Four Months Old

The Boo Boo turned four months old! ...three days ago.

She is the smiliest baby I have ever seen.  She LOVES playing with her sister and loves to roll around on the floor all day.

She is starting to chatter all the time.  Lila always did more of a sing songy "AhhhhHHHHHhhhhHHHH."  Olive's is more of a very vicious and determined, "AHHHHHHHHHHH, GRRRRRRR, AHHHHHHHH."

She can roll over, sleep through the night (when she feels like it), smile, laugh, suck on her hand, and be the cutest baby this side of the Mississippi.

Death to Gecko Green

Look who came to visit us last week!  Baby Chloey! Not to be confused with Baby Chloey.  Ignore the overflowing recycling bin.  At least we recycle, hater.

Chloey came to help me chose paint for the kitchen.  And after she and her mommy agreed that my greens were too much, I made what Johnny calls the "mature decision,"

...and I chose white. Wahn wahn.  Snowbound to be exact.  I hate that I'm using white, but the room already looks bigger, and it means that my fun prints and red chairs will stand out better...and your eyes probably won't hurt as much.

Next stop is a DIY roman shade for the breakfast nook window.

The Hutsons Watch Frozen for the First Time

Lila: I wonder what's going to happen to Frozen.

Rachel: I don't think the princess's name is actually "Frozen."

Rachel: Wait, I missed it. How did the parents die?

Johnny: They froze to death.

Rachel: Really?

Johnny: Yeah, it's called Frozen.

Rachel: Are you going to dream about snow tonight?

Lila: Uh huh and talking snowmen.

Rachel: I wonder when they're going to make it into a musical.

Johnny: They will probably let it go for a little while.

Pause

Rachel: Ba ha ha.

The Naptime Ruse

As I've mentioned before, Lila is right in the middle of potty training.  She's at the point where she'll do great and make it all the way through church, go to the bathroom in the nursery bathroom, and then pee in her carseat when we are almost in the driveway.  It's awesome.

Yesterday, Lila really did not want to take a nap.  She was kicking the door, singing, yada yada yada.  Then I hear, "I have to go tinkle!"  I have two options.  This could either be a ploy to get out of naptime, or this could be genuine maturity of her not wanting to tinkle in the diaper she is wearing.  I pat myself on the back for how mature my child is, and I go up to let her out.  When I open the door, she smiles and says, "I had to go tinkle," at which point I notice the unmistakable spot in front of the door.  The kid had taken her diaper off just so that she could pee on the floor.  Please also notice what she was playing with before she went to the bathroom on the floor: diapers.

Gecko Green Part 2

Judging from the high number of page views and the low number of responses, I'm going to say that everyone is either afraid of Asparagus or afraid of my response to their hatred of Asparagus.  Sigh.  I can take the hint. But Olive can't believe it!

So I've decided to go another route.  Recently my grandpa bought this little chair for Lila.  I repainted it and recovered the mustard colored corduroy seat with some fabric from our old curtains.  I've always really liked the lighter green color in the pattern, so I took a swatch to Home Depot and had them match the color. 

The left side is what they came up with.

Johnny's response was, "It looks kind of seventies.  And you're not really going for that theme are you?" That was not the goal, no.  I really like it, but I'm worried it might be too dark.  What I really need to do is get the cabinets painted.  I'll do that today right after I go buy a new baby pool since I left the other one outside since um last summer.

Gecko Green

When we lived in Philadelphia, we owned a cute little row house with an open floor plan.  All the walls had to be painted the same color, so I went out on a preppy limb and chose Gecko Green.  Put a sample on the wall? Please, why would we do that.  We just looked at the paint chip and then went out and bought three gallons of the stuff.  As Johnny is painting it, he's loudly grumbling that I better like it since we just spent $140 on the paint.  Oops.  We stubbornly kept it and wore sunglasses inside.  My students loved it.  They said it reminded them of the Rainforest Cafe.  Classy.

