Happy Birthday!!!

This year has gone by so fast! We just can not believe are little baby is ONE now. Jayna has been such a joy in are lives and we can not imagine life without her. All the trails to get her here were very worth it. She has amazed us with how well she has progressed despite her early premature arrival. Jayna as small as she is has such a huge personality that makes us laugh and wonder in amazement everyday at the things she comes up with.

This being our first birthday together not drugged or in the hospital I wanted to do something fun and exciting to celebrate our special day. I figured since it was also my birthday that I could get away with doing something a little nonconventional for a first birthday party. So don't ask me how I came up with it, but we ended up having a "HIp Hop" party and it turned out really great.



Jayna was all decked out in her Puma jacket, glitter shoes (courtesy of my aunt), initialized hat, and of course her blinging gold necklace I made her.



Ryan and I were an security detail with badges and everything. We checked people in at the door and made sure they had on their hot pink wrist bands so that we knew they were part of Jaynas "crew".





I decorated her highchair all cute for her with stickers and garland I made. Then behind her highchair on the wall I put up pictures of her imposed with different celebrities. The pictures were hysterical, and were my neighbor Holly's idea. Thank Holly!





We had a fun little spread of berries with whip cream, pita chips with spinach parmesan artichoke dip, pretzels dipped in milk chocolate with pink chocolate drizzles and sprinkles, and cupcakes in gold wrappers with fondant ones on them. I also spray painted tapes and records gold and pink and had them scattered on the table and around the house as decoration. All in all I thought it turned out really cute.



I have to admit that I impressed myself with the cake I made for Jayna. I had bought this giant cupcake cake mold a while ago and had done several trial attempts at frosting and decorating it, but it never turned out how I wanted it. So I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled this off the night before the party. Not bad for my first time using fondant. The pain was hand painting the whole bottom part with an edible metallic paint and dusting it with edible glitter. Some how along the way of thinking up this cake I also had visions of it spinning on a record player in the middle of the table. So after calling everybody and every place imaginable to either rent, borrow, or buy a record player or turntable that would not cost me more than $50 dollars I found this one on craigslist in Arizona the night before my mom and Mark were coming out and had my brother hurry and go buy it. It was only $15 dollars and it cleaned up well. He had to go to the ghetto in Phoenix to get it though, and he was pretty sure he gave the girl money to buy drugs, so it was pretty authentic for the party to say the least.



We have been teaching Jayna how to blow out birthday candles for awhile in hopes that she would be able to do it come her birthday. She is really cute when she does it and pulls a funny face when she blows. The only problem is she can not differentiate between the candle and the cake, so long after we took the candle away from her giant cake she was still blowing on the cake instead of eating it. It was really funny and we all got a good laugh out of it. She was not too sure about everyone singing to her, but she didn't cry or anything. After the cake had been on her highchair for awhile she finally dug in.





We played some fun games at the party too. I drew a picture of a gangster and you had to "fix the grill on Lil' Will" so I had gold teeth that you had to try and place on him like pin the tail on the donkey. We also played a slang game where you had to fill out on a sheet of paper the real meaning of all the slang words listed and then I had a jar of multicolored twizzlers that you had to guess "how many twizzles are in the jarizzle?" They were fun and tongue 'n' cheek and who ever won a game got a Jayna Berry signature perfume called Berrylicious. It was just dollar store perfume that I had changed the labels on. Then everyone got to take home a CD titled Tunes From the Crib that had hip hop music on it.





We had fun putting on the party and hope all those who came to celebrate with us had fun too. It was fun having my Mom and Mark out. Thanks for all your help you two.



Jayna is such a good baby, but I thought for sure if she was going to have a melt down her Birthday would be the day. She didn't though, she just partied the whole time. In-fact we were worn out way before she was. It got Ryan and I talking about her little personality and how it must just be how she is. We thought back to a year ago that day and how stressful and overwhelming her situation in the womb must have been and how none of it affected her. She was just fine her heart beat never even fluctuated. Even the doctors where shocked at how well she was handling it. She had no amniotic fluid, the placenta was already mostly deteriorated, and she was breech, but none of it bothered her. We love her little personality and know it is what helped her get here.



