Category Archives: Cutler

All things Cutler

Brothers

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On the weekends we let the boys have slumber parties with each other and they usually chose to sleep in the movie room, but tonight Mason wanted to sleep downstairs in the guest bedroom so he convince Cutler that it was best to sleep down there so they could cuddle.  I had assumed it was just Mason trying to manipulate his brother into chosing what he wanted, until now that is.  I just went in to check on the boys and while they weren’t cuddling they were pretty close to each other, however Cutler made a bit of a whining noise and Mason quickly rolled over and put his arm around him.  I love that despite the constant bickering that occurs throughout the day, they still love each other enough to want to cuddle.

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And A Star Was Born

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I got the initial shots back from Cutler’s Make-A-Wish photo shoot.  As a reminder, they took some with him in normal clothes and the other photos are of him dressed as batman.  As these are unedited photos, you will see that he was in fact in a darth vader body suit with the batman cape and mask.  They are planning on editing out the darth vader chest controls before the finals are done.  Either that or Cutler is a heavily conflicted super hero.

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Cutler Is Batman!

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I’m not sure what color the sky is in Cutler’s world, but I’m quite sure that it is covered with batman logos.  The kid is obsessed with Batman, but not just any Batman, he must be black batman.  He is so proud to be batman black that I walked into the living room the other night about the same time he came running from the other direction shouting black power.  We all sleep better around here knowing Cutler has the power of black batman and apparently the backing of the black panthers to protect us from the plethora of bad guys perusing the suburbs of Dallas.

Using Mason's shoulder pads to help fight crime.

Using Mason’s shoulder pads to help fight crime.

White Shadow

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Mason recently decided it’s time to start wearing a headband to help improve his game and naturally as we were shopping Cutler decided he must make the same move towards sweat management.  Of course Cutler has taken it to another level and is now wearing it to school as well.  You can never improve too much.  Below is a video of them both showing their skills complete with headband and all.

http://youtu.be/1LUbvOM82hk

 

 

Our Retirement Plan

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Make A Wish has struck again with another great outing for Cutler and myself, this time local.  In preparation for one of their biggest fund raisers of the year they are putting together a brochure of some of the recipients which requires a professional photo session.  Naturally, thanks to his good looks, Cutler was asked to participate and it was such an incredible time and experience.  Even better is that it was a super hero themed shoot where the kids would dress “normal” for some pictures and then dress as their favorite super hero for the second half.  As Cutler is in a huge Batman (the black one, Cutler’s words), this was his choice.  As they didn’t have a Batman costume big enough for him, they put him in a Darth Vader suit with the Batman mask and cape and my assumption is that they will edit the photos later to get rid of the Vader outfit on the front.  Fortunately they were there as this provided tons of entertainment for him when one of the assistants acted as if they couldn’t see him when he hit the “invisible” button.  Cutler was quite the hit with the ladies and now I am thinking if I work him hard enough we could get some future underwear ads out of this deal.  We have ordered the PX90 video set so he will have the abs ready when the agents start calling.  🙂

Once we get the final pictures I will be sure to share away.  For now you will have to suffer with my behind the scenes photos below.

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Cheap Labor

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Is it a violation of child labor law if the children aren’t paid?  Are family?  This was my justification as I pulled an old Tom Sawyer move and convinced the kids that it would be fun to dig a trench for me to bury a downspout.  Actually the kids asked me if they could dig, after I had already finished the job, but I couldn’t help but feel like Tom as I sat there in my lawn chair watching the football game while the kids dug away.  Mason, as it turns out, was great at digging and was able to get the trench a little deeper for me while Cutler was great at following him and knocking the dirt back in from where it was just dug.

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We also discovered on this day that Cutler is not, as of yet, set to be the next King Arthur as he was not able to pull the mighty Excalibur shovel from the tight grasp of the earth despite his vocal effort.

http://youtu.be/S6pscHdIikE

White Christmas

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Thanks to the hundreds of Christmas movies/cartoons that Cutler watched over the past month or so he was convinced that it would snow on Christmas.  No matter how many times we told him that it most likely wouldn’t snow, he held strong with a reply that “it always snows on Christmas”.  Apparently if he believes enough in something, it will happen.  The morning started off as a wet Christmas, but after a couple of hours I looked our the window and there was the snow and it fell and fell and fell.  I would guess we got around 3 inches plus.  The boys were ecstatic and quickly headed outside to put their new vehicles to the test and as is usual, they quickly abandoned the vehicles and each made a snow angel followed by a quick snowball fight before realizing how cold it was and how much colder you are when you are wet from the snow and they quickly retreated back inside to play with their plethora of other toys.

