm not really sure when this little baby...

turned into this big girl...

but I kind of like it.

Wearing White After Labor Day

Lila has been on a sock kick lately (no pun intended...ba ha ha).  She's worn the same purple pair for the last two days.  I made her remove them today, so she upped the ante and insisted that she wear two pairs.  She also insisted that she wear shoes.  Unfortunately, none of our shoes fit her with two thick pairs of socks on, so we had to look to some of our too-big hand me downs from the Roses.

Lila got lucky and found some high heeled white patent leather shoes to make this lovely combination.



The best part is that you can tell she feels very beautiful.



Rachel: "Lila, smile!"
Lila: "Smile!"