Preschool Graduate

We did a Mommy Preschool this past year with Laiklie and 7 new friends.  It went very well and we had so much fun getting to know these sweet kids and their mommies.  It was always fun to have our turn and have them come to our house.  Laiklie learned so much and is super close to being ready for Kindergarten in the Fall. 

Left to right: Mayci, Cidnie, Chasitie, Mickenzie, Lexie, Laiklie, Mason and Kyle

We told them to give us a big Hurray!  I love that we got a few arm pumps and I love even more Mason in the front got a little air with his jump. :) Soooo much fun!!

One of the moms has this train she drives behind the 4-wheeler.  So after graduation certificates were handed out and everybody had a hotdog and grad cake in their belly they got a train ride.  SERIOUSLY probably their favorite part! 

What a great year for Laiklie. Her and Lexie (my cousin's little girl) became best friends....and she adopted Chasitie as her own little girl.  I don't know why she liked to mother her so much, but she sure did.  And she made a whole new group of little friends that she can continue to be friends with over the next few years in elementary!  The moms were FABULOUS and I am SO GRATEFUL they were willing to do this with me!

While Mom's Away...

the bike accident happened! Of course!

My sweet sister kept my kids last Saturday while I was with Oakley in UT clogging.  About mid-way through the afternoon she calls to see how things are going and to report on a bike accident.  Dallin came flying down their road and as he turned into the driveway and hit the gravel his back tire started to fishtail and then the bike dumped him off all together.  He was a pretty tough little dude though!

The elbow and hip were the two worst wounds.  He also had a skinned up knee and the next day when I was taking these pictures as he pulled up his shorts to take the picture of his knee we found a bruise that went the entire length of his thigh. 

We also found these bruises on his eyelid.  It wasn't a black eye...and not a single scratch on his face, but two random bruises on his eyelid.  WEIRD!!

Yesterday when I was picking him up from school as he was walking toward the car I heard one of the girls walking with him say, "Show it to me again." He whips out his elbow for her to see and I hear, "UHGGG!" with this terrible look on her face.  The second little girl then does the exact same thing.  Asks to see it, and then makes the nasty face and sound! I am pretty sure he is milking his wounds with the ladies! :)

Overall Grand Champs

On the 14th of April Oakley's clogging team went to a clog competition.  It is the competition that qualifies them for Nationals. They worked SO HARD all year long learning 5 solos, a duet and 2 team dances.  They got to the competiton, danced their little guts out....and came home with 2nd places all around the board, except their duets that luckily got 1st places.(They were judged by different judges!)

We were SO BUMMED! A 2nd place doesn't qualify for nationals.  We were very upset with the judging and the overall competition.  We felt like it was overrun by a certain type of dancers this year and if you came on the stage looking different from that type at all you stuck out like a sore thumb.  We apparently were the sore thumb!

So, Oakley's amazing teacher looked around and found another clog competition that we could take just Oakley's team to to see if they really did suck, or if we just got the bum end of the deal at the other competition.  So this past Saturday we jumped in the car and drove to Taylorsville, Utah to once again, dance our little guts out.  They did AMAZING!! Again!! This time though we felt fairly judged.  :)

Oakley came home with 4 1st places and 1 2nd place on her 5 solos.  They also danced 3 team dances....getting a 1st on ALL and even 2 of them getting OVERALL GRAND CHAMPS!

This cute little team of 5 girls are AMAZING dancers. They have only taken clogging for 4 years and are already dancing at an advanced level.  We are SO PROUD of them and I am SO GRATEFUL to judges that know a good thing when they see it!! Thank you Taylorsville Clog Comp!! NATIONALS HERE WE COME!!

Science Fair

My sister and I were talking the other day about who invented the science fair.  We know that it was NOT A MOTHER! No mother in her right mind would invent the science fair!! I mean, SERIOUSLY!!!  So, Arnica and I decided it must have been Heavenly Father.  We figured he created the Earth and that is definitely ALL SCIENCE! So he must have been behind this whole Science Fair thing!

