Hawkins Christmas

 

Christmas morning at Grandma Hawkins house is always so fun. We had a great time opening gifts with cousins and eating a delicious lunch! 

These are the last pictures I have from 2020. I didn't even get any of us celebrating the new year. Mostly because our kids are teenagers and celebrated with friends instead of us. Hahaha! We did have a weird ending to our year though...which seems fitting for 2020! Our renter (Chad) passed away just a few days before Christmas so we spent the week after Christmas trying to get the rental cleaned up and ready to re-rent. We also had Oakley and Logan's wedding coming up and spent every spare minute while we had Oakley home between semesters trying to get that planned. It has been an interesting year with an interesting ending. We are grateful for our blessings throughout the year and have seen the Lord's hand in our life. We are definitely ready to move into 2021, leaving crazy 2020 behind us! 

Christmas 2020

This year we did Christmas on a much smaller scale. They kids just didn't need anything! We decided to do a big family gift instead and surprised them with a new sectional couch and projector for the basement. It was seriously THE BEST! The couch was delivered Christmas Eve morning and the boys spent the day putting up the projector and speakers and we spent the next few days & nights down there on our new giant couch watching movies together. It was by far the greatest gift. We are so very blessed to know the true meaning of Christmas. We were able to do a quick zoom on Christmas Eve with my family to read the Christmas story out of the bible. It was fun to be together with my siblings and parents even if it was over zoom. 

 

This year has been filled with so many ups and downs and unknowns with covid and cancer. We have looked at the world with new eyes and put all our trust and faith in our Heavenly Father and the Savior Jesus Christ. We have learned that we can't live in fear and have to push forward through the sometimes scary world. We are so grateful to have been together to celebrate the birth of the Savior. 

Annual Grandma Christmas Party

I love that Linn still does her grandma Christmas party even with half the grandkids being teens and even young adults now. It is fun for all the cousins to be together for the night. This year she added a few more to the crew - Jayden (Macady's husband), Logan (Oakley's fiance) and Ciara brought a boyfriend. The kids had a great time together. I love the pj picture. Such a fun grandma! 

 

We Found A Dress!!

After a few days of crazy wedding dress shopping and 4 different dress shops we finally found a winner! Oakley put this dress on and immediately fell in love! They had her walk up to the front of the store to see it in the natural light and I couldn't believe how hard I had to bite my lip (under my mask) to keep the tears back. She is absolutely gorgeous and makes the most beautiful bride! 

One quick story that I don't want to forget so it has to go on the blog. We were trying to figure all the wedding plans out and one of the things we went back and forth on several times was a photographer/vidoegrapher. We found a husband/wife team we loved and it was actually someone we knew from our ward so we were excited about that. We still were hesitant because of the cost though. We finally decided to go with a different photographer and videographer though knowing it would save us $1300. When Oakley tried on and fell in love with this dress I had no idea how much it cost. She was changing into her clothes when the consultant and I walked up to the register. The consultant asked me if I wanted to pay for the dress in full or on payments. I asked her how much the dress was. She responded with $1300. I immediately was again chocking back the tears. Heavenly Father is in the details of our lives. He knew that we were trying to do this wedding on a budget and it was not a coincidence that the money we saved by going with a different photographer/videographer was the exact amount we would need for the dress. I'm so grateful he is fully aware of us and our needs.   

 

Engagement Pictures

We knew this was going to be a quick engagement since they were trying to get married before the start of the next semester so we had to hurry and get engagement pictures so we could hurry and get invitations printed. Rhett took their pictures up at the ranch and did an incredible job! They turned out gorgeous! I only got 3 of the several hundred he took on my phone, but they all looked amazing! Such a cute couple! 

 

Oakley's Engaged! Yay!!

On December 6, 2020, Rhett got a message from Logan telling him that tonight was the night! It was a Sunday afternoon though and Rhett was napping and didn't get the message for a few hours. Lol! Oakley was driving home from Coeur d"Alene with her cousin Ali and Logan planned to pick her up when she got home late that evening and take her to a "family party." Just one little catch...there was no family party! Logan had decorated his great aunt's gazebo and he took her there to ask her to marry him! Yay!!! We are seriously SO EXCITED for them! Logan was sweet and invited Ryan and I to come and be there just afterwards. They did a few reenactment photos for us so Rhett could capture the moment. I love the smiles on their faces. They really are best friends and we couldn't be happier for them.   

