Bye-bye Aunt Rylie.......

Okay, I know she is going to kill me for posting that pic, but how could I not?? Aunt Rylie is training in Dalton, GA for a new job for the next 10wks. She will be placed in a city TBD for her new position. We hope she will be placed back here in Atlanta with us, but know God may have other plans. We are excited for Aunt Rylie's new adventure, but sad to see her possibly move! Good luck, Rylie, we'll be praying for you!
xoxo
P.S. If you are wondering what is on her head it's a "head massager"

More Christmas

No reason for this post

No reason for this post other than I love Adler's outfit in the chair pic. I was just able to snap a pic before he pulled his hat off. The second pic just shows off how big he's getting!!

Grammi and Tom Tom live in the computer

I'm afraid this is what Adler thinks when he sees his Grammi and Tom Tom talking to him on his Daddy's computer. He thought it was pretty cool, though, and wasn't afraid to do all his "tricks" for the talking computer. But I still love technology.......

Adler visits Aggieland

I've been meaning to make this post for a while now. When we were in Texas for 10 days, my parents were gracious enough to take me and Adler to Aggieland to visit the college town I spent 4 great years. It was a perfect day! We drove around to the places I lived....Lynx Cove (a house me and my 3 bffs lived in for 2 years together), then on to the Delta Delta Delta house when there were all kinds of great memories - especially living with Katie there Sophomore year. Then, on to Davis Gary - the disgusting dorm D and I lived in freshman year. That dorm is so old- it used to be for the corps back in the day. But our dads put together this killer bunk-bed complete with entertainment center and we were the envy of the entire dorm. We walked around campus and I rambled on about different memories in different corners. That's what I love about parents. They were genuinely interested and entertained. Thanks mom and dad for letting me do that! Adler enjoyed the weather and exploring campus with us.

I was a Sophomore when the Aggie Bonfire fell. It was a horrible day for our Aggie Family and it was amazing to see what effects it made on our campus, students, teachers, and the community. I remember my history professor breaking down into tears saying he had hoped and prayed that one if his students was not one of the victims, but he had gotten a phone call with news otherwise.

Anyways, this is becoming a longer blog than I had intended....we visited the memorial, which was really neat. I hadn't been to campus since I had graduated in May of 2002, so it was neat to be back and see how things had changed/stayed the same. Here are some pics from the trip:

Funday, Sunday

Today is a good day. Went to the 11am service at Buckhead Church and then ran over to Petsmart to get a new water bowl and show Adler all the fun animals they have there. He really loved the fish, the gerbils and especially the birds. He took a great nap and Kristine and I made some BLT+avocados along with some homemade guacamole and non-homemade potato salad...a great lunch for a Sunday, while we watched our Tivo'd SNL.

Adler's been up for a couple hours now, and we've just been playin our hearts out. Adler's become so much more conversational, only you can't understand anything he says...but he talks to you like he's telling a story, complete with hand motions and laughing. He's great at telling funny stories...I can tell.

anyway, was just thinking about how much fun a day of doing "nothing" can be. I love my family.
Later.

Great Car Entertainment

Looks like all my blogs lately have a theme: How to Entertain Your Child. This one is no different. Adler loves this lap toy in the car. It has all kinds of buttons and different Sesame Street characters that pop up and sing a song when the right ones are pushed. Granted, listening to Elmo sing "da da da da Elmo's world! ha ha" is not the ideal jam, but it beats a crying baby or guilt from putting your kid in a trance w/ a DVD player. (although we did use the DVD player at dinner last night because we could tell it wasn't going to be an easy night out, so I am not completely innocent on the trance thing). P.S. Check out those size 8s!

A new era in grocery shopping

Why on earth has it taken me this long to put Adler in one of these? He LOVED it and made grocery shopping so enjoyable! My only complaint is that the cart is quite the boat and difficult to manuever around eisles/people, but completely worth it!

Adler Rocks the House!

