A Father's Love

Yesterday was vacuum day here at the Hutchison Apartment. I was busily pushing the vacuum across the floor when low and behold a heart (one of the girls alphabet toys with the word heart embroidered on it, very neat toys I might add, Anyhow), it was on the floor where I needed to vacuum so Allen thoughtfully grabbed it and said, "Here is my heart".



Being from a family of quick wit and all the sass to go with, I thought to respond, no actually it isn't yours to give, it is Lizzie's. Of course, with the vacuuming I chose not to, but as I continued my way through the apartment I thought about the implications of that little exchange.

The truth is daddy's would love to be able to choose who their daughter's hearts go to, and yet they can't. No matter how they may try to persuade, and coerce their lovely daughters to be attracted to the boys of their choosing (whether their little girl is 6 or 36), they have no control. Instead they must wait, and hope and pray that the little girl they watched grow up, will choose for herself as well or better than he can choose for her.



Someday Allen will come to that moment of no longer being able to pick up the heart and hand it to whom he chooses, but instead must release it to another. There will be seas of tears of all types on that blessed day. Until then, we have a huge job ahead teaching our girls to love and be loved as God would have them do.

And to my father,
Thank you for letting go. Being married to Allen has been the biggest blessing of my life. God chose well for me, so thank you for trusting God and me and letting go through your own sea.

I love you Daddy.
Always your little girl,
Steph

Stupid Key Lock

So, I have made an unfortunate habit of letting the girls play with my cell phone occasionally. I have "cleverly" locked it so that they are unable to do anything more than press buttons and sometimes they are able to take a picture or two. Harmless, right?



WRONG!!!!!!


I just received a call from a strange number. When I picked up the very professional male voice, said, "This is Emergency blah blah blah (Note: read blah blahs as Stephanie going into phone shock, mind racing as I process what this means). We received a 9-1-1 call from this phone and wanted to see if you were having an emergency?" (Slight pause as I try to formulate some words to explain my utter foolishness and complete embarrassment).
"Um, No. I am really sorry that was my daughter playing with my phone. I am really sorry."
The conversation ended with some quick parting pleasantries and my mouth hanging low in shock.

So, if you ever are having an emergency, never fear, Lizzie will make the call, key lock or not!

Thinking ahead

For this five minute window, Lizzie wants to be a doctor when she grows up.

Dancing fun

New video goodness. The girls dancing around and playing silly games. :-)

Dancing fun

Videos

We have now posted the Boz video and the Birthday video. Check them out here and here.

Once there just click on the link and it should take you right to the video. Enjoy!

Note: The birthday video is almost 5 minutes in length, so it could take time to load for some of you.

Things Parents Say

Allen:

Do you see what just happened, Lizzie?
Ellie was in the box. You sat on the box. So you sat on Ellie. That's not nice.

Lizzie:

Ohhhh...

Princess Party

Lizzie has been asking to do a Princess party for sometime now, so when her birthday was coming, we knew what the party would be. We ended up inviting a few of Lizzie friends over for crust-less sandwiches, chips, veggies, fruit, gogurt, amazing princess punch (bug my great friend Sarah for the recipe sometime, it is well worth it), and of course cake and ice cream. The cake was beautifully made by another dear friend, Jessica:


can you believe she made it all out of icing!

Anyhow, the party was great, and I think the kids had fun (which is the point). And with the exception of the glitter everywhere, there wasn't much to clean up or fix afterward!



Thanks to everyone who came and made Lizzie's party so special!

Oh, and by the way, Lizzie seems to think that we need another party next week just like it. Hopefully by next week I can get through the idea of a birthday being once a year...maybe I should start by figuring out how to explain how long a year is? Any Ideas????

Gardening Fun

So I started a garden this year, and am pretty please with it over all. I have made errors and killed plants, but over all it is do well.

I should have taken a picture when I first got my plot, so that you could have seen how many weeks and things were in my little section of dirt. But, you all know what weed riddled land looks like!

It started off looking smallish:

Now I have two plots (I needed more room, one of the errors I mentioned earlier): The original plot now

Rescue section of new plot with wild Strawberries and overgrown peas

My overgrown Cilantro (coriander)

Green beans and peas

The true test will be whether anything edible grows on the plants :-)

Hey, does anyone know what to do to rescue tiny squash plants that really didn't like being put so close together, and hated being dug up and replanted to spread them out?

BOZ

So we don't let the girls watch much television or movies, since they are still pretty little, but occasionally we do put in a DVD (usually BOZ or The Princess and the Pauper). Daddy got a shot of the girls starting to watch BOZ this past week.

Boz Dancing

It is pretty fun, though you miss the excitement that took place before the camera was rolling, with Ellie jumping up and down, shaking with anticipation of what was to come.

The 3rd Birthday

Lizzie turned 3 almost a week ago and she had a great time opening gifts, hearing her favorite song (Happy Birthday to Lizzie), and of course eating her favorite foods on her birthday (she picked chicken nuggets and fries with cucumber this year).

The gift opening was quite entertaining, since Lizzie faithfully went through opening each well wrapped gift and ignoring the loud noise next to her. Check it out. First, the link to the YouTube video of it. Then some pics.

Lizzie's 3rd birthday

Lizzie received a helmet and pads from Great-Grandma Sewell and was sporting them along with the bathing suit we got her. Of course also holding her new cell phone and camera (princess) from Auntie Nono.