 

Gingerbread Houses

These two are a handful! They think they are hilarious! They had so much fun decorating (as hideous as possible) this poor little gingerbread house. I loved them spending time together giggling in my kitchen. 

 

Christmas is Coming!

I absolutely love this time of year! This year we ordered a new 12 foot Christmas tree in September but didn't open the box until December when we were ready to put it up. It ended up only being PART of the tree....about 7 feet of the tree. We called, and of course by this time, they were sold out. They reimbursed us and told us to throw away or donate the tree. Who wants 1/2 a tree, especially one without a stand?!?! I ended up pulling the old tree out of the basement and as I was 1/2 way through putting it up I decided to try to riggy-jig the new tree and see if I could make the 7 feet we did get work with the stand from my old tree. It took some work....a lot of work....but it turned out beautiful. Because it was smaller we were able to put it in a different spot in the living room. I actually loved the change this new little tree brought.  

Cows, Ugh!

 I looked out one morning to find this big guy in my back yard! I'm pretty sure out by my trampoline is NOT where he belongs. Lucky for me, Rhett had just gotten home from early morning cheer practice and helped me run him over to Ryan in the barnyard. 

ER with Oakley

On November 30th Oakley woke me up at about 6:30 am with extreme pain in her stomach. We knew it was related to her period and knew that this same thing happened once a year ago last summer. After it happened last time someone told us they thought it was an ovarian cyst so we decided this time to go get it checked out. I decided to take her straight to the ER so they could do an ultrasound right there without having to send us somewhere else for one. When we first got there they gave her some pretty heavy narcotics for the pain. For some reason they put her into a laughing fit (picture #2) she was laughing til she was crying. Poor girl. They then took her in for an ultrasound where they did find a cyst. They said your ovary is about 2 cm, the size of an almond. Oakley's cyst was 6+cm, the size of a golfball. No wonder she was in pain! They told us what to do to help her be comfortable until it ruptured. We were so glad to know what was going on and how to help her. So crazy! 

The blue circle is her normal ovary, the red circle is the cyst. HUGE difference!

Best Day of Rhett's Life!

When Rhett was young he always wanted to be a pilot so he could "fly over volcano's mom!" hahaha. My sweet little niece Sophia wanted to go on a plane ride for her birthday, and my sister-in-law Diane, knowing Rhett's love for flying asked him if he'd like to take the empty seat on the plane. He was SO EXCITED!! My cousin Sabra's husband Travis is the one who took them on a ride and Travis is seriously the friendliest, funniest guy so it made it even better for Rhett. They met Travis in St. Anthony at the airport and about 30 mins after they got their I got a text from Diane telling me to go outside because they were going to do a fly over and Rhett WAS FLYING THE PLANE! Oh my heck!!! IT WAS AWESOME! Travis had him fly right over our house, circle back and fly over again. They girls and I went out and waved and recorded it. Rhett really did have the best day thanks to sweet Sophia for inviting him and Travis for making it awesome! 

 

Thanksgiving 2020

Thanksgiving was a little tricky with covid this year....just like everything else has been tricky this year. Throw cancer into the mix and it makes it even more complicated. We REALLY wanted to be together with mom though so we took precautions and tried our best to keep her safe. My family and all my brothers families, plus my niece Camille's little family were all able to be together here with mom and dad. We had everyone keep their distance and mom and dad wore their masks faithfully except for the few minutes I had them take it off for the picture. We made the kids hold their breath for the picture too so no one was breathing on her. Hahaha. She debated back and forth as to whether or not to hold the baby, but in the end she just couldn't resist and held baby Matthew (Camille's 1st) for just a few mins. It was so good to be together. We don't take gathering together for granted anymore after this crazy year of covid and mom's cancer. We enjoy every minute of our gatherings. 

 

Mom is weak now, so even something like going up and down the stair wears her out. I love this picture of Shane helping his sweet mama down the stairs. Cancer sucks! But it has given us all a new out look on life and helped us to appreciate the little things. 

Preg Check

Staying warm in my car while we wait to preg check the heifers. I sure love these two! 

 

Blast from the Past

Over Thanksgiving the Prophet, President Nelson asked us to do a 7 day give thanks challenge. One of the days I decided to give thanks for my siblings. Thomas Jefferson said, "I find as I grow older, I love those most, whom I loved first." He is so right! I don't know what I did in heaven that allowed Heavenly Father to send me to the home he sent me to, but I will be eternally grateful I got to grow up along side these kids. What an incredible blessing.