Priesthood Preview

Tonight was the Priesthood Preview.  I have been to a Priesthood Preview before.  I was a counselor in a primary presidency and then a primary president and so I have actually been to several Priesthood Previews before, BUT.....

never with this guy sitting by my side.

Tonight was DALLIN'S PRIESTHOOD PREVIEW! I can hardly believe he is big enough to receive the priesthood this next year.  Is he ready? Not quiet, but he will be.  Dallin is INCREDIBLE! He amazes me every day.  He has a strong desire to do what is right.  He wants to and tries very hard to be obedient to not only his parents, but his Heavenly Father as well.  He is a great example of hard work and kindness in our home.  He will be a GREAT priesthood holder.  I got teary eyed several times tonight (especially as he joined the other 3 boys in singing A Young Man Prepared!) thinking about how fast he is growing.  I remember the stubborn little boy who would only wear wranglers and wouldn't leave the house without his cowboy hat.  He use to tell people he was going to be "tres" (three in Spanish) years old at his birthday.  It seems just like yesterday.  Tonight they talked about these boys going on missions and I looked at my boy sitting next to me......and he winked at his momma.....and I thought HOW WILL I EVER SEND HIM?? I pray everyday that I am preparing him not only to be worthy of the priesthood he will soon receive, but also to be worthy to serve a mission for the Lord.  I sure love this kid and I know before I am ready the time will come to send him on that mission and I will be as proud of him then as I was tonight sitting there in the primary room with him eager to get the priesthood.  I sure love you Dallin!

Mr. Fuzzy

I did a post yesterday on Laiklie.  She is ONE OF A KIND! She makes me laugh everyday and it didn't surprise me when  this is what I found on her dresser today.

 She calls "him" Mr. Fuzzy! "He" is a ball of elastic string she has strung out and balled up together.  STRANGE!

 A close-up of Mr. Fuzzy

And every ball of fuzz needs breathing holes. :)  She CRACKS ME UP!!

She has always been this way.  She takes random things and NAMES THEM and then keeps them FOREVER! She took the ends I cut off an orange one day and named them Mr. Clammy. She cried a few days later when she found Mr. Clammy in the garbage. :) She also cut a corner off of one of my wash cloths one day and named it Mr. Snuffles. She packed Mr. Snuffles EVERYWHERE with her for weeks.  Mr. Snuffles has now died (that's what I heard her tell her cousin recently)....or in other words got lost!  Laiklie is such a fun girl and keeps life interesting for sure! 

World's Best Friends

We seriously have WORLD'S BEST FRIENDS!! We invited a few of our neighbors/friends to go bowling with us tonight for Family Home Evening and we had a BLAST!!!

Eight adults + Sixteen Kids + bowling = SO MUCH FUN!!

 The Big Boys (Dallin, Kaleb and Nathan)

 The Big Girls (Oakley, Lauren and Katie)

 The Middle Size Girls (Savanna and Kadence) 

 The Little's (Rhett, Preslie, Ava, Laiklie, Kayia and Emily)

 Laiklie and Ava getting their BOWL on!!

 Brinley, Kylie and Rhett - everyone had someone to be with and we all had a BLAST!!

 And my favorite people....THE BOWLING MOMMA'S!! I love these ladies and I am so grateful to a Heavenly Father who knew 7 years ago when he changed the ward boundaries that I NEEDED these ladies.  There are so many ladies in this ward that are my age that have kids my kids age and I am RICHLY BLESSED!

After bowling we headed across the parking lot for ice cream and we seriously filled the place.  We had almost every table full.  It was a great night and so fun to get out together.  There will definitely be more of this neighborhood bowling in the future! We may have to start our own league! :)

I Love This Little Girl!

 Laiklie is HILARIOUS! She is so much fun!!  She is still young enough that she doesn't quite understand everything and that makes life more fun.  She finds happiness in the smallest things.

She is also such a tease and jokester.  I mean....look at her.  She is a crack-up!!

This was the first snow we got of the year and she had slept downstairs with Oakley the night we got it.  The next morning she came up stairs, saw the snow out the window and announced, "This is the best day of my LIIIFFFFEEE!!!" Ha, ha!

Yesterday as we were headed up to the cabin with all the Hawkins cousins to celebrate Ryan and Linn's birthday I was talking to Siri on my cellphone as I was driving so she could text for me.  I have to pronounce my words very clearly or Siri gets them wrong every time.  I said, "we are on our way to the C.A.B.I.N" and Laiklie broke out laughing.  When I turned around to see what she was laughing at she said, "Mom, you called it a CABIN.....it's not a CABBBBIN, it's a CAVIN!  You said it wrong!"  We tried explaining to her it is called a CABIN and every time we said it she died laughing thinking that was absolutely ridiculous.  Who would call it a CABIN?  So.....from now on at our house we go to the CAVIN!:) She also said something yesterday about ValentiMe's Day. :) I love it all! I don't want her to grow-up!