Jayna was the best little birthday present I ever got. I am not sure any present could ever top getting her, so I just hope we will have this much fun together every year on our Birthday.

Our Big Weekend of Celebrating

We started our weekend off by celebrating a family success on Friday by going out to eat at the Mayan. It is a fun theme restaurant that has a dive show, so we thought it would be fun to take Jayna there and see her reaction to the whole thing. She gave it mixed reviews however. She loved the waiting room because she could run around and there was lots to look at and touch and feel. The show however slightly worried her because there was lighting and thunder and people running all over. She was probably wondering why dinner is not as exciting as that every night.





Then Saturday was Valentines day so us girls woke-up to flowers. Ryan got me a real pretty arrangement of flowers and got Jayna a giant calalily. The flower was about as tall as she was. It was so cute to watch him give her the flower, and she loved walking around with it all morning. That night we went to Jasmines (a favorite chinese restaurant up the road) and got sushi and all sorts of wonderful food. It was a great day!







Sunday was also our 6 year anniversary so we had a special Sunday meal of Prime-rib, mashed potatoes, green beans, and salad. We cooked it perfectly as usual and Ryan made a really good homemade ague.

I cannot believe that we have been married for six years, but then at times it seems as though it has been much longer than that. All in all Ryan and I have been with each other for about 10 years. Our first date was even at a Valentines dance and we got married four years later to the weekend of our first date. It has been a wonderful life we have had together so far. I look back on everything that has happened both good and bad during the course of our marriage and relationship and am glade that he has been the one by my side through everything. There is no-one else I would rather share my greatest successes and worst moments with. He is the best father to Jayna that I could have ever dreamed of. Our life together just keeps getting better and better. I cannot wait for the next six years.

Walking Already!

Jayna started crawling back at the end of October and has been a little mover ever since. At Thanksgiving time she started to pull herself up on all the furniture and move her way around the room that way. Jayna has never had a walker or play saucer as per our pediatricians request. He told us that it is better for them to learn how to move on their own and that the more time they have on the ground crawling the better for the development of their little brains and motor skills. Since Jayna and I have the same birthday I thought it would be so cool if we also walked on the same day. I walked on my 10 month birthday, January 14th. The closer the day got I started thinking it may actually be a possibility that she would walk on the same day I did. She was starting to use the furniture less, stand up on her own in the middle of the floor, and show other signs that she just may walk at any moment. Then the little stinker showed me up and started walking 2 days before her 10 month birthday. She has just amazed Ryan and I. I cannot believe that the little baby girl that was born almost a month early weighing 5 pounds when we brought her home is thriving so well. We always thought she would be a little behind do to all the circumstances of her birth, but we were wrong. She is still very petite weighing only 18 pounds, but she is a clever and fast one. We are so proud of her! Our pediatrician was shocked when he walked into the room to a little walking baby. She makes me believe that anything is possible. I believe she can do anything she puts her heart and mind to. She is always so determined and has so much personality in her little body. We love Jayna and cannot wait to see what she will surprise us with next.

Lions and Tigers and Bears OH MY!

Jayna for whatever reason has taken up growling. It may be do to the influence of her only sibling Red. The funniest part about it is that it seems to look like she knows she is being scary. We find it amusing, and it is also about the only thing we can get her to do on Que.

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!

We had a great Christmas here at the Hutchings home. This year we made chocolate covered fortune cookies for all of our neighbors, family and friends. They turned out really great and Ryan even got in on the action and was the dipper. We had a great time going around town with Jayna delivering our homemade goodies to everyone.









We were lucky enough to catch Devin before he went back home to California for the Holidays. We had him and his girlfriend over to exchange gifts and have dinner. It was nice getting to meet her for the first time and was fun visiting with him. I made my chicken and dumpling soup and we had spice bunt cakes and hot cocoa for desert.







We loved having lots of snow at our house this winter. It always makes the Holidays seem that much more special and festive.




For Christmas Eve we stayed home and had a wonderful prime rib dinner, just the three of us. It was great and better than any restaurant we could have gone to.





