Hawkins Christmas

It’s always fun to spend part of our Christmas day at grandma Linn’s with cousins. This year we had a delicious lunch and the cousins pass the present game. All of the cousins were there except Macady and her little family. It was fun to have so many of them together. We are so blessed!

Christmas 2023

Christmas 2023 was a good one! It was so fun to have everybody home and be together. We started the morning with sleeping in. Jax was sick while they were here with a fever and cold and had a terrible night. By about 10 AM I woke everybody up. We watched the church nativity video and had a prayer before we started opening our presents. It was a great way to start the morning. Christmas was a little different this year. We tried to buy experiences/tickets for the kids instead of so much stuff. The last thing we need around here is more stuff! So hopefully the kids each have something to kind of look forward to over the next couple of months. We spent the day eating a lot of delicious food and playing games. It always comes and goes so fast. Such a great day! 

Family Pictures 2023

We have tried and tried this fall to get family pictures done. We’ve even had it scheduled a couple of times, but it just never happened. Just a couple days before Christmas. I asked my cute neighbor Casie to take just a couple quick ones. You can tell the boys were really cooperative! Lol! The pictures are a little washed out. Winter pictures are definitely not my favorite, but we were so glad to get them done finally! 

Andrus Family Christmas Trip

Logan’s family does a trip for Christmas every year. This year they were in Arizona again. Oakley invited her great grandpa Max to go with them one day to the temple. I loved getting the pictures. I’m so happy she invited him to spend some of the day with her. My kids are so blessed to have Max! He has been such a big part of their lives. What a blessing grandparents are even if Jax doesn’t know that yet. ;) Hahaha! Such a cute picture of Jax and his great-great grandpa Max. 

Sledding

Cousin Tyce and Rhett have been spending a lot of time together recently with Tyce preparing to leave on his mission soon. One of the weekends he came we happened to get one of the only snow storms we’ve got this winter. So Rhett, Laiklie and Tyce loaded up the big sled and went down to the Ucon pit to try it out. Laiklie sent me this funny little selfie from their sledding adventure. They came home soaking wet, muddy and happy! I’d call that a win!! 

Christmas Recital 2023

Dance has looked very different this year! This is the first year in more than I can count that I haven’t had a kid dance in the Christmas recital. Laiklie and her dance BFF Ellie decided they weren’t going to do team dances this year. They are just going to do individual events. It has actually been a nice break! But…Sad to not have anyone in the recital. Laiklie is still teaching dance so she had to be there and so of course I was the backstage help again. :) Maybe one of these years I’ll retire from that job. Lol! 

 

Cousin Mindy

My cousin Mindy has recently moved back to Idaho, and purchased the home that my grandma and grandpa Murdock were in when we were little. She’s been doing a full remodel. It has been fun to be able to be part of that journey with her. Especially these last couple weeks. I was released as the Relief Society president the week before Christmas. Knowing that change was coming and then after it came, it was nice to have some thing to pour my energy into. I love reconnecting with Mindy and seeing her bring my grandma and grandpa‘s house back to life and turning it into something that will work for her and her family.

This was one of the many paint days we spent together. We have also done some demolition, closet building, sorting and organizing, and endless cleaning with the construction mess. It’s been an adventure!