4th of July

We had a good 4th of July over here at the Hutton household. We were originally supposed to go down to the farm to ride four wheelers and shoot off some fireworks, but the rain all day kept us home instead. We figured we didn't want to go mudding on the four wheelers (Brian and I got stuck in the mud 6 years ago on the 4th when we were at the farm, right after we got engaged. I had to get off and walk so we could get the four wheeler out:)). So instead of the farm, everyone came over to our place and we ate dinner and did some fireworks from the driveway. We didn't have anything too crazy, just some smoke bombs, sparklers, and poppers. Eli was definitely not sure what to think about the fireworks. He wasn't really into it at first. We kept trying to get him to step on the poppers, but he wouldn't do it. Our nephew was the complete opposite. When Brian started lighting sparklers, Eli moved as far away as he could back by the cars. After watching his cousin stop the poppers without fear, he eventually warmed up and started stepping. Kamdyn enjoyed the evening because she got lots of attention. She got to see the fireworks from lots of different arms so she was in heaven. She

loves when people come over and she gets spoiled!

This was Eli's face for about the first 20 minutes we were outside with the sparklers and smoke bombs. He backed up as far as he could and wouldn't go closer with any of us for a while.

James and Eli watching the sparklers.

Kamdyn was very excited about the sparklers and poppers.
Finally decided the little poppers were pretty cool.
Looks like I had James in a headlock:). Really, we were just trying to get a cute picture because he kept crawling up on my lap. He's such a little wiggle worm! These boys have SO much energy.

Great Plains Transportation Museum

Last weekend we took Eli to the Great Plains Transportation Museum downtown. Eli is so crazy about Trains I thought he would go crazy. I found a coupon for one free admission, so I thought we better get ourselves the the museum before it expired. I don't think Eli was quite sure what to think. On one hand I think he loved the trains, on the other, I think they were so huge (these things were massive!) that they kind of scared him a little bit. He's used to seeing the remote control train at Granny and Papa's or trains from the car, nothing quite so big, so close. He enjoyed exploring the trains for a while, but I think it was just too much for him. Besides, it was blazin' hot outside, so I think that contributed to some of his uncertainty. It will probably be a while before we go back again....for one thing, they are only open on Saturdays (Sundays part of the year), but secondly, he threw a monster of a fit when we were leaving. Eli has thrown plenty of fits before (he rarely gets what he actually wants), but I have never seen one like this. These wheels were HUGE! Eli looked so little standing next to them. I knew trains were big, but this thing just seemed even more massive than I would have ever thought.
Kamdyn enjoyed the trains from the shade of the stroller. She had the best spot the whole morning. It was so hot in the sun, but great in the shade with a wonderful breeze.

Eli checking out the tracks behind him. We got to see a train pass by behind us once. Eli enjoyed watching that train go by so close.

4th of July pictures to come!

I'm bringing him up well

I gotta say, for me, one of the greatest things about having kids is watching their little personalities evolve. Watching how they deal with situations, their temperment, their quirks, and likes/dislikes is so much fun (most of the time). Not only that, but its fun to see the little quirks they pick up from you.

I just gotta say....I'm raising him well:) I'm not talking about how he deals with things, because at 2, his methods kind of stink. I mean seriously, throwing that fit doesn't get you want you want (one of these days (maybe in 18 years) he will figure this out for himself!). What I'm talking about is the things he picks up from me and Brian. I love how Eli has adopted Brian's love for life; his love for fun and play and his passion for things he loves. Truly amazing. I'm not so sure I like the stubbornness he's genetically received from his mommy and daddy, but you gotta take the good with the not so good:) From his mommy......he's learned so many things.....good things too:) When Eli spills or makes a mess on the floor, he runs into the kitchen, grabs the dishtowel, and "cleans" up his mess. Makes me smile every time. That's my boy:) He also LOVES the vacuum. We don't usually let him actually vacuum, but I bet he would willingly if we let him. He walks all through the house with the little vacuum just cleaning up the floors. Now, I don't actually really like vacuuming, but I do love clean floors, so the vacuuming is necessary. I can always count on Eli to help me out. He's a boy after his own momma's heart.