The next morning we had to wake up Jayna for Christmas. I have a feeling this will be the last year we have to do that though. We had to get up and going because we were having friends over for Christmas morning breakfast. Jayna was not as into opening the presents as we thought she would be. In-fact Red was more excited then she was to rip into the wrapping paper. After presents we had a great breakfast with Wally and his kids who were in-town for the holidays. We had two quiches, banana bread, and ableskievers that I make from a recipe that has been passed down from my ancestors from Denmark. They are fun kids and made for good company on Christmas.





We wiped Jayna out with all the excitement of her first Christmas morning.





Christmas night we traveled down to Springville to Ryans grandparents house for dinner. Jayna had fun visiting with her cousins and opening more presents. We were back on the roads to go home right as a storm came in, so it made for an exciting ride home.





For New Years my parents came out and we did our famous Lund New Years tradition of Fondue. My family could care less if we see each other for Christmas because New Years is our families big Holiday. Jayna needless to say loved having grandma and grandpa stay at her house and loved all the attention from uncle Mark.









We had a great Holiday season as a family and feel really blessed to have each other and all that we have.

A Western White Elephant

Ryans company decided to do something different this year for the company Christmas party. Usually we have a nice lunch at Market Street Grill in one of their private rooms and the guys play guitars and sing. This year they decided to have the party up at Bill George's Cabin up Parleys Canyon. It was a beautiful cabin way up on the mountain, infact you couldn't really get there unless you had four wheel drive, although there were a couple brave souls that did it with out. We have the Jeep so it was not a real problem for us. We had a great steak and chicken dinner and you could not ask for better company than this group of people. We are all like family it feels like, and everyone has a fun personality.



The big event for the night was the white elephant gift exchange. Ryan and I knew it would be fun with this group so we wanted to get something really good. We thought and looked everywhere for something with no luck, so the night before we headed out to DI as our last resort. DI did not disappoint. The first thing we found was this knit box that had knitted on it the words "MY STUFF" we thought it was a great one and put it in the cart. Then Ryan found this knit house and we thought that would go great with the knit box so we threw that in the cart as-well. As we kept looking up and down every aisle rummaging throw things we kept finding more and more of these knit houses and kept laughing more and more as we unearthed each one. They seemed to be everywhere in the store, a whole village just scattered about. At the end of our DI adventure we ended up with the knit box, 8 or so knit houses, a set of knit coasters, a big game bag (to hang a deer carcass in)complete with illustrated instructions, a 70's mini crumb vacuum, and a foam sandwich note pad. We knew we had done well when the cashier gave an, "ohhh" when looking at the items in our basket. The best though was when some of the houses did not have price tags on them so she had to call the manager to come price them. They debated on wether or not to charge us 50 cents or 75 cents and then the girl said, "how about 50 cents each?" and the manager replied "No, do two for a dollar." Our trip to DI could not have ended better we had so much fun. After that we went home to decide what to do with all that we had bought.



We decided to package all the none knit items together in one bag as a gift and then decided we would put one knit house in a bag and include a tag that said, "pick me you will not be disappointed, there is more to this gift". We then wrapped the rest of the village along with the box and coasters in a big box that we then wrapped and decided that this would be a mystery box that went along with the knit house in the bag. So whoever ended up with the knit house at the end of the game would also receive the mystery box. It was a hit at the party. Everyone was fighting over this stupid knit house due to the lure of the mystery box. It was hysterical. Brandon ended up winning it and we video taped him opening the mystery box. I was screaming laughing. This game lasted almost three hours and this was the perfect ending to the funniest white elephant gift exchange I have ever participated in. So thank you to the old lady who knitted all those houses and gave them to DI.



The rest of the night up at the cabin we stayed up late playing games and snacking on food and hanging out in our PJs. Jayna loved all the attention and enjoyed playing with Cash, Chips two year old little boy. The guys played music, and Jayna danced as she sat and listened. It was really fun.



The next morning we had a big but quick breakfast since there was a big storm coming in, and we all made it safely off the mountain and down the Canyon.

New Calling

My New calling at church is the second counselor in the Relief Society Presidency. I have only been in for about a month, but I have already made 100 bell ornaments to take to the retirement inn residence, and close to 200 greeting cards to send out to the singles in our ward. I love the sisters I am serving with and am looking forward to serving the sisters in our ward in this capacity. Here are some pictures of the bells I put together.