An Extra LOW Night

Oakley's blood fluctuates SO MUCH right now because of growth spurts and hormones.  It worries me and so we try to watch it super close.  The other night we went out for ice cream and on the way home I asked if she had done insulin.  She said, "Yep, 60 carbs." That was great and I was proud of her for doing it before I  even asked.  About a 1/2 hour after I put her to bed though she came up with this blood number..... 

She was shaky and that ALWAYS makes us nervous! We handed her what was left of my pepsi on the cupboard, some candy and a bag of doritos.  The lowest Oakley has ever been was a 36, so we were pretty close to our lowest low.  :(  I checked her several times throughout the night and thankfully she came back up to normal range.  It took me until the next morning before it hit me what we had done wrong.  Oakley did 60 carbs for AN ICE CREAM CONE! She usually has a shake which is about 60 carbs, but this time she has a cone which is 1/2 the carbs of a shake.  I am so glad she felt the low before she drifted off to sleep.  Diabetes is a scary disease.  We hear all to often of children going to sleep, going low and never waking up.  Because of this I wake-up night after night after night to check my sweet girls blood as she sleeps.  There are nights that I pause at her door and pray she rolls over or makes some sort of noise or movement before I walk into her room just as a reassurance that she is okay.  We love this girl (along with our 3 other babes) more than life itself and what a blessing it is that she is strong enough to deal with diabetes LIKE A BOSS!! :)

Dallin's Birthday

I can't believe my boy is 11 years old now!  He does NOT LIKE the camera and was NOT happy about pictures!

 Dallin does love duck dynasty though so he was super excited about a giant sized duck dynasty pillow.

 He also really wanted a bb gun pistol.  He loves it!!

And the last thing he really wanted was 10 lb weights.  When I picked them up in the store to put them in my cart I knew he had NO IDEA how heavy 10 lbs really was, but I knew he would be sad if I came home with anything smaller.   This picture is fuzzy, but I love the look on his face as he is trying it out for the 1st time.  I am sure he will grow into them.  They will help with that pull-up bar (in the doorway behind him in the picture) that he lives on too! 

Dallin is a GREAT kid.  He makes being a mom easy! We sure love him! Happy Birthday D!

Halloween 2013

We love Halloween!!

 This year Oakley was Thing 2, Laiklie was Miss America, Rhett was a minion and Dallin was a hunter.  We went to the ward trunk-or-treat and in to see Great Grandma Murdock.  We got to trick-or-treat at her building too.  Some of the old people were a little weird though.....like the guy who made EVERY KID recite the entire "trick-or-treat smell my feet give me something good to eat, if you don't I don't care I'll pull down your underwear!" After Dallin and Rhett recited it to him Oakley and Laiklie decided to go ahead and skip his treats. :)

 And here is the Thing 1 to our Thing 2.  I sure love these girls!!

And Miss America also made an appearance at the elementary Halloween parade. :) She is definitely the cutest little toothless Miss America I've ever seen!

Pre-Halloween

We LOVE the holidays and Halloween is just the start of it all.

Oakley, Sage, Laiklie and Violet

 Friday night we had the Hawkins cousins over for pumpkin carving and some chili and cornbread.  SO FUN to be together!

 Rhett, Uncle Jason (who is the main carver in this family! Thankful for him!) Kiana, JD and Dallin

 And here is our little Jack-o-lantern with NO TEETH! Isn't Laiklie cute!!  She talked her big dad into helping out with her pumpkin.  She has him wrapped around her finger!

 What a bunch of scary pumpkins!

Saturday night we went to the elementary carnival.  We had cousins Sage and Violet there too.  Everything is better with cousins! 

Hunting, Hunting, Hunting

For those of you who know Ryan you know that he LIVES AND BREATHES hunting! He also thinks his girl should live and breath hunting.  She likes it for sure, but not like her daddy does. 

 We were able to spend the night at the cabin a few times when Ryan took Oakley out hunting.  So fun! He took her out several other mornings and nights this year as well, but she is very into her social life right now (normal 8th grader!) and so she didn't want to go near as often as her dad wanted to take her.

 He kept trying to get her the "BIG ONE" and she just wanted to be done hunting and was more than happy to shoot this little 2 point.  I love this picture of the two of them together!  Hunting with her dad is something she will NEVER FORGET even though she gets her patience for it from her mommy! :) I would have let her shoot the 2 point the night I went with them but Ryan wouldn't even hear of it. Ha, ha!!

Ryan got buck fever one night too and called me just as it was getting dark to tell me he had shot this 4 point buck.  Dallin and Rhett were along for the hunting trip which I think added to his buck fever.  He wanted so badly to shoot something when his boys were there to witness it. :) Sure love him!! So proud of both of them and we are excited for the jerky!!

Last Game of the Season

 Oakley's volleyball team had an amazing season.  UNDEFEATED!! Yay! Her little team did great and she worked hard and loved every minute of it.  She had incredible coaches that helped her to learn and grown.  The above picture is both middle school teams being introduced at one of the varsity games.  Oakley is to the left of #12 (yellow jersey) right in the middle.

