Playing in the Leaves

Here are the girls playing in the leaves. Notice how they are holding their noses like they are getting ready to jump in the pool.....too funny!

Cheering for the Red Raiders

It's Been Awhile!

Well...........it's been awhile, to say the least. I've gotten hooked on Facebook and have not kept up with the blog as much as I should have. I'm going to do a marathon of posts of pictures of the girls, the dog, fall leaves, and of my Red Raiders beating UT from last week. Yahoo! All is well with us. The girls will turn 5 at the end of the month. We just can't believe it. They are loving school this year. It amazes me what they are learning. Mike is still enjoying his work. He's traveling quite a bit, but it's doable. I'm loving my job at the church. My choirs are doing a Children's Christmas Musical in early December, so I've been running crazy trying to pull all of that off. It's going to be wonderful for our church. They've not had a children's musical of any kind for quite some time so this will be special for the kids and the church community. I'm excited. Hope all is well with everyone. Autumn in Arkansas is wonderful! We are loving the cooler temps and the colors of the leaves. Best to all!

Monica

Olympic Bound

Well....the girls had their first gymnastics class this week. They had a blast. You'll have to be the judge, but I think they might be headed for gold medals!!! Check out the videos.

Tess....a growing pup!!!

Our new puppy, Tess, is growing so fast!!! We've had her now for 2 1/2 months and she's gained 12 lbs. She absolutely loves the girls and follows them everywhere. We are loving having her. Here are some new photos and a video clip of her.

4th of July

We celebrated our first 4th of July here. It was lots of fun. We hung out all day over at our next door neighbor's house with all of their extended family. They've sort of adopted our family and include us in all of their "holiday" celebrations. The girls and Tess adore them which is a huge blessing. Later in the evening, we went out to the country club and took the girls swimming, had dinner and watched the fireworks show from the highest tee box on the golf course. It was awesome! It was the first time for the girls to see live fireworks. Here are a few pics from the 4th.

Hutchison Cousins

We had a wonderful week last week. Mike's brother, Danny, and his family visited us here. We did lots of swimming, shopping and going to the zoo. My sister-in-law, Sondra, and I "forced" all of the kids to get dressed up so we could get cousin pictures done. We piled all of the kids in my car and headed out to Hendrix's lovely campus and forced them to pose. Here are a few of the pictures we got. Hope you enjoy!

Check out my Slide Show!

Summer Fun

Well, we're having a great time so far this summer. The girls and Tess are growing like weeds. Tomorrow we will have finished our first VBS at our church. I've started my work at the church, as well, and am really enjoying it. I've gotten lots of positive feedback from both kids and parents already which affirms the fact that I'm where I need to be right now. Mike's still loving his job and is playing lots of golf. We are all doing lots of swimming this summer, as well. We've made friends with our neighbors across the street with whom we also attend church and so it's been fun to let the kids and the new puppies run and play. Life right now is good and we are happy!

My friend, Mistie, surprised me with a visit last week. She drove in from KC and stayed with us for 2 nights. It was such a wonderful blessing to see her. The girls loved getting to spend time with her and she gave me some good tips on training the new pup!

We miss all of you and hope you are having a wonderful start to your summer. I'll create a slideshow to show you some recent pics of us. Take care.
Monica

Tim Russert

I just wanted to post some thoughts directed toward the recent and tragic loss of Tim Russert. I, like many, only knew him through watching him as a political analyst on NBC. I have, however, been so incredibly saddened by his recent death. He completely changed my desires to have a better understanding of politics in our country during the Bush/Gore campaign and election back in 2000. I, like many, still remember him pulling out the small whiteboard where he crunched numbers on different scenarios and wrote out "Florida, Florida, Florida". I stayed up and watched he and Tom Brokaw all night long that night and became a more inspired citizen and voter. Now that he is gone, I have learned of his faith and have viewed his own family and his NBC family share some of the most amazing stories about him. He touched my life and I thank him for opening my eyes to how our country is governed. My prayers are with his family as they grieve. I grieve with them. Go get 'em, pal!!! See you in Heaven.

Well, we've had an exhausting, but wonderful weekend. We welcomed our newest family member on Friday morning. Say hello to Tess. She's our 7 week old lab puppy. Having her around has truly reminded me of those days when the girls were babies. No sleep the first night, a little more last night and hoping for the best tonight. She is so sweet and the girls love her. She also has a playmate across the street. Our neighbors adopted a puppy 3 weeks ago, so the two pups have had a blast playing together. Tess is rather docile and very affectionate. She's taken a liking to all of us, but loves her mommy! Yes, that's me!

Check out my Slide Show!

Fancy Nancy Party

When GG was in town recently, we had a Fancy Nancy party. The girls got all dressed up in their boas, fancy dresses, princess shoes and hats. We had parfaits and the girls got their own Fancy Nancy doll!! It was great fun and the girls practiced their French. In one of the pictures they are saying, "Ooo-la-la!" By the way, if you're not familiar with the Fancy Nancy book series, you MUST read them. They are priceless!!! Love you all! Bonjour!!!