I gotta say, one of the greatest things Eli's gotten from me is his sweet tooth:) Probably would be better for him if he was more like his daddy on this, but I'm sure glad I have a partner in crime. Eli will never turn down a good sweet; ice cream, cookies, cake...you name it. I had some cake in the house a couple of weeks ago and every time I asked him what he wanted to for breakfast he told me "cake". Sorry buddy, not gonna happen...but it was still cute. I can always count on Eli to eat a cookie with me when I get the craving (who am I kidding...get a craving... I could eat cookies everyday!) for sweets. Since it's summer, we've been big on ice cream around here. Ice cream sandwiches are the best this time of year. A couple of weeks ago Eli got to have his first ice cream sandwich all to himself (usually stuck sharing with me) by the pool. Life can't get much better than that.

Papa was there to supervise and help out when he needed. The nice thing about being by the pool is that I could care less if he gets messy. This was the first time he was allowed to hold his own sandwich too. I think he was pretty pumped to not have to share and to be able to hold it all by himself to control the amount of ice cream going into his mouth:)

Last HUGE bite that he wanted to fit all in his mouth. It was just too good to take two bites.
This is the only way to clean of a messy ice cream sandwich face. Much easier than a washcloth!

Background of a nickname

I can very randomly throw comments or statements out there; they typically have nothing to do with what we've been talking about. Because of this, Brian usually asks me, "what brought that up?" So, being me, I retrace my train of thought. Sometimes, it doesn't take me long to back track, but other times, my thought has to be traced a ways back. Brian usually regrets asking me, but hey, he asked, so I was just clarifying it. Anyways.....what does this have to do with a nickname, you ask? Well, our nicknames for our kids got started this same way. I don't know why, but Brian and I are big on nicknames for our kids. Their given names are great (obviously we think so since we named them), but we use "nicknames" for them more than their real name. Before we ever had kids I told Brian that I wanted to have names that could make cute nicknames, or have cute shortened versions too. I love my name, but I just never had a cute nickname or "shortcut name" for Krista. Hence, the nicknaming

Elijah aka "Eli" "Binger" "Binger Boos" or "Bing.

why all of this bing and binger stuff? Well, Eli's nickname acutally came from Brian. I had a different nickname for him at the time (don't even remember it now), but Brian started calling him Binger all the time, so it just kind of stuck. Brian was calling for Eli one day and started to say "stinker" and "booger"....what came out instead was Binger. So he started calling him Binger, then we would throw in Binger Boos and Bing sometimes too. Those are the names we use for Eli the most. He actually answers to all of them too. Poor kid, he's going to think he has 5 names when he gets older:)

Kamdyn aka "Kammy" "Kammy-do" "Kammy doodle" "Doodle" or "Doodle bug"

ok, stay with me here, Kamdyn's nicknames came from me, and the trail is just a little bit longer than Brain's was (one fundamental difference between men and women; my thoughts never seem to be simple!:)) Not real sure why, but for some reason I started calling Kamdyn, Kammy-do one day. This made me think of the song "Yankee Doodle". So from "Yankee Doodle" I got Kammy doodle. Then I started just calling her "doodle". She is our little love bug, so I started calling her "Doodle bug." Sadly, we still do use all of these names on Kamdyn too, but the most often used ones are Doodle and Doodle bug.

I'm not real sure why we even bother picking out "real" names for our kids since we don't seem to use them much. But I'm thinking they may thank us someday when they are teenagers and want to use normal names. I don't think I would have really enjoyed being called Doodle bug in all my classes in college:)

Lead Me

I have recently been in love with a new song. It is one that Brian brought to my attention before I really ever picked it out on the radio as a favorite. I have to be honest, I listened to it abut 6 times in the car the other day, and teared up just about every single time (I never used to be such a sap until I had kids!). The words are just so real to me and so powerful.

"Lead Me" Sanctus Real

*from the album Pieces of a Real Heart

I look around and see my wonderful life

Almost perfect from the outside

In picture frames I see my beautiful wife

Always smiling

But on the inside, I can hear her saying...

Lead me with strong hands

Stand up when I can't

Don't leave me hungry for love

Chasing dreams, what about us?