Annnnnnyway, fast forward to Kansas a few years later, and we are now getting ready to do a DIY redo of the kitchen.  I'm planning to paint the cabinets white in a few weeks and put in a breakfast nook, and I've decided that I'm just not happy with the current color.  Enter Johnny's heart attack, stage right.

HG-TV Magazine had a picture of a room with the exact same wood paneling as ours where the designer used Asparagus Green by Olympic.  It just looked so cute with the white trim and brown furniture.  So the green on the right is Asparagus by Olympic.  The green on the left is Asparagus by Valspar that the Home Depot guy accidentally gave me.  Geeze.

I'm thinking with the white trim and white cabinets it could look really cute, but I don't want people to come over and be blinded.  Am I crazy?

Three Years Later

Today marks three years since the death of our first baby.  Since then we've been so happy to add two little girls to our family, but the happiness doesn't take away the sadness of losing a child.  I'm feeling it especially strongly this year since it's like we've lost two other little ones in releasing Little Guy and Little Sister from our care.

Something that is almost unbelievable to me is that in the three years since my miscarriage I have known of eight other babies who have died as miscarriages or stillbirths.  Feeling that sadness with those moms who fought so hard to keep their babies alive while in the meantime seeing parents in the fostering system practically giving away their beautiful children has been a frustrating thing for me to grapple with.

When we lost our first baby and then when we decided to move Little Guy and Little Sister to a new home, our prayer was constantly that we would have peace with our situation.  I was going through Philippians this year with my bible study and many of us found comfort in Paul's words:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God,which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:6,7

If you know someone who has miscarried, let them know that you loved their baby.  And for heaven's sake, don't tell them not to worry about it because they can have another one.

Lila's Basement Playroom

I was hesitant to post about this because it's not really that awesome and the colors really don't match and it's just a yucky basement, but this play area has ended up being really fun for Lila, so here ya go.

Now that the weather is nice and Lila isn't playing inside all day long, I finally finished tricking out our basement for the girls, complete with discarded rugs from throughout the house.

Lila's got her trampoline down here...

...as well as this sweet swing that I ordered from Ikea.  For those of you Kansans who are looking forward to Ikea coming our way, this swing required a hair dryer and a paper clip to put it together.  Can't beat that.

My grandpa made me this easel when I was little, so I'm enjoying watching Lila play with it. 

Lila's "pee-u-dur" has a prominent place in the basement so that she can send emails.

Marker station thanks to Diane Decker.

Hand-me-down slide from Meriahna and Sydney.  Notice my collection of diapers on the left from Olive's diaper shower.

Also notice my collection of crap that has been squished into a little corner.  As long as I never need any of it, we should be ok.

I am currently keeping the girls' toys in the flower pot we used for Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors back in Philadelphia. Waste not want not.

Besides the swing, Lila's favorite thing in the basement is her dollhouse, also thanks to Diane Decker.  Notice "Miss Puzzle" (aka Rapunzel) is taking a bath.  Someone is usually using the toilet as well.

And you're welcome for waiting to take the pictures until it was dark and rainy outside.  

Baby Chloey

For her 2nd birthday my Aunt Susan got Lila a doll that she promptly named "Baby Chloey" after her cousin Chloey.  This doll has since been covered in marker and developed an unfortunate case of cataracts. 

If that weren't creepy enough, Lila has taken to caring for Baby Chloey and moving her places throughout the house.  Like at the bottom of the basement stairs:

Driving the Cozy Coupe:

 

Sitting swaddled in my chair (I actually sat on her before I noticed her):

Eating dinner:

Playing with Olive ("They're snuggling, Mama!"):

And sitting in the Bumbo seat:

You just never know where you are going to find her next. I'm just waiting for her to turn up in my bed in the middle of the night 

Rainbow Bathroom Before and After

The woman who lived here before us, bless her heart, (see now that I said "Bless her heart," I can say whatever I want about her), really liked color.  Remember our kitchen?  Mmm neither do I.  Well in keeping with the idea of "as much color as possible everywhere," our upstairs bathroom was decked out in teal tile and rainbow wallpaper.  I don't mind the tile too much, but I have been wanting to change the walls since the second we moved in.  Two children later, I finally got around to doing it.

