Boys will be boys

I have a sneaky suspicion that I will have lots of blog entries with this title.

Let's start with the little one. He is all over the place. He started crawling on August 16, just 30 minutes after we told a friend who was staying with us that he hadn't started to crawl. It was a very awkward army crawl. However, in a few days time, Thomas had figured it out. He is still army crawling, but it's more together. Since then, he is rocking up on his knees. We decided to drop his bed down because of all the crawling. A little more than a week later, I got a surprise when I went to get Thomas from his nap. He was sitting up in his bed. Out came the Allen wrench and down with went the bed, again. Yesterday, after I had finished feeding Thomas, I put him down for his nap. I went to his door to fix the gate. Wanting to glance up one more time at my sweet boys bed, I got another surprise. Thomas was standing in his crib and chewing on the rails. I got Hayden and we watched Thomas for several minutes while he sat down and then stood up again. Then a nervous thought. Thomas could use the bumper pad to climb out of the crib. So, I brought in the pack and play for nap time. When Larry got home, he dropped the bed again. It's now at the lowest level.

As for Hayden, he has a few new phrases:

"This is ridiculous"

"Don't do that, it's dangerous"

"Thomas, we don't eat our toys, we eat pood (food)"

He started school today. He was so excited, even running around the living room singing a "school" song he made up. When he got home from school, the fun began. One day last week, Hayden decided to open his door. This was a first for us. Up until this point, Hayden had no desire to open his door. He simply chose to stay in his room and play when he woke up in the morning and from his nap. So, we put a gate at his door so that we could try and contain "Hurricane Hayden". He now wants to have the door open. Not a problem for us. Today, I was packing up some things in the kitchen and I ran out of tape. On my way to the hallway closet, I peeked in on Hayden. What I saw clearly wasn't what I expected. Hayden had decided that he needed some powder. Then he decided that it might be a good idea to see what his room would look like covered in baby powder. It looked like Christmas. I was in shock. All I could do was laugh, trying not to have Hayden see the laughing. Larry and I spent quite a while cleaning up all the mess. On a positive note, Hayden's room smells great and all his toys got a "wash down".

Until Later,

Larry, Kori, "Hurricane Hayden" and "Tornado Thomas"

“How great is our God, sing with me How great is our God, and all will see How great, how great is our God”
That song has been in my head and on my lips for several weeks now.

So we - here at the Hutson house - have big news. We are moving to Temple, Texas as of late November. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Texas geography, Temple is between Dallas and Austin—right in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. Larry has accepted a job with Scott & White Hospital. He will spend the first several months in Waco at one of their satellite hospitals, and then he will be at the main campus. This move has been in the works for several months. Now, I want to share the whole story with you so that you would see how God has worked through our lives and why I’ve been singing “How great is our God”!

It all started early this summer. I had been missing our extended family and wondered out loud one day to God, “When will we move back to Texas”? We really wanted to be closer to our family. It was just a passing wonder, not one I even mentioned to Larry. A few days later, he came home and said, “How would you feel about moving to Temple?” “Wow,” was my response. We immediately started looking at houses, schools, churches and local attractions in the area. The more we looked, the more we liked it. We began to pray about God’s direction and will for our lives. At the same time, Larry submitted his application and gathered letters of recommendation. We got a call on July 15th. I will always remember that day. It was the day we took Hayden to see Thomas and Friends, the live stage show. We had just been served our food when Larry’s phone rang. The restaurant was loud, so he took the call outside leaving Hayden and me for most of the meal. The waitress finally asked me if everything was ok. I told her yes, he is talking to a prospective new employer, so it’s a good thing.

So, we were off and running with potential interviews the first week of August. We continued with our prayers, seeking God’s will. Then we hit a speed bump. Scott & White was not going to have time the first two weeks of August to interview and Larry couldn’t get any vacation time until the last two weeks of September. This was a problem because Scott & White wanted a December 1st start date and Larry has a 90 day notice clause in his contract with Ochsner. Again, we prayed for God’s will. We had resigned ourselves to thinking that we were supposed to stay when Larry received an email saying that his interview was scheduled for August 3rd and 4th. After Hayden’s 3rd birthday party, we were off to Texas again.

The Temple/Belton area was very nice and we drove around looking at houses, schools etc. We even found a “train themed” park. Hayden loved that. The interviews went very well, but the job was for the Waco hospital, Hillcrest Baptist Hospital. There were - and still are - lots of unknowns about that location, since Scott & White won’t start providing anesthesia services at Hillcrest until November 1st. All the particulars haven’t been ironed out. We spent a day in the Waco area looking at houses and were quite impressed by what we saw. The hospital told us we would have an answer in about two weeks. After returning to Louisiana, the doubts started to rise. Maybe we were better off staying right where we were. Larry began to pray that they would call and say “we want you for the job at Temple”. I didn’t know what to pray for.