And what do you know? We were right!! Well, maybe he didn't invent it, but he definitely is interested in it.  This is how we know....

Oakley and one of her besties Katie (in the above pictures with their cute little noses plugged from the stinky science smell, ha! ha!) decided they wanted to grow a crystal garden.  We tried 4 times last Monday to get anything to grow.  NOPE. NOTHING!! So Tuesday we tried with a different ingredient - we discovered the lady at the store didn't give us the right bluing.  Who knew bluing even existed?? And it worked! Yay! After a day we had these beautiful blue crystals.  And after two days they were gorgeous!

I had Rhett setting the table Wednesday night and his little foot bumped the crystals that were growing by the heat vent and in an instant they were powder.  I was seriously sick to my stomach!!  Thursday morning, only 12 hours later we were suppose to take these gorgeous crystals to the school for judging.  *I want to note right here that there was NO YELLING!! I bit my tongue...I knew the damage was done and by yelling at my poor little boy who knew he had done something major already I was only going to create more damage!* So...while Oakley and Katie were at volleyball and before they ever even knew we had had an accident Rhett and I stirred-up not only one, but two (just in case) batches of crystals.  We placed them right infront of a heater and we prayed like we had never prayed before.  By morning we once again had GORGEOUS crystals.  They looked just like they had after 2 full days of growing in just one 12 hour period.  It was PROOF that Heavenly Father really does cares about the science fair! :)

 Rhett was SURE he had to do a project too! It wasn't required in 1st grade like it was in 6th grade so I tried OVER AND OVER again to talk him out of it.  (The truth is...he wasn't into the science part of it as much as the whole POSTER part! Ha, ha!! Funny kid!) When Wednesday came around and I could tell he was serious we got to work.  He learned all about how plants drink through capillary action.  He put his celery in blue water and we ended up with blue leaves. He tried this awesome paper towel/water experiment that worked and he used as part of his display also.  We put together his poster (favorite part!) and he helped me deliver it to the school.  He was SOOO SUPER EXCITED to come home and tell me he had gotten a 4th place ribbon on his project.  He also told me, "Mom...did you know that it wasn't even all about the poster.  It didn't even matter if you had a big or little one or what colors you used on it!" :)

I am proud of both my little Science Fair kiddies! Oakley and Katie also got a ribbon...a big 5th place.  I am SO GLAD that is over for another year! CHECK!!

ANOTHER Fire Scare

 Remember the fire we had last year - a haystack fire....well, we once again tried to burn ourselves down the other day.  About a week ago Stan (Ryan's dad) sent his hired hand Nick and Ry's little brother Dale up to burn one of our ditches.  This is a ditch Ryan has NEVER burned because of it location to the haystacks and houses....but I guess no one gave these two boys that memo and Ryan didn't know Stan had sent them. They knew the ditch was right next to the haystack so they had fire extinguishers in hand and kept it nice and small.  It started out okay...and once they got past the haystacks they thought they were doing good.  Right next to our haystacks is some giant grain bins and if you have ever stood between two grain bins you know that it kind of creates a vacuum effect with the wind.  So the fire is creeping along and when it gets to where the grain bins stand that gust of wind hits it and in minutes we had an emergency!!

 The ditch follows a bend and runs along our pasture that is next to our house.  You can tell in the picture that the pasture is full of long, tall dead grass, weeds and leaves.  It also has alot of big tall dead trees too.  The fire caught them in an instant.  I was outside making mud pies with Laiklie in the fort when the flames started reaching for the sky right up at the tops of the trees and Dale yelled to me to get the hoses.  I left Laiklie with the kids that had just walked off the bus as Dale yelled and ran for the water.  I was dragging hoses out of the well house (we haven't had to use them yet this spring) and as I looked up there was Chase - Ryan's other brother.  I knew that he was there as a tender mercy of the Lord!  Chase and I worked like crazy to get the hoses over to the fire that was headed right for mine and the neighbors house.

