Missing Shirts, Sleds, Sleep & Miss Indiana

After bringing in the mail, Noah noticed this picture on the back of a catalog. He asked, "Why is her shirt not all the way on?" Then he said, "Maybe she lost it."

Noah and Ian are enjoying our current ice storm in the following ways:

With a sled:

Without a sled:


Pulling the sled:



With the Abominable Snowman:




With hot chocolate:

Here are some friends and I at a Miss America party, where we did lots of jeering and jabbing at all of the ladies. Just imagine what we did when the Miss America pageant began:

And I do LOVE my Sunday School class more than a HUGE brownie with ice cream, caramel, chocolate, whipped cream AND a cherry. Here are the SS ladies last weekend at our church's Women's Retreat:

Please look closely at Perry's face on the left. Her name is really, Christi, but we need nicknames in our SS class, because all the ladies' moms in my SS class believed titling their daughter Christi, Kristy, Kristi (or Keri or Carrie or Kristen or Connie, etc), would really help set them apart:


Here we are in the hotel weaving humorous tales of our children's fascination with body parts, functions and sounds (we also ate lots of chocolate and stayed up WAY past sunset):

Jack's Younger Brother's Fantastical Reality

On Saturday afternoon, Noah and I saw the animated movie, "Bolt". It is about a television-star dog, who doesn't know that all his TV super powers are pretend (like his Super Bark which causes the bad guys to retreat). So, this movie, while an excellent one, didn't quite make sense for Noah--since Noah lives in his own make-believe world. For our eldest child, pretend and reality closely intertwine.

For example, Noah has his older brother Jack, who is nine-years-old, whose birthday is after Noah's, who used to be called Brody Braeden, but his name was changed to Jack Brody Braeden after Noah's babysitter's younger brother, Jack, came over. When asked why Jack doesn't have our last name, Noah (WAY too quickly) said, "He does, he has four names--Jack Brody Braeden Hutchins." On Saturday night, our friends asked Noah, "Where's Jack?" and he explained Jack was in the shower (and previously he had been on the school bus, where Jack spends a majority of his time). Last week, Noah and Colton were in the backyard calling for Jack over the fence to come home and help them kill a bee, because, "Jack's shoes are really a lot bigger than ours."

Then, there's Noah's dog, Sketcher, who lives in our backyard. "He's 10-years-old, so he's really tall" (because to Noah, the older you are, the taller you are). When we are in the backyard, Sketcher is playing in someone else's backyard (he's so shy, that Sketcher).

I completely enjoy Noah's belief of reality. In my world, I have a personal chef, maid, and a 44-year old massage therapist, who's REALLY, REALLY tall.

Ian likes to pretend Mommy's house shoes do NOT look like elf shoes.

And for posterity sake, here's a video that only a mommy (or daddy, grandparents or JerJer) could love. With all certainty, the rest of you will flee quickly, but, if you wish, take a gander while you wait for American Idol to begin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT_FGVi8tBk

Less words, more posing

It's officially 2009 and I'm still recovering from 2008. But here's a sample from both years:

All dolled up for Seth's work Christmas soiree

Gingerbread Goodness:

Christmas Eve with my mom and Jer Jer:

Opening gifts at our house:

Santa preparations:

Reaping Santa's reward for delicious treats:


Ian and cousin Jesstine sharing some knock-knock jokes:

My niece (I LOVE being able to say that), MY NIECE is enjoying her time here since arriving four months ago:

New Year's revelry at the bowling alley (posing was required to be a part of this evening):

Peace Out 2008...

Yahweh Mailboxes

So, we had an ice storm and our residents are not known for good driving in inclement weather. Also, this particular driver was not good at making their identity known. But Noah was VERY excited that HIS mailbox, that usually resides in the backyard, is currently being put to good, very official mailbox use.

The other evening, Noah was asking why some places in the Bible say "God" and some say "Lord". I explained that it is like how we have different names for his dad, Daddy, Seth, Shnookum Sugar Biscuit, etc. I went on to explain that we have lots of names for God, like Adonai, Jehovah and Immanuel, and then he stopped me and said, "Is Immanuel His last name?"

Friend-Eating, Meterology & Look-Alikes

The boys got to see Santa last week—did you know he was in town? Noah did his BEST yet with Santa and this is the first year he has ever sat on Santa’s lap. Ian is already best friends with Santa and didn’t need much warm up. As you can see from the OFFICIAL Santa picture, Noah isn’t perfectly comfy with the big guy, but we made HUGE improvements this year. BEFORE seeing Santa, Noah listed ALL the items he was going to request from him (then, we also discussed the definition of the word “greed”, which he then responded that his teachers had read him the book, “The Greedy Cat” where the cat eats his friends because he is so greedy—pretty sure that he is beginning to understand the concept and I am going to check with the teachers if they normally teach on such disturbing topics as friend-eating), but he failed to actually speak to Santa.

Also, Noah is an aspiring meteorologist. He has been fascinated with temperatures and such for awhile and is always excited to find out what the "degrees" will be. Last week he told me, "I was watching the news and I know what the weather is going to be. There is going to be an ice storm in Africa." Then, that night, while driving in the car, he suddenly told me that it was going to be 71 degrees on Monday (this was a Thursday, so I was surprised at his foresight). I asked him how he knew and he said that he looked at the McDonald's sign (the sign read: Monday $.71 Shakes). I'm pretty sure he predicts our weather with the same methods as our local weathermen.
Ian has the same skills for identifying similar-looking people. He looked at a pic of Beyonce and said, "That wooks wike you, Mommy!" He's now my favorite child. In case you don't know who she is, here's a pic of Beyonce to prove we're almost the same person:

Bejeweled Hairballs

The title of this post is an ode to my mom-in-law (or as my bro-in-law LOVES when I title her, my mom-in-love). She understands this title post. Sorry you don't.

So, here is what we do at Thanksgiving: eat ourselves silly, and then watch football. Our uniqueness is bedazzling:

Somehow, Ian works his way into every picture (he's sort of like Paris Hilton that way). Here he is with Dita & Jer Jer:

Later we turned on our lights and viewed the bemajesty from our front yard:

Okay, technically, this is Rhema Bible College, which we went to visit after the Thanksgiving feast, but it COULD be our house, if we, in fact had put up 2 million Christmas lights.

My boys beneath the bridge (also, not at our house):

The annual putting-Santa-on-the-tree picture:

Annual family-in-front-of-the tree-but-can't-really-see-the-tree picture:

Annual look-bemystified-by-the-topping-of-the-tree-but-Ian-doesn't-really-get-it-yet-but-aren't they-adorable-anyway pic: