The best thing that ever happened to me!

One of my favorite pictures...because I know my wife doesn't always want to go fishing...but she goes because I love to go. Thanks.

The other day we ran into some old neighbors at a park. They told us that they knew some of our family members. As we caught up with each other they stated that these family members have claimed that Becky "is the the best thing that has ever happened to him". My wife humbly denied the fact...but...it's TRUE! My wife is the best thing that has ever happened to me!! It scares me at times to think where I might be or who I might be without her angelic influence.

I was hoping to post a birthday message without her knowing but that's hard to do when we love spending all our time together. Honey...I love you so much and hope that you had a wonderful birthday...even if it was probably more like the kids day than yours...but Happy Birthday from your loving husband. Forever! ~ Hema

Manti Pageant and Lehi Roundup Rodeo!!

We have been busy having fun. Summer has officially arrived and the weather has been wonderful. Also, Hema's last day of work this summer is tomorrow, which means lots of fun family activities are coming up! I love this picture that I took on Sunday with my dad and the kids. My dad is such a great grandpa! The kids can't get enough of him or the farm!! On Wednesday we headed down to Manti for the Mormon Miracle Pageant. The Manti temple is so pretty. We thought it would be nice to go when it wasn't a weekend and super crazy, we were right! It was so much fun! We set up out tent in the Manti City Park for $5. It was within walking distance of everything and really quite clean. They have tons of big trees that kept the tent nice and cool. And right outside the tent door was this playground. The kids had a blast. The bathrooms were nice and clean too! We will definitely camp there again.
We headed over to the church in Manti for the famous turkey dinner. It really was yummy!

We got to the pageant early and the kids played with these foam swords and acted out the Nephite Lamanite wars!

By the time the pageant started at 9:30, we had the kids in their jammies and Vela fell asleep in the first few minutes.

Hema stayed up for most of it and loved it! He thought the wars and the fires were the best parts. They have really changed it up since the last time we went, which was maybe 10 years ago or so.

This is the monument by the temple honoring the founding pioneer families. There are about 10 names with *'s by them which are the true founders. One is my relative Abraham Daniel Washburn. He is the 1st or 2nd generation of being a member of the church on my Washburn side.

We headed home this afternoon and tonight we went to the Lehi Roundup Rodeo. The kids were excited and really had fun.

We went with my parents, Jason, Brandi, Hunter Halle, Jacob, Abby, JJ, Isaac and Leah. We sit right in the front near the bucking shoots and it is incredible to see the animals right there.

These pictures aren't great because the rodeo was too exciting to keep posing for photos!

Here's a shot of a bull.

Jake and his family - Tyra was home with Abe.

Vela cheered and danced the whole time!

It was fun to get together with some of the family and a great night at the rodeo!

Pass Along Cards Anyone??

Of course anyone that reads my blog knows that we have been blessed with two sweet little ones, both through adoption. And yes, we are anxious to grow our family again through adoption. In the past, we have been content to just sit back and wait for our birth parents to find us. We never even were online before. This time is different. We feel strongly that we need to be much more active in seeking out that next baby. We are doing it differently this time. We are online through LDS Family Services at itsaboutlove.org. We have set up an adoption blog, although it is under construction and there is so much more we are hoping to post there. I have spent many hours online finding ideas and talking to other adoptive moms and birth moms. I am really excited about what I did last night. I finalized the order of our cute Pass Along Cards!!!

You may be wondering what is a pass along card??

A pass along card is just a small card that has our information on it that we can pass along to our friends and family members and they can pass along to anyone that might be aware of an adoptive situation. It is a simple way to have our information available to share with someone if it comes up in conversation. Jill from Spaces for Faces was so great to work with and even added a cool pattern that she had seen on Tongan Tapa cloth. This is it!!

(The top part will be on the back and the bottom part on the front.)

So if you would like a few of our pass along cards, just let me know!

And look at this adorable Shabby Apple dress that I won for Vela off The R House blog!! Wahooooo!

Seriously, she looks so cute in bright colors and this dress is darling! I can't wait to get it!! Thanks Mrs R!!! And if you haven't already been on the R House blog, you should check it out! It has sooo much great info on adoption!

And now we are off to the Manti Pageant!!!! We'll be camping there, so check back for that post tomorrow!

The Best Fathers!

I am so grateful or the wonderful fathers in my life!!!

Hema is seriously the greatest dad ever!!! He loves his kids so much!! He waited along time to be a dad and he really does take advantage of every chance to spend time with the kids and tell them how much he loves them. He is patient, kind, and so much fun as a father. My kids are definitely daddy's kids! I love to see his face when he walks in from work and they run up to him screaming "daddy daddy!" Nothing makes him happier!