So, uneasy about the situation, I got up on Sunday August, 9th (our 6th anniversary) with knots in my stomach. While everyone else was still in bed, I got on my knees and prayed. Through the tears, what came out of the silence of that morning were five words—I surrender, Lord Your Will. At worship that morning God sent me a message loud and clear through the music; “How Great is Our God”, “Great And Mighty”, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”. I found peace though the revelation and acceptance that God was not only Great, but He was in control. No matter what happened, or when it happened, we would be blessed if we followed His will. I joined Larry in his prayer of “let it be Temple”. “Great is Thy Faithfulness” is an understatement. On Wednesday of that week, Larry got a call that made us nearly fall out of our seats. The chairman of the Anesthesia Department called and wanted to tell Larry that he had not forgotten about him, apologized for the delay, but they were working on a scenario where Larry would be at Scott & White Temple full time. He went on to tell Larry that he would be calling the next Monday or Tuesday with an offer. “Wow” was about all I could say.

We spent the next weekend getting some things in place for the possible staging of our house. We made to-do lists and narrowed down a focus on houses in the Temple/Belton area.

On Tuesday, we got the word. Larry called me and said “well, you need to go buy more boxes.” Larry might start off at Hillcrest Baptist Hospital in Waco, but we will definitely get to live in Belton. When he is on call in Waco, he will get to stay at a hospital-provided apartment. We spent the rest of Tuesday calling family to announce the good news. Our tentative move date is the week of November 16th and Larry’s start date is December 1st. We ask for your continued prayers for peace as we enter the next couple of crazy months. Larry will be making a trip in September to view houses and I will be joining him in the great house search in October. We should find out in the next couple of weeks how long – or even if – Larry will have to commute to Hillcrest before transferring to the Temple campus.

I’ve told you this story because I wanted to share how God has worked through our lives. We are so excited about being back in Texas, being close to family and being less than 2 hours away from the “Happiest Place on Earth”—Aggieland. To our Louisiana friends, we will dearly miss you. Thank you for being such a blessing to us over the last six years. We will never be able to find the right words to express how much you have meant to us—this includes those of you who have moved to Georgia and Kentucky. Our prayers will continue to be with you all. To Missy and Casey, you were our first “couple friends” here and you will always be in our hearts. Your family has and will continue to mean so much to us. Thank you for loving us. To Rachel, thank you for your friendship. It feels more like a “sistership” than a friendship. Thank you to our family. Your love and support has been incredible and we are so excited to be living closer to you.

Now, in the words of Hayden Hutson, “sing with me people!”

The stars at night are big and bright
(clap, clap, clap, clap)
Deep in the Heart of Texas.

Thomas The Tank Engine Stage Show

First Morning in My Very Own room!

First Airplane Ride

Ok, I know I said I would update more often than I did on the boys website, but it's been a little busy around here. Who would have known adding 1 little boy to the family would create so much more laundry and dishes around here, but we love it.

Here's what you really want to know!

Hayden--He's almost 3. In fact, he only has 26 hours left being a 2 year old. Wow! Time really flies. He is so funny. He is into watching Dora and Diego. It's so funny to hear him answer them when they ask questions. He also is loving the Wonder Pets. He uses his Wonder Pets characters and his animal toys to act out scenes from the show. Today, I was taking him to Wal-Mart with me and he was having trouble putting on his shoes. He looked up at me (I was a bit frazzled from the day) and said "This is serious". (That's a line from the show.) I couldn't stop laughing. He started laughing too. In fact, we laughed so much, that the stress of the day just melted away.

He is 95% potty trained. As a reward, we took him to see the Thomas and Friends stage show. We waited to tell him until we were walking in. He was so pumped. He got so excited when Thomas came out on stage for the first time. I had tears in my eyes watching him and seeing how he reacted to it all.

Thomas--What can you say, he is super cute. He is rolling over and wants to crawl so bad. He just can't figure out the motions. He can move in a circle on his belly to get what he wants. It will not be long and he will get those knees under him and then--watch out train table.

Thomas has 2 teeth and is working on a 3rd. He loves squash and peas, and we have recently introduced sweet potatoes. The jury is still out on that one. He is wearing mostly 6-9 month pjs. He is growing so big. At his 4 month appointment, he was 15 pounds and 25 inches long.

We have reached a major milestone here. Thomas is now sleeping in his crib in his room. This is major! He had refused to sleep/nap/play in his bed until about 3 weeks ago. We started letting him cry himself to sleep and it worked. We also moved his swing into his room in hopes to get him used to the room and then we hoped to transfer him to his bed. It worked. There were only a few tears on the first night--from the mommy.

We are getting ready for a big birthday party. I hope to post pictures soon after, so check back.