We have had a fun and busy week full of Christmas errands, activities and parties.
I took the kids to see Santa Claus on Friday after school.  Lizzie was terrrified of him, she wouldn't even go inside his cozy little house.  She screamed by herself in her stroller eating her sucker.  It's a mean thing to do, but it's so funny!



All the kids ( incuding out friend Kate) sat on his lap and visited with him.  Then we brought Lizzie inside for one picture. 
She was hysterical!
Isaac said he wanted a "real bow & arrow"
Emily said "an easy bake oven"
Taylor asked for "a dog" because he knows Santa
can't bring real pets!
It was a fun activity, and all the kids were happy except Lizzie. 

This weekend was cold and on Saturday we got some snow, so we took the kids sledding at a local park.  Everyone had a great time. Elizabeth loves to sled!  She was demanding a turn down the hill on every sled.  She also loves to eat snow. 
Taylor and Emily made a big jump and tried to stand on their sleds over the jump. 

Taylor had a school music performance this week.  His class played the recorder.  It sounded great, but I didn't
get many good pics.

The kids have all been well behaved, our Elfie really works wonders. They are counting down the days until Christmas break. Hopefully it will be snowy so they can ski, sled and play in the snow.
We love this time of year and are so excited for Christmas! 

December fun!



Elizabeth is really liking to ride her little balance bike lately.  She always wants to put her helmet on while riding, and it's so cute to see her walking/riding her bike.  She is growing up too fast!




On Monday night for Family Night we got our Christmas Tree and decorated it.  The kids were all excited to help, and they did all the decorating.  Lizzie keeps rearranging the ornaments that on her eye level, she's so helpful. 
It was a fun night, we just went to our neighborhood Harmons, got a gelato for dessert and bought our tree too! 
It really feels like December now that the house is decorated all festive.
 Our Elf on the Shelf "Elfie" is back and the kids are anxious to see where he is every morning.  Lizzie likes Elfie, but doesn't understand the part about not touching him.  If he is on her level, she just picks him up and plays with him like he is one of her dolls. 



Our neighborhood has a live Nativity.  It was a cold, rainy night but a fun event. 

We always have fun when the cousins come over to play.  Isaac and Rebecca love doing crafts when they play together. Last week they made snowflakes, stockings and snow globes.  They were busy being creative!
Lizzie's latest thing is to climb on the counter, and get into the cupboard full of snacks/treats.  She used to stand below the cupboard yelling "Treat, I want a bite"- now she just gets the stool, climbs on it and helps herself.  I caught her on the counter in sunglasses, and she cried because she knew she was caught. 

Last night was the Hawkins Family Christmas Party!!!
It was a fabulous night full of delicious food, Bingo, chimes, games, a photo booth, and songs.  Everyone had a great time and it was fun to see aunts, uncles & cousins. 

We missed everyone who lives away and couldn't come. 

They counted the posterity of Grandma & Grandpa Hawkins last night:
They have 8 children
41 grandchildren
81 Great Grandchildren (so far)
It's pretty amazing!



Here's some of the great grandchidren doing songs on the chimes.  It was loud-but the kids had fun playing their music.



Danny and Taylor played "Silent Night" on the ukeleles.  They are getting good at playing and really enjoy practicing together.

It was really great Christmas party!

On Sunday after church we went to a Senior Citizen facility with some of our friends and neighbors to sing some Christmas carols.  We sang songs, the kids played carols on their instruments and then we had some gifts to pass out to the residents.  It was nice to meet the people who live here. The kids were friendly and kind.

It's a great start to a busy, fun December full of Christmas parties and activities. 

I love this time of year!!!





Thanksgiving weekend

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving the kids had no school, so we took a group of friends to the zoo.  It was a great day; warm weather and not crowded.  Everyone had lots of fun! Especially because we left Lizzie home napping with Aunt Mono, so I had no stroller to push and no fits to deal with!  One year olds are so fun, but super high maintenance ( At least Lizzie is high maintenence).

Thanksgiving day we headed over to G & G Shields house for the big feast.  It was a nice dinner with delicious food, and great company.  Derek and Richard were both in SLC from our of town, and they bring a lot of fun to the group.
Great Grandma Shields was also there, so it was a real treat!
She loves to play games, as well as nap after dinner. 



I feel so blessed and grateful for all the blesssings in my life.  I have so much to be grateful for the list could go on forever but here are a few on the top of my list:
Being able to watch my children learn and grow.
Having a wonderful husband who works so hard to support us, and teaches our children the gospel.
My body is healthy and strong.
My kids are curious and interested in learning new things everyday.
A loving extended family on both sides of the family.

I love Thanksgiving! It is my favorite Holiday!



The Saturday after the holiday all the adults in town went to dinner to celebrate the November/December Brithdays!  We ate at Tempanyaki, and it was so yummy!  It was a fun night and the food was great.  We really missed Marc, Natalie, Brett & Teresa who were not here!
Happy Birthday to us!

Isaac and Lizzie just eating a donut one day for breakfast.
Isaac has been so nice and sweet to Elizabeth lately.  He is helpful, kind and helps her in any way he can.  It really is so cute and heart warming to see him treat his little sister so kind.
At preschool he told his teacher 
" I am most grateful for his little sister, Lizzie."
He has come a long way from when he would rage at anything and throw tantrums nonstop. I think I like four year olds.

Here's some random pictures from this week. 
Danny was gone all week for work and sent me flowers for my Birthday.  I turned 35 on Thursday and had fun day celebrating.  I fed the kids smoothies for breakfast, had a fun lunch with my friends, and then went to our ward Relief Society Christmas dinner that night.  I don't feel old, but 35 sounds old!

