Have yourself a ......

SUPER little Christmas!!

Kid Bartending 101

The other night, Annie--the hostess with the mostest--offered my dad a drink when he was at our house. She offered him "a beer, or a margarita, or a martini." My dad was amused by the offering and asked why those drinks? Annie's response: "You know, that's what grown-ups drink."

So tonight I asked Annie if she knew how to make a margarita:

"Well, yes, kinda."

"OK, how do you make one?"

"You have this stuff in a can, and you pour it in a glass, and sometimes you decorate the glass with fancy salts and stuff...actually, I have no idea."

So be careful what you order and from whom the next time you come over to the Huttons!

Traditions...

...are such an important part of family and holidays. I love that each year our little family of 6 goes to Northpark to see the decorations, drives around and looks at Christmas lights, and makes gingerbread men with our Mimi...just to name a few. I love that we get an angel from the angel tree to help our kids understand how blessed we truly are, and that others may not be so fortunate. I love our neighborhood traditions as well...cocktail parties, ornament exchanges. But I think my favorite neighborhood tradition revolves around...breakfast. Every grade level at our elementary school, boys and girls, has a holiday breakfast each year. Some exchange ornaments, some books. Some just hang out and have fun. What I love about this tradition was summed up beautifully by my good friend Lezlie this morning at Annie's 4th annual Candy Cane breakfast. She said the moms love this breakfast as much as the girls, and we started this tradition because we could see the future. We could see girls growing up, getting involved in different activities and organizations. We could see their lives and ours getting busier and crazier until ultimately those sweet girls in their pjs, squealing and giggling would go...off to college or wherever God has planned for them..to start their own lives. So before any of that happens, we started this tradition...of coming together at Christmas time to celebrate Christ's birth with good friends, watching our girls as they grow into lovely young women...so that years from now, way into the future, it will be part of our established routine. We will all come home for the holidays, wake up one morning just before Christmas, and come together again....celebrating, our tradition.

Me and my precious girl...









Sweet friends having so much fun!

Lights fantastic...

Each year we load the kids into the car and go looking at Christmas lights. Tonight was the night for this fun-filled holiday tradition. We fed, bathed and jammied the kids and headed out with Christmas carols playing and hot chocolate sipping....so much fun. I'm always amazed by how much the kids love the lights. It is so fun for us to sit up front and listen to the ongoing commentary...the "ooohhhhs" and "aaahhhs" sprinkled with the occasional "awesome" and tonight even a "totally wicked" (thanks Incredibles). There was talk of Santa, Jesus and guardian angels (or garden angels as Will likes to call them, you know, the ones that make sure your veggies grow)....and it was, well, awesome.

Tiny tots with their eyes all a glow.....





....did not find it hard to sleep tonight....


Sammy going....







going.....






....gone!




Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

If the video clip fits...

I don't particularly like the tv show "The Family Guy." I think it is silly and inappropriate just for inappropriate's sake (and yet, I like The Simpsons, go figure). However, there is one clip that Ames found for me long ago on You Tube that just fits my sweet Will to a tee. Now, I know you all are saying..."doesn't she have 4 children? why is she always blogging about Will?". I guess his personality is just dominating my brain right now..actually, who am I kidding...his personality has dominated for the last 5 years. It is not that I love Annie, Jack or Sam any less or that they don't give me equal amounts of the joy and grief that Will does. It is just, well, you have to know Will. He is either full on or he is asleep. He is either full volume or he is asleep...you get the idea. To know him is to adore him even tho just watching him go is completely and utterly exhausting. As you can tell from reading this blog (and my inability to center the text with the pictures), I'm not technologically adept enough to photoshop Will's head into the video clip below, so just put this face... ...on the little cartoon boy and enjoy. Welcome to a little bit of life (and this happens just about every morning at say, about 6:00 am) with the lovable, huggable and oh so exasperating....Will!

Have you met my husband....

....the Heat Miser (Ames has always had the most talented hair)



And with all the little misers...

A little Christmas fun...

...was had by all today, even tho we were in shorts and 70 degree temperatures.


The kids weren't sure at first if this was the real Santa or just one of his helpers. But, he knew all their names....curious
...so they told him what they wanted for Christmas, just in case. Better safe than sorry, especially 5 days before the big day!!





What a fantastic idea!!!! Super-sized ornaments and presents just ripe for the climbing! It is always such fun as a parent when you can say "yes, you can climb on that" and the kids had a ball (no pun intended), even if Jack wouldn't smile for his mama!


The day drew towards an end with a little gingerbread decorating...




The elves were hard at work.....



....Voila!! A masterpiece!!






And now, the sun has set, the temperature is dropping (no really, like to the 20s) and tomorrow will feel like the first day of winter! We are snuggled in together watching the Polar Express, having grilled cheese for dinner, and life is good.

Headphones...