This is the ONLY picture I got of the last game.  Oakley is on the right against the net standing next to her BFF Lauren.  Oakley LOVED playing with two of her very best friends Lauren and Katie this year.  This night they were wearing their pink jerseys for Breast Cancer Awareness.  I am grateful for coaches that teach our girls that this world is so much bigger than just us!!  We are so proud of Oakley for working hard to make the team again this year and can't wait to watch her play club ball this spring.

For now she has shifted her focus to clogging and has her first competition this weekend in Utah.  Wish her luck!

Seriously SO EMBARRASING!

Last Monday, October 21st, as the kids were headed out to get on the bus Rhett's nose started to bleed.  I told him we would get it to stop and then I would run him to school.  My kids are seriously one of the last stops so we don't have a lot of time between when the bus comes and when the bell rings.  So we hurried and got the nose to stop bleeding and headed out to the car.  When we got outside my suburban was still hooked-up to a trailer from the night before when we were helping our neighbor haul her 4-wheeler home from her ranch so my only option that morning was to run him to school in Ryan's filthy dirty ranch truck.  We jumped in and headed to the school.  As I was pulling into the circle drive drop-off area of our school I noticed a cop WITH HIS LIGHTS ON pulling in behind me.  You've got to be kidding me, I thought!! SERIOUSLY! Right here infront of teachers, students and OTHER PARENTS!! When the officer got to my window I rolled it down and his eyes got big as he saw my fuzzy pink bathrobe.  I was HUMILIATED!!  He kinda chuckled as he asked if I happened to have my drivers license on me this morning.  Luckily I had atleast grabbed my purse.  He looked at my license as he told me I was going 30 in a 25 mph zone and 25 in a 20 mph zone.  In my head I am screaming SERIOUSLY, S.E.R.I.O.U.S.L.Y!! YOU PULLED ME OVER FOR GOING 5.....FIVE OVER THE SPEED LIMIT!!  He then handed me my license back, didn't say a word about not wearing my seat belt or anything, thank goodness, and told me to slow down a little and to next time "maybe leave a few minutes earlier!" When I was telling my sister about what he said she told me I should have told him "If I had left any earlier I MAY NOT HAVE EVEN HAD THE BATHROBE ON DUDE!!" I went to the school later that day and one of the moms who is my friend said as she saw me, "Natalie, I am glad to see you got dressed for the day!" SOOO EMBARRASSING!!  :)

And here we are, me and the fuzzy pink bathrobe in all it's glory! Everybody else has seen it now, you might as well see it too! :)

Pumpkin Painting 2013

 Each year Grandma Hawkins invites the grandkids down to paint the straw bale pumpkin.  They love it.  Other than the cold! It seems like it is AWLAYS a cold day that we do it on. :(

The long paint line. Everyone gets a turn.

All the grandkids lined up.  The line keeps getting longer.  This year we added Sage and Violet and next year we will add their new baby! Yay!  We LOVE cousins!

This year the kids also figured out they were big enough to climb ONTO the pumpkin.  Crazy kids!  They seriously thought that was as fun as painting it. :) Thanks grandma for fun holiday traditions!

Darn Wind!

In the spring I posted about the lovely Idaho wind and how it blew my trampoline into the trees and we had to tie it down.  Well.....last week it decided to blow AGAIN, but this time I was at the ranch hunting with Ryan so nobody was here to save the trampoline.

 While we were away the wind decided to help the swing set kill the trampoline.  :(  I got the saddest message on my cell phone from the kids when they got home from school and found this. 

We have since pulled it down off the swing set and got the frame all twisted back around to where it can stand once again.  We took the net down.  That darn net is what makes it take flight like a kite.  Once the snow starts to fall we will take the mat off and haul it into get fixed.  Until then the kids will just keep jumping around the hole.  :) Welcome to country life! Ha, ha!

BIRTHDAY GIRL!

 Her shirt says it all!  Look at that toothless grin! She is missing 4 teeth across the front and nothing coming into replace them yet.  Poor girl can't eat corn, apples or much of anything! :)

 She had 3 of her best friends over to P.A.R.T.Y! Emily, Laiklie, Ava and Kaiya

 I can't believe my baby is 7. SEVEN!!  It amazes me how fast time goes by! I just can't get it to slow down no matter how hard I try!

 I know this picture and these next few pictures are fuzzy, but I LOVEY, LOVE, LOVE the faces she makes as she opens her presents.  You can see she LOVES them all!

We took the party to Blastoff and they had a BLAST!

I love being Laiklie's mom.  She makes life so much sweeter.  She has so much love in her little heart and she loves big!  She likes to joke and be funny.  She gets along great with the girls and the boys.  She mothers anybody that will let her.  She is and has always been our "icing on the cake!" Love you baby girl!

My Scouters!

At pack meeting September 26th Dallin and Rhett both got big awards!

 Dallin earned his Webelos award!! Yay! He is now working on his Arrow of Light.

 Rhett got to be in the skit.  Isn't he (far right) the cutest indian you've ever seen?!  I love that in this picture he still looks little to me.  :)

Rhett also earned his Wolf award. Another Yay!! I am SO PROUD of both my boys and the hard work they have put into their scouting.