Danny got home tonight after being gone for 8 days. We really missed him and are so happy he's home! 



This week was Spirit Week at the school for Taylor and Emily.  They had "crazy hair day", "80"s day", "Pajama day" etc..  They had fun dressing up and having fun! 
Emily came up with her 80's outfit by herself.  She looked great!



For  "Crazy Hair Day" Taylor had 4 tiny ponytails and Emily had 9.  We all decided that Taylor looks a lot like Lizzie with his hair like this. 

Isaac made this Indian headband for his Thanksgiving Feast at Preschool.  He was all excited about the feast, and had fun learning about the pilgrims and Indians.

On Saturday we went to the new store Scheels to see what it was about.  It's a gignatic store, and with a huge ferris wheel inside.  We all had fun exploring the store, there's tons to see and do.  Lizzie liked trying on this racoon hat, she wanted to buy it.

We did a target shooting game, and everyone took a turn.

This life-size bear terrified Lizzie, she started crying and would not get near it. Scheels is a fun store, but too big to really shop in.

It was a good weekend! 

Snow!

Wow, we really had a snowy weekend! 
The snow started to fall on Friday morning, and it snowed all weekend.  Finally stopping and clearing out for good on Sunday.
The kids came home from school and played in the snow all Friday afternoon.  They went sledding, had snowball fights, snow angels; but mostly they worked on building snow forts. 
This project kept them busy for hours. 

After playing all day Friday I would think they would want a break, but they were all outside again at 8:00 AM Saturday morning!  Again they worked on their snowforts with their friends/neighbors.  It was a fun way to spend a snowy Saturday.  They all took a break to come inside around 11:30 and warm up with hot cocoa and a yummy brunch at our neighbor's house.  Then they started out again and played until late in the afternoon!

Taylor and his friends really have a good plan for building strong snowforts.  The only problem is the snow kept falling, so it would cover up their fort.

Lizzie didn't last so long in the snow.  She liked it, and had fun playing in it.  But she doesn't like to wear her gloves and her hands get freezing. She looked so cute walking around clumsily in the snow with her little boots and snowsuit on.  She even tried sledding and really had fun!

We measured the snow in our front yard and it was up to 17 inches high!  Perfect for building a huge snowman( not pictured). 

Between shoveling the sidewalks, making hot cocoa, and putting on all the snowpants, coats, hats, boots and gloves multiple times a day we had a busy weekend!

Isaac talked about the letter "P" last week at preschool. They made apple pies one day at school.  He was so proud of his little pie, and was nice to share some with his siblings. 
He is still trying to take multiple vitamins a day so he can grow up faster.  He really wants to be 16 so he can date his dream girl, Jesse. It's super cute when he talks about her, he gets all smily and happy! His first crush is on a girl ten years older then him! Ha Ha

I have to brag about my wonderfully talented husband. 
We needed a little end table in our family room, and Danny had just learned how to weld.  So he made this table and the lamp!  His welder is getting lots of use, and we are coming up with other projects for the future.
Thanks, Danny!!

Halloween



We had a fun week full of Halloween celebrations! 
Lizzie was such a good helper at the costume store, trting on all these wigs, and hats.  She was super mad when I wouldn't let her buy one!
She has inhereited Isaac's balance bike, now that he rides his two wheeler. She loves wearing the helmet and pushing herself on the sidewalk.  She looks super cute in her tu-tu!



We had a giant Halloween Party at G & G Shields house the night before Halloween .  Everyone dressed up and we played games, had a yummy dinner with witches brew, had a dance party with glow sticks etc.. It was a blast! 
Thanks for Colton & Megan for thinking of the idea.

Here's the guys; Dave is a Rubix Cube and Danny had a mullet hat/wig with tattoo sleeves.  They both looked awesome!!
Some of the kids were scared of Danny because they didn't recognize him.

Here's some of the rest of the adults. 
All the kids looked great!  They were all thrilled to be weating their costumes and to see their cousins/friends in their costumes!

Taylor rocked it at this eating donut off a stick game, everyone loved this game.

Here's a picture of the glow sticks while dancing in the dark to '"Ghostbusters" and "The Monster Mash"
The kids jumped, danced and sang the while dance.  It was wild!!!

Lizzie had been obsessed with this tu-tu, she wears it over her clothes almost everyday. It's adorable!

On Halloween at preschool Isaac had a program.  The class sang some songs, did poem and a parade.  It was really cute, and he thought it was wonderful!
Here he is with Mariah (Aerial) his friend.
Isaac loves school, he asks every night before bed
"Do I have school tomorrow?"
His teacher and class are perfect for him!

Then in the evening everyone got back into their costumes, but this time Emily decided to be a vampire Butterfly.  She did her own makeup, and was happy to look a little scary.

We had a fun neighborhood dinner with soups/salads/bread at our next door neighbor's house.  It was a lot of fun and everyone had a grand time! The weather was nice and warm, perfect for an outdoor dinner with friends!

After dinner it was off to Trick -O - Treat. 
Lizzie loved getting candy, but wanted to stop and eat each piece. 
So she stayed with Grandma while we hit the streets for a while with the older kids. Isaac and Emily were running from house to house.  Taylor was too, but not as much.  He's doing no candy no soda all year to earn $ money.  He is saving for an IPOD touch, and arranged to earn $100 for the year. 

We stayed out late eating scones, hot cocoa and candy in our neighbors garage.
 It was fun, exhausting day! Happy Halloween!



This is Lizzie getting herself ready for church.  She took off her regular shoes and was clomping around in these plastic Aerial shoes.  She was determined to wear these to church, and looks pretty thrilled about the idea of it in the picture! 
She cracks me up!