 After I got Chase started with those hoses I called Ryan looking for the other hoses and told him he better get up here quick because they were trying to burn us down.  Dale yelled at me to call and get more help.  So I called the shop and not too long after Sid and Brad showed up.  We got the water to Dale just in time for he and Chase to get the fire headed for both houses under control.  If you look in this picture most of the trees in it ended up burning and the entire fence in the back ground.  You can also see the haystack and the naughty grain bins that started the mess off to the right.  Also...Nick is in the picture.  We teased him about trying to burn our house down.  He felt bad.  I kept asking if his wife was even going to let him come home because he was seriously black from smoke.

Just after we got the fire under control on one end we looked over and the fire had started up again by the haystacks.  We didn't have a source of water over there, so Ryan, Nick, Sid, Brad and I ran over there with shovels in hand to put it out.  We have a very similar pasture back there with the long tall grass and more haystacks and we knew we could have a disaster within minutes.  We dug fire lines, and beat the fire out with our shovels.  It was SO HOT it would seriously burn you if you even got close enough to beat it out.  We did finally get it stopped there too!!

In order to keep the fire that had started in the trees under control they got out the chain saw and started knocking down dead trees.  These two, Dale in white and Ry in yellow TERRIFY me! At one point Dale (who has NO FEAR!) climbed up on the BURNING fence with the chain saw in hand to cut down a huge tree trunk they were worried would catch fire and land in the dry weeds.  I could hardly watch them!  The fire burned ALL NIGHT LONG! I couldn't sleep because I was worried that at any point the wind could come up and blow ashes into those tall dry weeds and we would be off fighting fire again!  My house stunk, my cars stunk, the next morning we got up early for baptisms for the dead with the youth in our ward and my bra even stunk! :) I am so grateful that the Lord has his hand in our life! We were watched over and blessed this day for sure!

Easter 2012

We had a GREAT Easter holiday this year. We started off with coloring eggs and delivering Elderly Baskets. My mom started the tradition of taking Easter baskets full of goodies to the widows when my brothers and sisters and I were little kids and it is a tradition that she still does today and we started several years ago doing the same. It is my kids FAVORITE part of Easter. They love the sweet elderly neighbors we have and it is SO GOOD for my kids to be a part of serving this special time of year. Another tradition is the Hawkins Cousin Easter Egg Hunt! We started last year doing it in the pasture next to our house so the kids actually have to LOOK for the eggs. They LOVE it too! We start with a breakfast grandma brings and then once their belly's are full we head out to hunt eggs. This year there was a snow storm the day before so there were some eggs hidden in the snow. It was a chill, but beautiful morning.
I tried SEVERAL times to get a good picture of my kids in their Easter clothes. The before church pictures Dallin was seriously BAD MOOD CITY so the pictures are of him grumpy, then crying because he got thumped by his big sister for not cooperating...then thumped again by his mommy :( for the horrible attitude. SO.....we tried again after church and this is what I got

A bunch of GIGGLE GUTS!! This is the "real life shot." They are so much fun and the loves of my life!

They did however shape-up for atleast one good picture! We hope all of you had a great Easter! As we celebrated the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ I love the scripture that talks about - Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. HE IS RISEN!

The Other Man in My Life

You all know about the 3 Men in my life. Ryan is my #1....of course. And then there are my two handsome little guys that are the LOVES OF MY LIFE!! But.....there is also this other guy! He stole my heart the very first time I saw him and seriously makes it melt everytime I've seen him since. He has the cutest blue eyes and blonde hair! And his smile gets me EVERYTIME! Do you see what I am talking about?!

This is Casey! I seriously would keep him if my big brother and his wife would let me! :) Part of my kids spring break was spent at Casey's house and I tried over and over again to get him to come home with me. I sure love this little man!!