Thankful Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful thanksgiving in Arizona this year, and were so excited that we got to stay for two weeks. Ryan had a business trip the week after Thanksgiving so he just flew out of Arizona to go to that and then came back and we drove home. It was so nice that I got to stay at my parents while he was gone instead of just being at home alone with the baby. I have a wonderful husband that thinks of those things for me. Jayna did great driving to and from Arizona. We did the late night drive and she slept the whole time. Red did great as-well with a little help from the vet and some magic medicine.

While in Arizona my brother Craig and his wife had an open house that I helped with. It was lots of fun to do, and their house is gorgeous.

We also swam a lot and just plain hung out. Mom and I hit up lots of good sales and even went out on Thanksgiving night to get a screaming deal on a pink flocked Christmas tree and ornaments for Jaynas room.

I cooked the turkey for my third year in a row thanks to a little help from Martha.

Ryan and I also did a big chinese night were we made all of our good dishes. My fortune cookies turned out 100 times better too because my mom had those silicone baking mats that I did not use the first time I tried making them. My mom took us to this huge oriental grocery store to buy all of our ingredients too. This place was so awesome, and had everything a former Taiwan missionary could ask for. Or best find was all the ingredients to make Zhenzhu Drinks. So needless to say we stocked up on things to take home.

Another fun thing that we got to do was go to the Phoenix Zoo to see their Zoo Lights. Jayna liked seeing all the bright fun moving lights. I felt like an abusive parent though, we found the weather to be so warm and nice compared to Utah so I would put Jayna in little short sleeve onesies and light pants. So when I started looking around at Zoo Lights and realized all the other babies were in snow clothes with hats and gloves I was sure everyone was looking at me like, "what a terrible mom, her kid is not even wearing a jacket." It was pretty funny.

So buy the end of the trip we had purchased and gathered so many fun things and Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa that we had to borrow their car top carrier. My Dad was nothing but thrilled, he always hated that they would have to use one for trips. So he was delighted to be watching Ryan, put it on our car. I think it was a full circle life moment for him.

I will have to put pictures to this post later. We misplaced our camera for most of the trips so all the pictures I took were on my moms camera.

Puffs

Back at the beginning of November we gave Jayna her first solid treat food in the form of Gerber sweet potato puffs. We video taped her reaction and thought it was pretty funny. It was such a new experience for her to have something like that in her mouth. She was not to sure about the whole thing so she started feeding them to Red instead of eating them. I think Red is more excited about Jayna eating treats then she is.

Birthday Boy!

Ryan turned 28 on Friday, and we had lots of fun on his Birthday. I made him eggs benedict for breakfast and then we headed over to his work for lunch so that I could surprise him with his Birthday present. I had spent the night before secretly decorating his new office for him. It turned out pretty nice. I forgot to take pictures though, so I will have to post those latter. I was going to try and attempt to paint the office as-well, but last minute decided not to. It just would have been to much to deal with in the short time I had. Then latter that night we went to the nickel-cade with Jared and Marshall. It was my first time going and I was not super excited about it because I thought Jayna and I would be bored, but boy was I wrong. We blew through nickels like no tomorrow! Jayna loved all the sounds and lights on all the games, and loved watching the crazy kids running around. I loved playing the games with her strapped in the front pack squealing with delight. We played for about two hours while the boys played their gun games. We racked up so many tickets that we had enough to buy the sparkle baton we had our eyes on. Remember those as a kid? By the time we left she was about to pass-out. She was struggling to keep her eyes open, there was just way to much stimulation. Ryan and I decided that we will take her to the nickel-cade and wear her out for two hours before we go on our drive to Arizona. My favorite though was that there were all these kids at the nickel-cade having their birthdays and I was there with my 28 eight year old husband for his. After we ran out of nickels we went to the Wing Coop, an all wing restaurant. The boys eat about 50 wings there and then we went back to our place for an angel food pudding cake I made.



Ryan with his friends at the nickel-cade. I was laughing so hard when I saw him playing with this random kid.



Friends Marshall and Jared.