Show me you're willing to fight

That I'm still the love of your life

I know we call this our home

But I still feel alone”

I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes

They're just children from the outside

I'm working hard, I tell myself they'll be fine

They're in independent

But on the inside, I can hear them saying...

Lead me with strong hands

Stand up when I can't

Don't leave me hungry for love

Chasing dreams, but what about us?

Show me you're willing to fight

That I'm still the love of your life

I know we call this our home

But I still feel alone

So Father, give me the strength

To be everything I'm called to be

Father, show me the way

To lead them

Won't You lead me?

To lead them with strong hands

To stand up when they can't

Don't want to leave them hungry for love,

Chasing things that I could give up

I'll show them I'm willing to fight

And give them the best of my life

So we can call this our home

Lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone

Father, lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone

I pray that I can always be a leader to our children. But at the same time, I am so thankful that I still get to be led. I am human and make mistakes all the time, so I'm thankful for an unconditionally loving teacher and leader. I will never stop needing my Father's guidance...."because I can't do this alone."

Pool days are here again!

Welcome summer! With summer comes so many great things. Lots of sunshine (love this!), storms (don't love this one so much with a 2 year old:(), ice cream, longer days, and best of all.....the pool! I'm not a huge swimmer, but I love the water. In other words, I don't really like actually swimming, but I love floating and being in the water. These days, I enjoy being in the water with my kids. Especially Eli. He LOVES the water (just like his daddy) and has a blast whenever we take him swimming. If you ask him if he wants to go swimming he says no, but if you ask him if he wants to get in the pool, he says uh-huh. Funny kiddo, hasn't figured out the difference yet. Kamdyn seems to enjoy the water too, but she just doesn't get crazy like her older brother yet. She just likes to relax and float (just like her mommy!).

This is my kind of day in the pool. Kamdyn has it all figured out. The water has been so warm, it's been perfect for Kamdyn.

Eli really has no fear. This is both good and bad. I love that he's not afraid of the water, but a little bit of fear never hurt anyone. He is doing better now, but the first few times were were in the pool, he loved to jump in. He would get out and get ready to jump, but then decide that he was going to run to the deep end and jump in instead of where Brian and I were waiting. Just about had a heart attack thinking he was going to make the leap before we grabbed him and moved him back to shallow water or before our hands got down there to catch him.

My two fish. If it was up to Brian, and probably Eli too, we would spend all day every day at the pool. Here in a couple of weeks we can spend a lot more time in the pool on these unbearably hot days because Mark and Mary will have the pool house all done. It's going to be SO nice. We can't wait!

Views of Summertime

We just recently added our own clothesline to the backyard. I didn't want one that had to be out all the time, so Brian came up with his own version. I mainly wanted one for drying our cloth diapers. They take forever to dry in the dryer, and sometimes just need some good ole' Kansas sunshine to get the stains out. I used to hang them on the fence with chip clips, but that just doesn't work very well:). It's been pretty nice. I use it for our regular laundry too (with the exception of socks and underwear; neighbors don't need to see that!). I figured we might as well take advantage of what the good Lord blesses this state with in the summer: lots of sunshine (most the time) and plenty of wind!! So far I've really liked having this in the backyard, but I don't always like the sweat I work up putting the clothes up, but I guess it's worth it. It dries clothes very very fast too which is an added bonus.

Kamdyn is becoming quite the pro at rolling over. Eli sees how excited we get when she rolls over so the other day he decided that he would help her. It was pretty cute, he would roll her one way, then roll her right back over the other way. She thought it was pretty funny. I didn't know what he was doing at first, I just thought she did it on herself several times in a row.

But how cute are they. Whenever Kamdyn is laying on her stomach I lay down there too to talk with her, so Eli has started doing this for me. When she's on her tummy, he gets down on her level and talks with her and pats her back or gives her kisses. It just melts my heart. I hope he's always this sweet and loving to his little sister ( a mom can dream, right?)
Ok, this doesn't really have anything to do with the blog post title (pretty much half this post doesn't....), but this is the train I made Eli today with his toys. He kept asking me for a train so I thought what they heck. I was pretty proud of myself. I knew it wasn't going to survive long (consequence of living and playing with a 2 year old) so I took a picture. Good thing too, because during my little "photo shoot" the train bit the dust. Oh well, it was cool while it lasted/