Okay, I am such a sucker. I saw this drum set on sale at this toy store in Old Town Spring, Texas and I just couldn't pass it up. I've decided to go ahead an embrace the fact our house will probably be a house of LOUD musical instruments, so I might as well start him now so maybe by the time he's 5 he'll be half way decent on the drums, guitar and whatever else Stephen puts in his hand. He had SO much fun!

Trip to the Zoo

The weather was great today, so I decided to take Adler to the zoo. He had a great time and behaved so perfectly! All the animals we out enjoying the cool, sunshine so we got to see almost every animal. He was most interested in the elephants. He also tried quacking at the flamingos. He loved the swing and stairs on the play gym and got to meet some goats too. It was a perfect day with my buddy! Thanks Neanie and Pa Pa for our year pass!

Random idea....somebody call Martha...

Just kidding. Don't call Martha because then I'll have to tell her how it took me 3 tries to get her Gingerbread Man Wreath baked correctly...and then after I finally got that last wreath perfect, the dogs pulled it off the dining room table and turned it into a million doggie treats. Okay, that's a story for another blog...but here's my random idea:

I took some leftover Christmas wrapping paper...(the last bit or so you hate to save for a year, but think "well maybe I'll need it?"). I turned it over and taped it to our coffee table. Presto! Instant baby entertainment for at least 5 minutes! Adler loved it until he got in trouble for coloring on the wall...

Adler's New Chair

Adler got a new "big boy" chair for Christmas. He loves sitting in it while watching Sesame Street. He was so excited. Thanks Grammi and Tom Tom!

Hendrix Impersonation

Hendrix Impersonation, originally uploaded by Stevo28andgrowing.

So...do you think Adler's into music? :)

Introducing the face melting guitar skillz of "Thunder Clap", formerly known as "Adler Ryan Hunton".

That's right, he's taking it to the streets and going on tour. He actually doesn't want to yet, but I let him know last night that he's gotta start pulling his weight around the house and since he can't reach the countertops to do the dishes, he's going to Sesame Street to be Elmo's official opening act.

Hunton VLog - Adler Microphone Check One, Check Two

Old video I forgot to ever post on the blog. Adler's debut CD is gonna ROCK.

Date Night at Ikea

We thought we would change things up for a Friday night and hang at Ikea tonight. The three of us were able to share a meal for $7. We finally bought some new cookie baking sheets (finally get to throw away our burned one we just keep putting foil over) and looked at curtains for the living room. We had a fun night out!

Fat Guy in a Little Coat

I received this adorable jacket for Adler last Christmas. I remember thinking how big it looked on him when he was only 8 weeks old! I thought about that jacket the other day, so I dug it out of a storage box in the attic just to see if there would be a slight possibility he could rewear it. Yeah, not so much. This 2T wearing kiddo could barely get the sweater buttoned. I thought the pics were cute so I posted them anyway.

Holidays in Texas...

Well, the cool weather actually followed us to Houston from Atlanta, but it was okay, because Christmas included a new sweater or two. It was great to be home for 10 days, to see our families and really have some quality time with everyone. Kristine was able to spend time with "just the Deyoe girls" and I got to have dinner with Dad one night. It was great to not feel like we had to be somewhere else, as is often the case when trying to cram everything into a long weekend.

We also got to hang out with a bunch of our friends (nice to have the family babysitter when in TX) and spent New Years Eve with everyone playing Guitar Hero! A new family favorite (good thing we don't have it here though)

Another big event was me shooting my first wedding! You can read about it at http://stevohunton.blogspot.com and can view some pics there, as well as on my flickr page. The Bride and Groom were great and overall, I'm really happy with the pictures.