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For The Love Of The Game

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I was just looking through some old videos as I was cleaning up digitally and came across this gem of Mason and Grandpa playing some form of baseball that I am quite sure was concocted by Mason from this past summer.  It really made me realize how much I miss baseball and can’t wait until pitchers and catchers report in less than two months.  It also made me realize how fortunate I am to have a son that loves the game as much as I do to help me live vicariously through him over the next several years and fully expect Cutler to carry on just the same.

http://youtu.be/VX9FfW4gDcI

 

1096 Days Ago

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To the day, it’s been approximately 1096 days or the equivalent (not counting leap year) of three years and a day that Cutler had his bone marrow transplant.  Last night we celebrated by braving an outing to Chuck E Cheese and today we celebrated with a succesful trip to the oncologist for his quarterly appointment.  In true Cutler fashion he fussed for a nanosecond when the needle went into his arm to draw the blood and then he just watched as the blood was drawn.  Cutler is still all clean and we have now shifted to semi-annual visits.  While it is exciting to spread them out, I do miss seeing everyone that we have come to know so well over the years.  For instance today we were visited by Debbie, one of the main nurse administrators at the hospital.  It was so good to see her and you could tell how much she loves Cutler when he gave her a hug it made her, and us, a bit misty eyed.

Naturally any successful visit to an oncologist is brought down a bit when you see those starting their fights.  When we first got there, a little girl named Lucy, was playing in the waiting area with a mask on.  On the way down on the elevator her mom rode with us and I asked her about Lucy.  This poor girl was originally diagnosed with neuroblastoma, which then kicked off an extremely rare auto immune disorder called Opsoclonus-Myoclonus Syndrome.  It is one thing to battle neuroblastoma, but then to add OMS on top of it is a whole other ball game.  It makes us realize that much more how blessed we are that Cutler has come through as well as he has and with as little complications.  Lucy is a sweet and cute little girl.  Please pray for her to one day celebrate a 1096 day celebration such as ours.

Below are a couple of pictures from our visit.  One of Cutler with his favorite teddy bear and a couple of him working away at a tootsie pop and getting as close as he could to the camera to make my effort difficult.

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New Children’s Museum

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Our final day of “planned” activities was Friday and after an exhausting three days of parks it was nice to settle into the New Children’s Museum and be greeted by such a wonderful group of people.  I will lead everything off by saying that this was by far the best experience of all of the wonderful things we did while on our trip and that isn’t just the parent’s opinion.  Both of the boys ranked this as the top activity, but only slightly above Legoland.  We have been to several Children’s Museums, but this was our first New Children’s Museum.  I’m not exactly sure what makes it New, but I really liked all of the activities and exhibitions that centered around trash.  They presented a great message to the visitors without beating you over the head as they presented it with incredible subtlety.

We were greeted by Nina and Kaitlyn, the boys dressed in smocks, and quickly whisked away into a flurry of fun activities starting with painting a car.  They have an old Datsun that has been in place for over a year and every day it is coated with a new color of paint.  Nothing like starting off the tour with a bang as this was perhaps the boys’ favorite activity, but definitely not the messiest.  This was followed with a trip to the dumpster turned into a play area where the boys were garbage zombies and thoroughly enjoyed the slide after climbing up the used tire wall.

By now Nina had left us for her real job, but Kaitlyn was with us every step of the way and not shy to join in the garbage zombie fun.  She was an awesome guide/playmate for the boys the entire time we were there.  We then moved on to several displays using magnets and old tube televisions, magnets and rusty particles, a rain house, a climbing wall made from recycled garbage, a wall of funky mirrors, and finger painting.  This was easily the messiest activity and Cutler slapped the paint on so thick the painting is still drying in Aunt Emily’s house as it was too wet to ship home.

After a couple more coats were applied to the car we started in on a scavenger hunt where we had to find “alien” heads throughout the museum and draw the symbol on each one of them.  Mason would take his time and try to draw it exactly and was actually fairly artistic at it while Cutler would scribble and look at us for acceptance and then move on.  The difference in these boys is amazing.  Once done there, the museum has an awesome set of tubes that sucks ping pong balls from your hands through an intricate set of tubes where bells are set up to be rung as the ball passes throughout.  This may have been up there with the car painting as the boys couldn’t run the balls up enough.  The “usual” visitors pay for the balls in an effort to raise money for art, but as Cutler is Cutler he was given what seemed to be an endless supply.

If you are ever in San Diego, I can’t recommend this as an activity enough.  Their website is http://www.thinkplaycreate.org/.  I know that if we get back to San Diego it will be on our list of things to do.  In fact, after we ate lunch, the boys wanted to go back but we distracted them with Petco Park and heading to the shore to see just how cold the water is and why it probably wasn’t in their best interest to swim in the ocean instead of the pool.  Or perhaps that is not in dad’s best interest.  🙂

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