He is also such an example of living the gospel for the kids. He reads the scriptures, prays with them and sets such a great example of serving in the church with a great attitude. He is always taking Little Hema home teaching or over with him to do some visits to people in the ward.

I know that my children are who they are today because of their incredible father!!! Happy Fathers Day babe!!! You are the best and we love you!!!

We also both have such great Fathers!

I love this picture with my dad, me, Jason and Jen. My dad has always been such an example to me. He has always made me want to be better. He loves the gospel and has been an example of living the gospel to me in every way. He is a hard worker and a loving husband, father and grandfather. Honestly, he really put up with a lot from me over the years. I was a fairly sassy teenager!! I sure do love you Dad Hawkins!

Here are both of our fathers with us on our wedding day. (I have some other photos of Dad Katoa that I wanted to use, but I can't get them to upload.) Dad Katoa has always treated me as his daughter. He is the most humble and kind man ever, that is just where my hubby gets it from. He is the ultimate example of putting family first and loving his wife unconditionally. I love him so very much and am glad he is my father too!

Hope all you dad's out there have a great day!!!

Expectations and Hema's First Talk!

From the time I was about 12 years old I started thinking and planning out what it would be like to be a mommy, before that I mostly just played with dolls and tended to my younger siblings. I planned out my kids first primary talks somewhere around that age. There was never any question what the talk would be, in our family you gave the Great Daniel talk first. So when Little Hema started Sunbeams in January, we started practicing the talk. He knows it inside out. Here he is practicing today.....

He knows this talk so well and when he was assigned to give a talk for today, we started preparing him for what it would be like to say it in front of the primary. He has practiced the talk at least 100 times this week flawlessly. I wanted him to be prepared, after all many people get flustered when they get in front of a crowd. Well here he is giving the talk in primary today. (By the way, Hema was taping it on our camera - we are serious about documenting every first. I'm not sure if that is against the church rules - but I hope not. Also, try not to notice how nervous I too look in the video!)

Pretty sweet huh?!?! Poor Little Hema, he got so nervous up there. He told me that the kids didn't make him nervous, it was all the mommies that he didn't want to talk in front of. In his defense there were a lot more adults there than usual. It was our ward conference so the stake primary presidency, a member of the stake presidency, my parents, and a few others were there along with the teachers. It was pretty heartbreaking to see him get so sad and scared. He asked me after if he could say it for his primary class. So he did and he did a great job in that setting that was more familiar.

I left church laughing about the whole thing. My parents had come to our ward today to see him talk. All this preparation and planning and when it came right down to it, he is still just a shy, sweet little 3 year old. After church I gave him a big hug and told him how proud I was for giving a talk. He asked if I was proud even though he got nervous. I told him of course and that all he ever has to do is try. I'm sure this is just the first of many such experiences we will have. Hopefully as we continue through this journey, he will be prepared for the things that really matter as they come, and the rest we will just be able to laugh when our expectations and reality are so different!

And here is a shot of Vela as we were leaving to church today!! She is so cute she kills me!

Oh yeah, and of course I remember that it is Father Day today and will post about that as soon as we get home from dinner at my parents house. Ribs and sauerkraut.....yummy!!

Summer Fun

The summer has just begun and we are having a blast!

Here's my sweet girl enjoying a lollipop at the Brick Oven.

Going...Going...Gone!

Summer fishing is off to a great start.

And we are hoping for alot more of this. --Hema

Family Camp '09

By Hema:

Family camp was a wet one this year. The weather was unstable and we got our share of rain. But that didn't stop us...DIEHARD!!! We were determined to have fun...and we did. Our numbers were down this year, most likely because of the weather. We had some family members who didn't want to tough it out and joined us for the daytime activities...we forgive them. We were concerned for our parents and even offered our home, only a couple miles away, for them to sleep at. They wouldn't hear of it and said "we came to camp, so we stay here". I guess that's where we get it from.

There is never a shortage of food at our family camp. This year we planned a little better and not a whole lot of food was wasted.

This is the infamous Hawkeye Hash pan that has been passed down from generation to generation...well not really. But Becky's family used it for camping when she was a little girl and it is being stored in my garage for the time being. But the recipe for Hawkeye Hash (courtesy of Dad H) is simple...anything you got left...just throw it in...cook...eat.

The kids really enjoyed playing together and there were many moments where I observed all the parents just watching the children play with smiles on their faces.

Grandma & Grandpa even joined the kids to play some Star Wars Legos. Yes...we take video games to family camp. We also had some movies to watch but no one was in the mood to watch any.

