The Hutcheson Family's Top Ten Best Moments of 2014

I've been a little MIA lately and I apologize! We moved into our new house the middle of December and a week later my parents and little sisters came for a visit! Christmas with them was wonderful and I will try to post some Holiday pictures soon. They left yesterday and now I'm back to trying to unpack and get settled in this new house!

I am feeling overwhelmed with all I have to do and have hardly had time to sit down, let alone blog. I had wanted to write a Christmas post and put up our Christmas card but never got to it! =( Drew's hair is so long and I desperately need to cut it but haven't had the time. My family is seriously living on Pop-Tarts and oranges as I try to pull it together enough to make meals! =) Life is crazy but I know it will settle down and soon enough we will be comfortable and at home in our new house. Anyways, I just wanted to pop in to wish you all a (belated) MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

God has been {SO} faithful to us over this past year and I wanted to take some time to post our top ten best moments of 2014. 

To God be the glory!

10. We vacationed at Myrtle Beach for the first time over the summer and had a great time with our extended family.
9. We realized how much we LOVE Chick-Fil-A now that we live near tons of them!
8. Drew finished his first semester of grad school!
7. Isaiah turned 4 years old! What a funny kid he is and always keeps us laughing!
6. Eloise turned 2 years old! This sweet little girl (with a big attitude!) is so snuggly and loving. We are so glad she's in our family.
5. Drew and I celebrated 5 years of marriage. So thankful I have such a great partner who points me to the Lord as we navigate this crazy life together.
4. We moved to Florida! Drew never ever thought he'd move back to his hometown of Jacksonville but we are adjusting to life in the South and learning to make a home wherever we are!
3. We bought our very first home! We are so thankful for how far God has brought us since this time last year when Drew had no job and we had very little to our name. Only the Lord could bring us this far.
2. Sweet Olive Kay joined our family in April! Praise the Lord for a quick and easy delivery and a healthy baby. She brings so much joy into our lives!
1. Everywhere we went and in everything we did the Lord provided for our every need, going with us every step of the way.

Happy New Year!

How to Make a Personalized Video for Your Kids from Santa!

Last year I came across a really fun website called PortableNorthPole.com which allows you to make a personalized video for your child from Santa (actually you can make them for adults too)! =) This year I pulled up the website again and made a video each for Isaiah and Eloise. You should have seen their faces while they watched them! Totally enthralled and amazed!

The videos are entertaining and very well done. You can choose personal things to be included such as a picture of your child, the child's name, age, a specific toy the child wants for Christmas, whether they made it on the naughty or nice list this year, and certain things the child needs to work on for next year (for Isaiah I chose "stop sucking his thumb" and for Eloise "stop throwing temper tantrums." I can always hope, right!?!!). =)

The videos are quick and easy to make and completely FREE!!!! If you want, you can choose to pay for an upgraded, more detailed video or a phone call from Santa. But the basic video is free.

You have to pay to download your video to the computer ($2.99) and I didn't want to do that to include it in this post. But you can watch it online as many times as you want! If you're interested in seeing a sample before you make your own you can view Isaiah's video here and Eloise's video here.

It's just a fun little thing to do for your kids and I wanted to pass it along! =)

By the way, you can read more about our view on Santa and what we teach our kids about him here. 

Miss Olive: 8 Months

Livy is 8 months old today! Things have been so crazy around here with our new house that I almost forgot! Some friends of ours reminded us last night. Whew! 

This past month, Olive learned how to walk while pushing her walker (can't walk on her own yet), celebrated her first Thanksgiving, learned to give open-mouth, slobbery kisses, and tried her first olive (she loved it, of course!!!)!

Super baby!! Walking with her walker!

Height & Weight: Don't know her height but she's TALL! She weighs 18.6 pounds on our home scale. She's somewhere around the 95th percentile for height and 75th for weight.

Could anything smell sweeter than a freshly bathed baby?!?

Eating: Olive is quite an adventurous eater these days! This past month she has eaten pizza, pumpkin pie, potato salad, and chicken. She still likes her baby food but is starting to get savvy as to how good "real" food tastes! =) She does well with finger food and feeds herself most of the time. She still nurses regularly and loves her milk from mommy!!

These pictures are from the family pictures we got done last month. <3

Sleep: Doing pretty good these days!! Olive usually goes down at 8 pm and wakes for a feeding (or I wake her) around 11 pm, right before I go to bed. Then she's up to eat again at 6 pm. She could probably wake up for the day at 6 am, but {I} do not want to wake up for the day at 6 so I usually feed her and put her back down and she sleeps till 7:30/8 am.... a much better time. =) She takes a morning nap, a looooong afternoon nap, and sometimes a quick catnap around 5 pm. She goes down awake and snuggles with her blankie and paci to go to sleep. She's a belly sleeper!

Sometimes I like to imagine that Livy has luscious, blonde curls.... but then I realize that it's just how her headband bent her hair and that really....... it's pin straight.  =)

Movie and milkshake night! The kids were helping daddy blend up the ice cream! 

Personality: Like seriously, could a baby be any sweeter than Olive is? Livy is a happy, easy-going, smiley, content, and snuggly baby. She melts my heart. =) The past two weeks she's had a cold and been teething (three teeth now!) so she's been clingy and a bit grumpy. I miss my normal Olive and hope she gets back to health soon! I think her cold is on it's way out the door so that's good.

Pool baby!

Ellie climbed into Livy's bed and wrapped her up like a burrito one morning. Olive loved it. =)

Milestones: Livy got her ears pierced two weekends ago! We pierced Eloise's ears when she was six months old, so it was only fair that we get Olive's done too! =) She cried and cried when she got it done but it was short-lived and they don't bother her at all now. Olive learned to push her walker across the room this month and is close to walking on her own. She still zooms around the house on hands and knees as her main mode of transportation but I don't think walking is far off! Olive also wore her first pair of jeans this month. Big girl!!

Ready to get her ears pierced! All smiles now but that changed soon after this picture was taken!! =)

Olive and her new friend, Bailey, just two weeks older than her!

My sweet sweet Olive.

Isaiah and Eloise: The other day I asked Isaiah if he thought that Baby Olive was going to be a boy before she was born (we didn't know her gender before she was born). He said, "Yea.... well mom, I'm still thinking she's going to be a boy someday." Lol! He still hasn't give up hope for a brother! =)

Olive is soooo mobile now that she gets into the kids' stuff all the time. They are pretty good about it but sometimes it gets on their nerves. Usually Isaiah will just pick Olive up and move her away but that doesn't keep her away for long.... she's a speed crawler!! For the most part they all play pretty well together, though. 

Last week we were driving and I went to get the kids out of the car and found gobs and gobs of Eloise's hair in Olive's hands! Their car seats are right next to each other and Eloise had fallen asleep and while she was sleeping Olive pulled out tons of her hair! I don't know how Ellie didn't wake up, it looks like that hurt!!! Oh well!

Eloise, the paci stealer!

Big brother, little sister. 

Big sister, little sister. 

The kids with their cousin, Gavin! 

Happy Eight Months, Olive! We Love You!