Hutch Hugs

So looking back in our photo archive of the past couple months, we noticed a trend taking shape so I thought I'd put together a post I like to call Hutch Hugs.

We got Hutch in June and for the first couple months it was quite the disaster. Since then, we've put in a lot of work (and a nice chunk of change in getting him professionally trained) and we now have ourselves the most wonderful, loving, friendly and protective dog in the universe (a bit of hyperbole but I don't care at this point).

He's there when we go to sleep...

And he's there to wake us up every morning.

He loves the outdoors.

He enjoys dancing...

And a good spoon.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled program to bring you a couple photos with Buddy, Nana's dog, and our original dog bestie. He's on his last leg so wanted to make sure he made a cameo.

Okay, back to Hutch. He gets very excited about his Christmas presents...

And have just LOVES car rides. Whether it's resting on my head...

Or holding hands with dad while he drives.

Twick o Tweat

That's how Pax puts it, thought it was an appropriate title. So let's get right to it.

Geared up for Halloween by spending about four and a half hours on my haunted house drawing, complete with four pieces of paper taped together.

And then it really got going on the big day. I know you're going to be really really surprised, but I wanted to go as Jonathon Toews this year. I actually wanted to go as Patrick Kane but dad said something about how you have to treat women nicely or something so we pivoted and went with Toewser. With a little help from mom and dad's friends and their hockey gear, we really knocked this one out of the park.

And not surprisingly Mae waffled back and forth about 751 times before landing on a raccoon, but I gotta say it was a really good choice because she made a pretty darn cute one.

So we headed out to Nana's because there was only one group we wanted to spend Halloween with - COUSINS!!! It was a mess of a rainy day so our strategy was to get all dressed up and then wait for some holes in the rain, then we'd sprint out the door to GET CANDY! First ones out there were our boys Eli and Isaiah. Eli made for an awesome ninja and Isaiah was supposed to be a magician but once he added some fake glasses he found at Nana's he was starting to get called Harry Potter, so as is the case with Zaya, he just rolled with it.

And without further ado, there's Pax in his construction worker outfit. What was significantly better than his actual costume was the fact that you could keep asking him what he was and listen to him say the word "construction." Classic Pax.

So after a couple rounds of GETTING CANDY and then taking a break, our next wave of cousins came so we hit the streets again with Sophie and Luke.

Oh, and there was a quick outfit change as well. As you can see, Eli took on the Harry Potter costume for trick or treating round 2 and Isaiah is that black blob standing next to Luke, who is the Incredible Notre Dame Hulk or something like that.

Okay, other big Halloween news is that we got to meet Nana's new puppy that she got earlier that week. Her name is Lily and she is so stinking cute it's not even funny.

And yet, in true Mabel fashion, she was really worried more about not letting Buddy feel neglected so she stayed close to her best buddy, Buddy.

Even brought him with for trick or treating.

At the end of a long day, Lily fell asleep right where I was hoping she would. On the way home from Nana's Mae and I proclaimed it the best Halloween ever.

Oh, and not to be outdone, say hello to the center forward (Mom) and right midfielder (Dad) of the Croatian national soccer team.  HRVATSKA!

Oh, and one more thing for this post, which is not necessarily related to Halloween or costumes. Nana was making a couple cakes and decorating them and Pax was sitting up at the table and wanted to try, so he took a stab at decorating the cake and here's how it looked. Go Pax! Squeeze that cake frosting dispenser with all your might, buddy!

A Pet Blessing

So every year at my school (and Mae's school) we do a pet blessing instead of our Friday morning 8:15 mass. So instead of heading to church we head to the courtyard and anyone who has a pet can have their mom or dad bring it up and the priest says a short little do-hickey and then he walks around with that thing that sprays the holy water and blesses all the pets.

So for the second year in a row Nana made the long trip down through rush hour with our good friend Buddy. Dad had the morning off so he joined us as well.

This first photo I vetoed having in the post but then Dad (I mean, my photo editor) double vetoed it and said he loved the look on my face, so let's just get this over and done with.

Next up is a photo of the whole bunch of us. But wait, Fin, where's Buddy? you might ask? Well, Dad had his friend Ted take the photo and let's just say Ted isn't shuffling with a full deck all the time so here's us at the pet blessing, minus the pet (he's there, believe me).

And then, right before Nana left, my teacher - Ms. Lozan - asked if we could bring Buddy over to show to my whole class. So we did, and the kids loved him and then we posed for a really fun Pet Blessing Day 2nd Grade class photo.

Summer Summer Summer Time

That's a line from a famous Will Smith song. And by famous, I mean, not really that famous (or good for that matter), but anyway, appropriate for this post.

Thought I'd give you a little update as to the goings-on this Summer so far, as it's been quite fun.

We had a St. Helen Father's Club outing at the White Sox game, which was awesome on a lot of fronts:

1. I got to eat a TON of junk food because all the other kids were and mom and dad got really tired of negotiating with us (Mabel more than me, she's relentless) so cookies and cotton candy and all kinds of other junk was consumed, and it was fun.

2. I got to hang with my homegirls - that's JoJo on the left and Shea on the right.

3. Pax got his first baseball game of his life under his belt.

It's also been quite a chill Summer so far, lots of fun on the weekdays with our nanny Julianna, lots of chilling out fun on the weekends.

Some sprinkler time for the young's and then the below shot, for example, is what we call our Backyard City Golf Course. A bucket, some mini clubs, and see who can chip it in first.

It wasn't all chill, though. We had a very stressful Stanley Cup run with our Blackhawks, who turned out victorious (if you've been living on the moon the past month). Nana saved some newspaper cut outs for me and I, in turn, decked out my room with my favorite players (Kane, then Crawford, if you're wondering. And Kane is not pictured because Papa didn't get the paper that day).

Dress up has been on the docket, both with ourselves and at a sleepover we went to at Ana and Sid's. Sid made a fantastic Hawai'in Santa Claus. Hm, I don't think I've ever written the word Hawai'in before in my entire life. I know it's wrong because that little red dotted line is underneath the word (and also because there's no way it has an apostrophe in it) but guess what - I'm not going to fix it. I'm not going to go to Google right now and try to type it in and see what comes up. You know why? Because I don't care. I don't think I'll ever write it again at this point so who cares. 

So you'd think I would be done about now, right? That looks like a pretty full first 2-3 weeks of the Summer, on top of piano lessons, reading camp and all the rest of it. Well, it's not.

We've done picnics

And parks

And played our fair share of games.

We've chilled out with our best pal (and sometimes worst enemy)

And our best pals when Isaiah and Eli came down last weekend.

And last but not least, we had a visitor who is royalty. That's right, Buddy came to town. Nana and Papa went to visit Uncle Paul in Connecticut so instead of boarding Buddy (I feel like that could be a name of a movie - "Boarding Buddy") we took the little rascal in and he spent the week with us.

Needless to say it was amazing. He was chill and we snuggled with him a lot (that's him taking his paw and resting it on Mae's foot unprompted while she stood there, like he wanted to hold her hand) and Mae fed him at breakfast and I fed him at lunch and we took tons of walks with him...

And then we left for a little too long and he tore up the recycles trying to get after the empty box of chicken broth which still had some remnants on it. (Uncle Brian took that photo. He just thought it was hilarious that dad had to clean up such a mess).

And when we found him he was like this... just chilling in his bed with an empty beer can in his mouth. Good to know Buddy can sit back and enjoy the Summer with a cold one too.