The adults had fun too. The women went on a 2-day "Sequence" marathon and the men broke away for some fishing. We don't have any fishing pictures because...NOTHING! We were skunked...urrrrg!

We love spending time with our family and hope that our children will cherish these times and memories.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other!!

So we camped with the Katoa family this weekend and even a lot of rain couldn't stop us from having a great time! But I will write about camp later, this post is about this.....

Can you tell what I am talking about?

Do you notice anything different between the 2 hands?

Saturday morning when I was helping Little Hema wash his hands before eating breakfast, I noticed his hand was swollen, just a little. I thought it was a mosquito bite that he had scratched.

Then it started to grow a little more swollen. I called the doctor, they said give him some Benadryl and he should be fine. (This was Saturday - you can see that his left hand is a little swollen.)

He came into my room early this morning and woke me up and was crying and saying, "my hand is open." What does that mean?? It took me a minute to wake up and figure out that his hand was so swollen he couldn't close it. I called the Dr. again and they said they thought he probably had been bitten by a spider and we should go to the emergency room to make sure it wasn't infected or something serious. "These things can get bad really fast" were his exact words. Not too comforting. Hema was pretty freaked out to be in the ER.

Based on further examination they believe it was most likely a spider bite from something poisonous or that he had a reaction to, they gave us an antibiotic and instructions to use Benadryl for the next week to be sure that we had it covered whether it was poison, infection or allergic reaction. Once Little Hema found out that he would not be getting any shots, her calmed right down and asked the doctor to please hurry so that we wouldn't miss church! By the time church was over it had already started to look much better! And apparently, it hasn't effected his love for things spider related, because he is playing in his Spiderman costume now!!

And now here is a shot of Vela's toenails. I have never painted them before, she really doesn't like to hold still very long, which I know is typical for a 20 month old. But when I was painting mine she came over and lifted up her foot and said "toes - pretty pretty" so I painted them nice and bright and glittery. She loves them and can't stop looking at them or showing them to people. So cute!

What a Weekend Party!!!

We had a great weekend and I am going to do my best to keep this brief!

It started out on Friday when Hema's youngest brother Sione graduated from Kearns High School. Here he is with Hema's parents. He could barley stand with all those leis! (These pictures are kind of blurry because they were taken on our camcorder.) There were so many people there to cheer him on. Here he is with Veni and Valu.

Here is None with some of the boys. I don't know why they can't ever smile in a picture, it must be a guy thing. And here he is with some of the girls, who are all smiling of course! This is how our kids felt by the time we were done! What a great day! We are proud of you Sione and are excited to see the great things you will accomplish now!

On Saturday, we had a ward party that Hema was in charge of. It was the free fishing day so he organized a fishing trip. I got up and helped him make 3 breakfast casseroles at 5:00 and then stayed home and let the kids sleep in. They were so tired from the day before that they slept until nearly 9:00 - that is unheard of around here!
Then we headed up to Maria Tiatia's place for Shahara's graduation party. Shahara graduated from Cypress and she has a 4 year scholarship to the U of U. It was fun to see her and catch up with old friends that I really don't get to see often enough. Somehow I got there with my camcorder being totally dead and both digital cameras at home, just the cases in the diaper bag! Aughhh! I never leave home without a camera. I did take a couple of pictures with Vao, Maria and Shahara. Hopefully Maria will email them over to me. Oh well! Congrats to you Shahara!!

We left that party and headed over to the park for Sione's graduation party. (I stopped and picked up a disposable camera on the way, but haven't gotten the pictures back yet.) It was so much fun to get together with all of the Katoa family. We had a great time. The food was amazing and I am always amazed at how many people come out to support each other in the Tongan culture. It is a blessing to be part of!!

On Sunday after church we headed down to my parents farm and had a fun Hawkins get together. My cousin Nick Rozier came up to go to the MTC. He is going to Argentina. It was fun to see his family and lots of other aunts and uncles, my grandfather, many cousins and their children. (Nick is in the white shirt towards the back of this picture.)

We all visited and ate.

Suzanne read us a letter that my grandmother had written in 1964. It was fun to hear what she had said about each of her children at the time.

The kids always have such a great time running around the farm. It was really fun.

Family is truly our greatest blessing and this weekend we were reminded that we have 2 incredible families that we love and are so supportive of us!!

And now for the sad news, today my sister Marilee and her family moved to Arizona. It will be a great move for them, but I miss her so much already. I cried off and on all day long.We will definitely be taking a trip there soon! We love you guys and hope you get all settled in soon!