..are a fantastic invention. They allow you to have a little privacy in your musical enjoyment and allow others to have a little peace while you listen. We don't all like the same kinds of music, and headphones are a great solution to many an artistic disagreement. Whoever invented the headphones for the car..... a genius! How great that I can listen to my music and the kids can listen to theirs, and never the two shall meet. Except, like all other electronic devices, my kids are more fascinated with the gadget than they are concerned with its functionality. Hence today, while running errands, even tho we were all listening to the same Christmas carols on a CD, the boys insisted on taking turns wearing the headphones. Now, this doesn't bother me. They worked out the sharing system all on their own and it was going quite nicely. My only complaint, that we had to listen to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer over and over and over. The humorous part of the story lies in the volume analysis. We were "that car"...that car that you pull up next to at the stoplight and can't help but look at because it is vibrating!! "That car" where the bass is so high and the volume so loud that you can actually feel the beat of the other car inside your car....you know, you've been there, too. Except herein lies the difference, we didn't have the bass up and we didn't blast it out in volume...no need. I have Will. Will, wearing the headphones, sang Rudolph loudly and proudly. In fact, you could even say he screamed. LOUDLY and proudly. So much so that I worried for the hearing loss of my youngest, Sam. Will sang with such gusto that he literally shook the car. He sang so that he could hear the music in his headphones and still hear himself above it all. Now those of you who know Will, know that volume control is not his forte, but this surpassed anything you have ever witnessed. As we drove down the street vibrating and pulsating to the beat, people could feel our Christmas spirit. And when we stopped at every stoplight, people turned and stared. I'm sure they thought --Bad mother listening to her music so loud with those babies in the car!! No, no....just a little Willie Christmas cheer. So, if you see me later today and I ask you to repeat yourself, or I shout my answer back at you, don't worry. I just have a little leftover Rudolph damage to the eardrums. Merry Christmas!!

Thank you...

Madagascar 2!!! Thank you for introducing my son Will (age 5) to the wonder of breasts! My family loves Madagascar 1, it was silly, yes, but sweet and very funny. The sequel left much to be desired. Wildly inappropriate and just plain stupid (yes, in case my kids are reading this, I know that isn't a nice word, but it just fit). In one scene of the movie there is a male hippo (Moto Moto) who is flexing his very hairy, large pecs. Which brings the question into Will's mind, isn't that a boy hippo? Answer: yes. Then why does he have boobies? My oh my, how the mind reels with possible answers. We deal with the situation in what seems to us an age-appropriate way. Yet, the seed has been planted. Everywhere we go for the next several days, weeks, everything is about "boobies." Hers are big, she doesn't have any, why are boys' so small, do they grow when you are a grown up or is that just for hippos? If boy boobies are big does that mean they have milk inside...and the questions go on and on. First, I must say that I told Will not to call them boobies. That for men, it is just a chest....that somehow translated in Will-speak to "chesties." So, for those of you who need an anatomy refresher...women have boobies and men have chesties. It just won't stop!! Even now as we sit and watch Shrek the Halls, Will doesn't see the funny decorations Shrek has put on their house (including such 5 year old classics as a toilet seat on the door)...no, he asks what are those two circles on Fiona's chest? You know...her boobies? Nice. Thanks to Dream Works for this early education in the differences in our anatomy. I guess we have learned one thing thru it all....Will is definitely a boob man (sorry, chesty man)!

A moment in time....

This may seem silly to most, but to me captured a precious moment in time. We decided to eat dinner in the den, in front of the Muppet Christmas movie (not the same as when we were kids, but the closest my 4 have been to the Muppets..how sad, what happened to the Muppets?). We had the oh so delicious and nutritious dinner of taquitos and nachos which my kiddos love. Seconds were called for and Ames put in another pan of nachos. When they came out of the oven, he called all 4 kids into the kitchen to wait for their helpings and they stood, just like this..


...my little stair steps

....(not for long, poor Annie is doomed to be dwarfed by 3 big boys) all in a row waiting for daddy's delicious nachos. These are the pictures I need to remember when they are driving me CRAZY, running thru the house like wildfire with volume turned up high after way too much Christmas sugar! These are the moments I will miss all too soon. I know someday I'll miss the hot wheels cars under my feet every where I step, the stinky socks and muddy shoes in every room of the house, the wet towels and dirty clothes left in the floor of my room, and much much more. But most of all, I know I'll miss the precious stair steps, waiting patiently for seconds of nachos, eating dinner in the den and watching (and completely enthralled by) the Muppet Christmas movie.

An afternoon with Wags....

Ah, Hut Hut's house....the land of opportunity!!




So many choking hazards, so little time!



Look Dad, forget ducks! I got my first deer!!!!




Wow! Look at all these cords...what does this one do?






Um, I'm a little scared now. Can I call my mom???? HELP!

Birthday blessings

At chapel yesterday, Sammy got to go up front for his birthday blessing. I wasn't going to post this picture since it isn't the cutest of Sam, or my friend Ann the music teacher, until I got Ames' comment when I sent it to him...


"He's a muffin...but in that pic with that face and that sweater, he looks a little like Freddy Kreuger!!"

Nice!
(maybe if Freddy had been this cute and had birthday blessings, there would have been no nightmares on elm street...just a thought)

Interpretation is everything...

The nativity as seen by Sam...three baby Jesus' all in a row, sleeping peacefully on the hutch.




And the nativity as seen by Will...no baby Jesus in sight (he's one of the triplets on the hutch, the one that looks like a bean), but there are the cameo appearances of a hippo, gorilla, lion, elephant and giraffe. It's all about interpretation.

Happy Birthday Sam!!

What more can a boy want on his 4th birthday than to wake up to......SNOW!!!!

Happy Birthday Sam! We love you!






Birthday fun continues...



...with presents, always a good thing


...and cake!





Way to go, Sammy!!

The Christmas Program

It is a little known fact about that first Christmas that all the very dapper shepherds wore bow ties...




...and so did one very handsome wise man.