Speaking of pictures...here are a couple from the trip:

A first devotional

"You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Deuteronomy 11:18-19

I love this Old Testament instruction on how to teach our children about God. We should be in constant communication with our children about who God is, what He is doing in our lives and world around us. Through the book I'm reading, Treasuring God in Our Traditions, I'm realizing that this takes planning. If I do not plan these discussions with our children, the result will be the same as unplanned alone time with God.....a series of forgetfulness, busyness, then a realization of my lacking and a cramming session to make up for lost time. This is not what I want to teach Adler. I want him to see God as a part of our every day life and I want to be better at having this mindset too.

This morning, instead of turning on the news, I decided to try a short devotional for Adler while he ate his breakfast. I have found this is usually Adler's best time to learn new things like "touch down", "how old are you?", "where's your hair?". I did a search online to try to find a toddler geared devotional. I was surprised to discover there isn't much available on the subject. I'm sure there are books in stores and such, but I didn't see anything geared specifically for parents who want to lead young children (under the age of 6) in daily devotion. (if you know of anything, let me know) However, I did come across this website Bible Study Planet which had a long list of Old and New Testament devotionals on different study topics. They were definitely geared towards older children (scripture followed by questions and activities like crossword puzzles). Yet the on the first page was drawing depicting what was happening in the study scripture (which could probably be printed off and colored by older kids). We started with the first study which was Creation. There was a scenic picture of mountains, sun in the sky, trees, water, and birds. The correlating scripture was "And God made the beast of the earth after his kind,
and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:25 Adler felt like a big boy looking at my computer and discussing what was happening in the picture. He quacked when we talked about the bird. Afterward, we said a short prayer thanking God for all He has made. It was a quick, but I think that is probably the best place to start at this point.

Anyways, still feeling this out, but thought I would share my first "real" attempt at devotional structure in our home. Let me know if you have something that works for your kiddos!

The picture is from a doctor's office visit from yesterday. As you can see, he wasn't too happy about it:

"Only God Can Bequeath God"

Thanks to suggestions from my blogger friends, I received a book for Christmas called Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper. I've already read the first chapter and really love the book. I can't wait to finish it and come up with my own "everyday" and "special day" traditions for our family.

Here is an excerpt I thought to be very insightful:
"Only God can Bequeath God. You can't bequeath God to your children. You can leave them the fur coat from your mother, the forested acres from your father,....but they can't inherit God from you. God can only be inherited from God.....Now although we cannot bequeath God to our children, we can help them know him and understand him in ways that prepare them to believe in his name. "Everyday" and "especially" traditions in a family are an important part of that teaching, of picturing who God is and what he's done in our home and in the world. Traditions are a vital way of displaying our greatest treasure, of showing what-Who- is most important to us."

This is my prayer today, that God leads Stephen and me to prepare our children in a healthy, fun and exciting way to know God as their Father and ultimate inherited Treasure of their lives.

We made it!

We made it to Texas yesterday afternoon. This is the first flight we've been on with Adler that didn't have a delay (thankfully). Flying with a one-year-old is certainly challenging. Stephen and I have actually started getting pretty good at it. We've probably flown about 7 times (14 with return flights) with Adler now. I'll have to do a "what I've learned about flying" post later. Anyways, we are excited to be here and are looking forward to spending time with family!

Merry Christmas from the Huntons!

Where my girls at?

These are my sweet Atlanta friends. Moving from my home-state (Texas), I never thought I would have the type of friendships like what you have with girls you have known since junior high. For the most part, that is a true statement. Those Texas friendships can never be replaced. However, God has really blessed me with a great group of girls to lean on. Each of these girls has been such a great source of support in my new chapter of mom-hood life. It's so great that we can talk about anything from the consistancy of our child's poo to what type of curtains to put on the walls to who should be the next president to how to be more faithful in our relationships with Christ.

I also have a great husband who deserves a shout. He's been a big help around the house lately and I really appreciate him. Here we are having fun at the cgroup party:

Community Group Christmas Social

bestday, originally uploaded by Stevo28andgrowing.

We had our 2007 Community Group Christmas party last Friday. It was a blast. We had some great food, some laughs, some great wine. It was fun thinking about all we've been through together as a group this year. The Huntons love each of these couples and Atlanta just wouldn't be home without them.