Rainbow Bathroom Before:

Rainbow Bathroom After:

Before:

Note where I got a little excited one day and started tearing off the wallpaper.  But after our hellish experience with stripping wallpaper in the living room and the dining room, we decided to just paint over it.  I spackled and sanded the seams, and it was much easier than stripping.

After:

Before:

After:

The main difference here is that I closed the curtain so that you can't see all the stuff hiding in the bathtub.

Before:

After: 

The prints are copies of old rowing prints that Johnny's Uncle Bob gave us for Christmas before we were married.  It's a good thing we got married so that I could keep the whole set.

And thanks to Becca Stam for the carving? stamp? print? I'm not sure what to call it, but she made these for her roomies when we graduated from Wheaton.  It's hung in all five of our homes.  I don't think we're going to move again.

Normally I would never paint a wall white, but I figured with the fabulously teal tile, that was all I should do.  I'm happy with how it turned out.  Especially since it's actually painted two different shades of white because Sherwin Williams gave me Pure White instead of Snowbound and I didn't realize it until I was done.  So if you come over, just smile and say it looks nice. 

Besides the tile, one of the fun retro things in this bathroom is the light.  If you look closely at the ceiling, though, you will see that the paint is peeling off of it, and if you look really closely under the peeling paint you will see that the CEILING USED TO BE PAINTED TEAL.  I'm sorry? Yes, pre-wallpaper, the ceiling and walls and tile used to all be teal.  I suppose I should have appreciated the rainbow wallpaper.

I'm very glad this project is over.  This is the first room that I have painted completely by myself, and I was getting tired of sitting in there every night.

Winning the Macaron Battle

If you've read my blog for awhile, you might remember my many failed attempts at making macarons.  By the time I got good enough to do a tutorial, I was basically worn out.  Recently I decided that I wanted to start making them again but was curious about finding an easier and more predictable recipe, so I went for a little stroll around the internet for some help and found two great tutorials at Brave Tart and Eat Live Travel Write.  Both of these recipes use a KitchenAid mixer, give specific beating times, and have a lot of troubleshooting suggestions.  The Eat Live Travel Write one worked best for me.  So far I have made two perfect batches in a row, which was basically unheard of in my former life.  If you've never made macarons and want to start, then these tutorials are definitely for you. Oh, and I also used this template so that I didn't have to trace 48 circles.

Here's what I did with my finished macs: Salted Caramel Macarons

I started with plain macaron shells and then used this recipe for Salted Caramel Buttercream (I used the Trader Joe's caramel sauce...there's no way I was going to stand over the stove all day and make homemade caramel).  I piped the icing around the edge of one half of each pair.

Then I piped some of the actual sauce into the middle of each circle.

Lids on ladies!

Perfect little macaron.  It only took 1,048 bad ones to get there.

South Lake Park

Lila, Olive and I have been frequenting some pretty fun parks lately, so I thought I would document them and pass our opinions on to you all.

This last weekend was National Guard weekend, so that means Johnny's gone in Topeka and I feed Lila lots of sugar.  After feeding her sugar in chocolate chip pancake form at the Big Biscuit on Saturday morning, we went to South Lake Park just west of Metcalf on 87th.  We had never been there before, so I thought we would be adventurous and check it out. The coolest part about the park is the big "lake".  You can fish in it and take boats out on it as long as they have no motors.  There were all kinds of cute ducks for the girls to look at and a couple of docks to sit on.

There's also a nice path around the lake if you're into that sort of exercise thing.

Now, because I have nightmares about my children falling into lakes, ponds, swimming pools, puddles, etc., we stayed away from the pond and played on the playground.  Lila loved it because it had swings.  Lila would love Siberia if it had a swing.

It also had what looked like a really fun play set...

...as well as this awesome spider webby thing that I really wanted to go play on but took the boring mature road and decided not to.

I will say that I literally had to drag Lila out of this park because she wouldn't get off of the swing.  So she gives it two thumbs up and gives mom two thumbs down.