Happy Easter!!!

OK, OK,
Yes, this is really late, but I misplaced the USB cord to my digital camera so I could upload my pictures, but I found it so now we're in business. We went Easter Sunday to my cousin's house who also lives about an hour and a half away in Augusta, AR. Her 3 sons and grandkids were there. The kids had a blast hunting Easter eggs. Here's wishing everyone a belated Happy Easter!!! He is risen, indeed!!

New Family Photo

We had a wonderful time in Lubbock at Dad's wedding, but it was nice to get back home in our own beds. We were gone for 6 days. We got to see lots of family and friends. It was a great time. We are now in the midst of Holy Week and are reminded with all of the rain and storms of God's power. This is truly a blessed week. May God bless you all.

Love,

Monica

Hope all is well with all of you. We will be heading for McKinney tomorrow to spend the night with Grandma (Mary Ann) and then on to Lubbock on Wednesday for the big wedding weekend. I thought I would send you a few updated pictures of what all we've been doing in the past week. We had snow, we went to Hendrix to have lunch with Daddy and check out the goldfish and lilly pads and we had a Solid Gold dance-a-thon.

The girls and their friend Kaylea had a blast playing in the snow in our backyard.

We got to go to Hendrix and have lunch with Daddy. We always have to go by the pond and check out the lilly pads and the goldfish.

Finally, we had a little Solid Gold moment on Sunday afternoon. Mommy thinks we kind of look like Elaine from Seinfeld. She says we have one up on her, however, because we have rhythm and beat!!! Check us out!

Check out my Slide Show!

Christie to the Rescue!!!

Many thanks to my friend, Christie. She is a hair dresser and we are in bible study together and our girls are great friends. Christie saw the blog and called me first thing this morning and came to the rescue. It took lots of creativity and effort, but she was able to take a major mess and create pieces of "head art"! I just cannot thank her enough. Now the girls will look nice for the wedding and will hopefully not have a complex about their appearance...........or, mommy won't have a complex about their appearance. However you look at it, they do look awfully cute! Don't you think? Love to you all.
Monica

Gettin' Scissor Happy

Hi everyone,
I should have another post tomorrow after we visit the hair salon! Last night, while I was on the phone with my sister-in-law Sondra, Hannah and Maggie decided it would be so much fun to cut each other's hair. Hannah cut off Maggie's pony tail in the back and half of her hair on one side and Maggie cut off the opposite side of hair on Hannah's head. Maggie's bangs also got cut REALLY short! They thought it was really funny until they found out that they will have to go to the salon and have ALL of their hair cut short tomorrow. The first question Maggie asked was what everyone's hair was going to look like at Pop's wedding. Yes, Pop's wedding is in two weeks...........not quite long enough to repair the damage. Do they make wigs for little girls? Hmmm. Anyway, my brother, Craig, called right after it happend and we had some great laughs reliving the time he did the same thing. Hope you enjoy the pictures. I'll send more of the new cuts. I'm really worried! Love you all.
Monica

Check out my Slide Show!

Check out my Slide Show!

It's Been Awhile

Hannah and Maggie

Hello to our friends and family,

Can you believe how fast these girls are growing? They're growing like weeds!

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. I haven't had any pictures to download b/c I couldn't find our charger to our camera. It has now been found and I can go. What did we do before the world of digital photos??? Anyway, things here are going well. Mike is still loving his job, the girls love school and I'm loving BSF, singing in the choir and taking care of my family. I have signed on to teach music at the girls' pre-school next year. It is only half a day, one day a week, so it's very doable! I will get to teach music to the girls which will be fun! We'll see how they handle having mommy as their teacher. Hmmm.

We will be traveling to Lubbock in a few weeks. Dad is getting married and we are thrilled for he and his new bride-to-be, Donna. They have known each other for years and her youngest son and I actually graduated from high school together. What a small world. I'll be singing in the wedding. I actually sang in one of Donna's daughter's weddings years ago. We are excited for them to start their married lives together. They truly are a blessing to each other and to all of us! Congrats guys!

Love to you all!

Monica

Fun in Kansas City

Two days after Christmas, we made the 6.5 hour trek to Kansas City to visit our dear friends, the Caesteckers. What a glorious trip it was seeing friends who we consider family and partaking in all of the wonderful winter activities children should grow up experiencing. Paul and Mistie live in a very quaint part of KC that is just beautiful. Harry and Jack were very gracious and allowed us to disrupt their routines and space for a few days. The girls went sledding and ice skating and Mistie and I, of course, did a little shopping. What a blessing to have friends like them. We love them dearly and can't wait for them to visit Arkansas. Don't know if we can quite provide the entertainment here, but we can return the hospitality we experienced in KC. We love the four of you!

Christmas

Wow! What a wonderful Christmas! My Dad came and visited and we let him take over the smoker on Christmas day to prepare a smoked prime rib! It was delicious! The girls had a wonderful time opening presents. They really got into the Christmas spirit this year. Here are few pics of the special day. God bless to you all and Happy New Year!