More pics to come, such as the Kristine & Christine dance party!

2000 hits in 4 months

Out of curiosity we started tracking how many hits our blog was getting in September. I wondered if anyone really read our blog or if I was just taking up cyber space. I was surprised to see we were getting about an average of 30 hits a day. Now, if those people really meant to click and read, I'm not sure. Anyways, yesterday, we reached 2000 hits. One of the cool features of our tracking meter is that you can see what people are "googling" to get to your site. Here are some from the past month:
"comfy mom clothes" (what the heck? I hope they did not find what they were looking for on my site, I'm picturing mom jeans)
"steven hunton" (stalker?)
"random facts people who get their masters" (I don't have a masters so no idea)
"adler musical" (how do people already know Adler is musical?)
"uni sushi woodlands" (ate there once, but also random)
"gifts for new mom" (I get so many hits for that one post I made a long time ago)
"Hunton Blog" (bored individual)
"Galbreath Family pics" (perhaps an X-girlfriend of the groom who's wedding we attended?)
and my personal favorite..........
"older boobs" (oh how I laughed at this one)

Funny the things that bring us all together. Blog on!

Adler loves his new wagon!

Thanks Neanie and Grandpa for Adler's new wagon! He loves it and feels like such a big boy!

Adler...the athlete

Adler meets Santa/ Poses his "look of terror"

Adler met Santa for the first time today. He wasn't very happy before he got on Santa's lap. He wanted to run freely around the mall and wasn't happy being confined to mom and dad's arms or his stroller. I'm guessing Santa is probably used to this type of thing. Oh well, i think Santa will still be good to Adler this year. :)

Singin w/ Adler

don't think I ever posted this to thehuntons.blogspot. It was up on stevohunton.blogspot.com, but I found this today and just couldn't stop smiling at the little guy singin!

ok...just one more...

Winter in GA, originally uploaded by Stevo28andgrowing.

Love you boo!

Kiss

Kiss, originally uploaded by Stevo28andgrowing.

Another shot from The Hunton Holiday shoot...gotta love Tri-pods and self-timers! It's funny to look through the 200 pics or so we shot that afternoon to find only a handful that came out good since there wasn't anyone behind the camera to snap the shot at the right moment. This picture shows one of my favorite pastimes....kissin my lady!
:)

Big Red Riding Hood

Big Red Riding Hood, originally uploaded by Stevo28andgrowing.

The A-man in his winter coat. Unfortunately I haven't had a camera in my hand for a few days, but was looking through my flickr stuff and came across this pic of my buddy. I didn't get to see him last night, because I had a work dinner, or this morning, because I had to rush to work...so needless to say, I'm missing Adler right now. Can't wait to see him this evening!

Shoe Shopping

Man, I though I had big feet.
I've been searching for black dress shoes for Adler. What a challenge! We went to a speciality shoe shop today to get his foot measured. The kind saleman who made all kinds of weird whistle noises to keep Adler distracted told me that the average 1 year old wears a size 5. The average 2 year old wears a size 7. Adler wears a 7 1/2. So, finding a "baby" like shoe for a child learning to walk in the clunky, laces, "big kid" shoe section hasn't been easy. I finally gave up on having the "specialty shoe shop" experience and ordered some online. The sad thing is, that's exactly what I have to do too. I have been blessed with some "long" (as Raynelle gently puts) feet. Poor Adler. At least he is a boy. It seems harder to be a girl and have big/long/skis for feet. I'll post a picture Adler in his new shoes later.

Hot Mamma

Kristine, originally uploaded by Stevo28andgrowing.

How can I not love this girl?

We had a fun little family photo shoot last Saturday. It proved pretty challenging to get the timer set on the camera and then run over to Kristine and Adler, and then PRAY that Adler would happen to look into the general vacinity of the camera lens. Got a couple winners, but most of the best were of this cutie!