It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!

Each year we go and see Santa. This was the first year that Little Hema really was excited to see him and couldn't wait to request what he wants for Christmas. He wants Spike the dinosaur. Santa asked him what else he wanted and he said "Nothing Santa, I just want Spike the dinosaur!" Vela wasn't too excited to sit on Santa's lap. We tried to give her a candy cane to keep her happy and she just threw it on the ground. As you can see in the picture, she was fairly upset. It is so fun having Hema be excited about the holidays. He put every decoration on our Christmas tree and when we got done asked where the star was to put on top. I don't know where he learned that, we've never had a star, but we went to Target and got one so he could finish the job. Hema wanted to decorate another tree so we let him decorate one for Vela's room and his room. They are little pink and blue tinsel trees we got last year. I can't wait to see how excited Hema will be at the festival of the trees this week!

Happy Turkey Day!!

We had a great Thanksgiving and I feel like counting my blessings!

-My so wonderful hubby Hema! He is always there for me and keeps me happy!
-My sweet kids! I love being a mom so much!!
-Adoption! Thank goodness for the miracle of adoption and for amazing birth parents!! I love you Katie, Chelise and Sioeli!!
-The Gospel! What a blessing to have the fullness of the gospel and a living prophet providing guidance and peace in this crazy time.
-Our home! And the heat and lights and all that make life so comfortable.
-Family! We have lots of family on both sides and seriously love them all and enjoy being together with them.
-Good Friends! We get to see some often and some not so much, but we are grateful for all of those who have touched our lives!

It was great to have our Katoa family over to our house for dinner today! The food was great, there was a lot of Rock Band played and no one spilled on my new carpet!! A successful Thanksgiving indeed! Hope your day was filled with blessings too!

What an Incredible Day!!!!

We had such a great experience today. We were able to go to the Salt Lake Temple and attend a session with sweet Katie - Hema's birth mom. She received her endowments today. It was so wonderful to see her and her parents and family members there. Katie is such an amazing woman and we love her so very much! Katie, we are so proud of you and know that you will continue to receive great blessing in your life as you continue to grow in the gospel!! We love Little Hema so much and are so grateful for your decision to place him in our family!! We think of you daily and pray that you will receive every righteous blessing you desire!

Just another day... wait the UTES killed the Y... oh yah!

Well today started off like most other Saturdays... a long list of "honey-do's". Becky and Vela were out the door early to attend the Relief Society enrichment activity on emergency preparedness. For the last 2 days we have played guinea pig in a mock disaster situation. We were contacted Thursday afternoon and recruited for the experiment. The situation was that the electricity and gas were out, water service unavailable, and no access to stores. This was an eye opener to say the least. We have spent the last year pretty focused on this topic so we survived it okay. The good: we had plenty of food and fuel to cook with(mmm...dutch oven and a mean chicken soup on the propane stove), and kept warm with a kerosene heater we picked up on ksl.com for $20. The bad: cold water bath by bucket for adults and a wet-wipe wash down for the kids (Friday night we actually boiled some bath water since we had all the equipment out already). What we learned: if the water is out remember the toilets take water to flush, having a handy dandy siphoning pump is nice, we need to stock up on the kerosene, it's nice to have a good water supply, the years of dutchoven experiments have paid off, fill the propane tanks for the BBQ before winter, and everyone is ready for bedtime much earlier than usual in a dark house with no TV or computer (6:30 for the kids 8:30 for the adults). We sure were grateful to wake up this morning to a warm bath and breakfast cooked in the kitchen. Well, while the girls were out little Hema helped dad tackle the "honey-do's". We ran by the post office for mom, stopped at 2 stores, then finished the window trim in the kitchen and front room. Little Hema went for a bike ride while dad got up on the roof to change a bulb that an observant little Hema noticed was out last week after we got all the Christmas lights up. When the girls got home it was GAME TIME! We got decked out in our UTE gear and hit Iggy's Sports GRILL in Sandy. When I tell people we often watch the games at Iggy's they are concerned that we would take our kids into a bar environment. IT'S A RESTURANT... I think people get it confused with Lumpy's which is a sports BAR. Now, as a resturant they do serve alcohol but we don't endulge in such things (smile!). Any how... the UTES kicked BYU's trash! 'nuff said! We did see an amusing T-shirt, many BYU fans were wearing shirts saying "Fully Investested -- BYU", there was a tiny grandmother sipping on wine with a shirt saying "Fully Intoxicated -- UTAH". Well I hope to be the better person and just be humble tomorrow at church... but if I hear another person say "if it weren't for the 6 turnovers then it would have been a different game"... a... duh... I think I will puke! We had a blast and it is always nice to come away with a victory, sure makes the night a pleasant one.

