Our Own Thanksgiving!

Okay, so this was my very first turkey that I have ever made- and it turned out SOOO good!!! It was super yummy, YAY!!! I was really nervous to make our own Thanksgiving dinner, there's a lot of extra pressure when it's for a holiday, even when it's just me and Blayne eating it. Anyway, this next picture is of our feast- everything was good, although I screwed up the mashed potatoes, I don't know how I made everything else good, and screwed up the easiest thing, but I did. Oh well, I was still pretty proud!

Sometimes Ava likes to come up and just cuddle, I LOVE it!!! Anyway, we match in this picture, I like it.
As you can see, I was trying NOT to be in the picture, I wasn't completely successful, oh well. Ava has started climbing up on the chairs and then onto the table, we had some suckers sitting there, and as you can see, she got a hold of one. It was really cute.

All in all we had a great day. Blayne didn't have any homework and was able to watch Ava while I cooked, and later when I was SO tired and took a nap. It was REALLY nice!!

DECISION!

Well this has been a very stressful time for us! It has come time to make a decision about where Blayne is going to work and where we are going to live for the next couple years. He received offers from Deloitte in Portland, KPMG in Sacramento and Kernutt Stokes Brandt & Co. in Eugene. We have been talking ourselves in circles about where we should go (mainly between Eugene and Sacramento) and what would be best for our family. We had been leaning toward Sacramento for awhile, but Blayne started to think about the firm in Eugene again and spoke with a friend who works at Kernutt Stokes Brandt & Co. (thank you Julian) who had some really good points about the firm. Well, to make a long story short, we stayed up past 2:00 a.m. talking about where we felt we should go. We prayed about it and went to bed. We woke up this morning and both felt that we should go to Sacramento. We still hope to come back to Eugene sometime in the future, but for some reason, we feel as though we should go to KPMG right now.

California Here We Come!

Job Offer & Funny Girl!!

Before we get to the adorable pictures of Ava, we had an exciting week- Blayne got his first job offer!!!!! It's at KPMG, one of the Big 4 Accounting firms and it's in Sacramento, CA- FUN- plus it's a GREAT opportunity, but we are still waiting to hear back from a firm in Eugene (which would also be a GREAT opportunity), because we do want to be close to family. Okay, so to explain the post of all of these pictures of Ava in her high chair, she has started to make this face when she's eating, and it cracks me up. It's become a game to her. It's SO funny!!!

I think that this one is really sweet, it's one of my favorites.


HELLO CHUBBO!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Can you believe how chubby she looks in this picture??!! I LOVE IT!!!

Election...

I have to say that I was pretty angry last night, but this morning I was thinking about some things that have bothered me over the last couple of years. I HATED seeing those STUPID bumper stickers that said "He's not my president"- that drove me absolutely INSANE!!! I think our country has been very disrespectful toward our president, and I don't like that, I don't want to be like that, so even though he wasn't my pick, Obama is my president and I will try to be supportive.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Our little Lady Bug, SO cute!!! You gotta love that face.

Very HAPPY Lady Bug!!

I'm sorry, but how adorable is her little butt- hahahaha!!!!

We were making funny faces, apparently Ava didn't think it was very fun.

This was at our church Halloween party, Ava had a ton of fun- she just ran around and danced and laughed, it was so cute!!!



I don't know if you can tell, but this guy was walking and Ava totally cut him off, an example of what she did ALL night and I just ran behind her apologizing. I wish we would have been able to stay longer but I had gotten sick again that night and Ava needed to go to bed :(

Pumpkin Patch & Exciting Stuff!!!

So we've been getting very stressy lately because it's jobhunting time for Blayne, and with the economy being so crappy people aren't doing as much hiring as usual. Well, Blayne is through with his first round interviews and has office visits with 3 firms so far- YAY!!! I actually dropped him off at the airport this morning- so I am a single parent for a couple of days- not so yay! I feel worse for Blayne though, I took him to the airport today at 11:30 am to go to Portland, he gets back on Thursday at 10:15 am, then goes straight to class for a quiz after an all night flight, goes back to the airport after class to go to Sacramento, then gets back here at like midnight on Halloween night. He's then home for the weekend with a ton of studying and stuff to do because he has a presentation on Monday morning, then goes back to the airport Monday afternoon to fly to Eugene, then get's back at like 10:15 Wednesday morning and goes straight to class. That's as far as we know so far, but if he gets more calls, which we're hoping he does, then he might have more trips- CRAZY!! Man, I'm tired just writing about it, poor guy. Sorry, that was probably really confusing. I am pretty jealous though, he gets to see family- I want to see family!!!! Only a little over a month until we get to go home for Christmas- EXCITING!!!!

Ava and I went to the pumpkin patch for a ward activity, we were both sick when we went, but desperately needed to get out of the house. We're finally getting better, but then what happens??? Hutcheson sisters will understand what I mean when I say that I got "poop-face"!!! Yep, that's right- a big, humongous cold sore right under my nose- SICK!!!! I seriously think it might be one of the biggest ones that I have EVER had and it hurts like crazy!!! Well, on a happier note- here are some cute pictures...

She's wearing my beanie, but I think it's really cute, and it actually doesn't fit her too bad, we got her a new one the other day that covers her little ears better.

They had a hay maze and in the middle of it was this area of loose hay and a slide. Her shoe came off in this, but luckily I saw it come off so it didn't get lost or anything.

They also had this thing, it was like a sandbox, but it was full of corn instead of sand, Ava played in that for quite a while and then SCREAMED when I took her to the car to go home. That was fun- hahaha!!! All in all, we had a good time, Ava really liked it. I wish we would have had a chance to go back with Blayne, but oh well, next year.

Well, Blayne just called from a layover in Chicago, he got a call from another firm in Portland, so he'll have another trip some time next week. Man this is going to be a stressful couple of weeks, but when it's over he'll hopefully have a job and a HUGE weight lifted off of our shoulders!!! I'm just excited for that time!!

More Ava

So I know that I always just have a bunch of pictures of Ava, I hope people don't get sick of it, but she's all we take pictures of, I'm sure you can see why. This is her looking at all of our DVD's after she takes them off of the racks. The other day she found her Little Einsteins movie and cried because she wanted to watch it so bad. We had to hide it from her to get her to forget- what are we doing to her???? She actually doesn't really watch it that much, not even once a week, but she LOVES it!!

She also loves her stuffed animals, she walks around hugging them and making sweet little noises. Sometimes she even puts them in her rocking chair and rocks them, it's adorable.

Mommy daughter moment...

Doesn't she look old in this picture?? I put her hair in pigtails a couple of weeks ago, so cute.

I don't think I really need to say anything about this picture, it pretty much speaks for itself- hahaha!!!
So she has recently started climbing into her toybox- it totally cracks me up. The first time she really liked it and was laughing, until she wanted out then she got mad. The next couple times she got mad pretty instantly when she couldn't get out. She hasn't gotten in for a couple days, but I love it.

It's pretty impossible to do the dishes when Ava is awake (unless Little Einsteins is in- hahaha) because as you can see she loves the dishwasher. She is constantly coming and trying to climb on it, or pulling the rack in and out. It sometimes turns into a game of keeping her away if Blayne and I are both home.

We have some really cute stuff on video, but I'm not sure how to post it, once we get it figured out I'll post some. She says so many words and we actually got her to say some on camera- miracle!! She's also been good about saying them on the phone when we call home, so that's been fun having everybody able to hear her. I'm SO excited to be going home for Christmas, I miss everybody SO much- plus we just got our tickets changed, so we'll be there almost 3 weeks instead of 2- YAY!!!!!!!