Playing a Little Catch Up

We've been busy so I thought I'd do a quick catch up post.

The kids are both still loving swimming lessons. Little Hema can now dive, swim (front and back)and go down and get diving sticks off the bottom of the pool all by himself! Vela is getting to be a good little floater. She will lay on her back for 20 or 30 minutes with just one of my fingers behind her head. She can float on her own for about a minute too!

The weather has gotten colder so we are spending more time inside. At our house, that means lots of forts. Hema and Vela will play in the forts for hours. Hema's aunt Jodene Katoa passed away. She was a wonderful person who was always kind and loving to us and our children. Hema was asked to offer offer the graveside dedicatory prayer. Little Hema and Daddy got to go to Boondocks and have a lot of fun. Hema's favorite was miniature golf.Mom and Vela were at Laura's baby shower. We are so excited for her little girl to be born in about a month. The shower was great - lots of family and food! The food was yummy and so super cute (I know what you are thinking, and yes food can be cute and ours was). My camera was at Boondocks with Hema, so I don't have any pictures. But I'll get some from Brandi and post them. That was the last of the Hawkins siblings to have a baby so I think we are all out of showers... unless a certain someone finally has that very long awaited babe one day and then we will definitely be partying again!
Vela is getting so very big. She cut her 7th tooth today. She also is now taking 3-4 steps at a time. I think she'll be off and running soon. I will post as soon as I can get her walking on camera.

Now on to some yummy food...I've tried several great new recipes lately. Here are a few of the good ones. This Coconut Chicken Curry was scrumptious! I made it twice in a week and every member of the family loved it both times. The second time I left the tomato sauce out and added a few sliced carrots in place of one of the potatoes. I would have liked to add some cashews, but didn't have any on hand. We will definitely be eating this often at our house. I made this Sweet and Sour Chicken today and it was sooo much better than I expected. I had found this recipe months ago and finally got around to trying it. Little Hema ate 3 bowls full. It was super easy and good. The only bad part was not making enough for leftovers. I would highly recommend this recipe! I also made these Creamy Herbed Potatoes from the Pioneer Woman. They were very tasty, but seriously I felt like I was gaining a pound with each bite. They are a bit to rich for me and I probably won't make them again - just because I don't want to eat the entire pan! And lastly, this yummy German Stolen Bread I made today as well. This is seriously so good. I can't explain the texture of the bread, but so different than a cinnamon roll. A picture before...

...and after frosting.

It made 2 full pans, so we shared with some lucky neighbors.

13 Months Old!

I can hardly believe that our sweet little Vela is 13 months old! Here are a couple of pictures of her when she was about 12 hours old. What a sweet baby!
Look at that head of hair!!!

She is so sweet and beautiful and we love her sooooo much! She has brought nothing but joy to our home! Little Hema is the best big brother to her. She isn't really walking yet, but will take a few steps to Hema. They are so sweet together! Nothing makes me happier than seeing my kids play happily together and give hugs an kisses! I love being a mommy!!

Switching it up!!

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Halloween!!!!!!

Halloween was so much fun this year! We started the day with Dad and Hema decorating a candy house. We had to run to a Dr. appointment so Grandma H came to watch the kids and took over with Hema on the decorating.

We think it turned out pretty cool!

The kids looked so cute in their costumes.

We were going to have Vela be a U of U cheerleader, but I thought this peacock outfit was too cute to pass up. Vela must not have realized how cute she looked because she was pretty sad in it at first.

I made the feet for her costume!

She did end up having a great time trick or treating, seeing all the kids and neighbors and riding in the wagon through our neighborhood.

It started to sprinkle, so Vela went inside to hand out candy with Dad. We let her have a sucker and she was loving it!

Little Hema wanted to keep going even though it was raining. We put the cover on the wagon and I took him for about another hour.

By the time we got home, he had enough candy to last a year!

Holidays are so much more fun with kids! We hope your Halloween was great too!!!