Sealing Dresses

Here are a few pictures of the girl's dresses. I wish I knew how to crochet! Hema's mom can't even read a pattern to crochet - she taught herself and just looks at something and then goes home and figures out how to make it. She is amazing! 

Cora looks so beautiful in white - with her dark thick eyelashes and rosy lips! 

The bottom of Cora's dress came down in little points every few inches. So pretty! 

Sweet Vela modeling her dress tonight just before bed - so don't look too closely at her fuzzy hair! 

 I love the sleeves - they are such a pretty length. 

 I think how she finished Vela's with sort of a straight flair ruffle at the bottom is sooo pretty! 

Vela loves her "princess dress." 

And just for fun here is the dress she made for Vela when she was sealed. Very different than Cora's - both are so pretty though. 

 More square through the neckline than Vela's was and a very different more loose crochet on the bottom. (There are certainly technical names, but I have no idea what they might be!) 

 It's hard to believe that Vela was this small just 2 1/2 years ago! 

I am so grateful for Hema's sweet mother and her willingness to make these gorgeous dresses. I hope someday my granddaughters will wear them too! 

Cora's Sealing

Cora's sealing was so wonderful. There is something so precious about a pure and perfect child, dressed all in white being brought into the sealing room. It was also so special to have Little Hema and Vela be able to be there.They have talked and talked about the temple and what they remember and how they felt there. I hope they can remember that for a very long time. 

The weather was incredibly cold and snowy and so we just took a few pictures in the entry of the temple. Here is our little forever family. These three little ones look like perfect angels to me. They just melt my heart! Hema's mom crocheted these beautiful dresses for the girls. She is amazing and doesn't ever use a pattern. I'll post a few more pictures of the dresses later. 

 Here is a picture of some of the extended family that was there. We didn't catch everyone before they left. We are so grateful for the family and friends who came out to share this amazing experience with us. 

I am so very grateful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The knowledge of how our family can be together forever is my greatest joy and comfort! I love my sweet family so very much and am eternally grateful to our amazing birth families for making it all possible! 

More Christmas Visits

I figured I better finish posting my December photos before it is February! 

Here are some shots from Christmas Day. We went by Krychele's house. 

 Kim, Krychele and Cora

Cora got to meet Blake, Krychele's brother who lives in Germany. 

And Blake's beautiful wife, Candace. 

They spoiled us all with lots of great gifts. Little Hema has had so much fun with his remote control car. 

Cora got LOTS of adorable clothing! 

And could Vela look any happier in her princess dress? 

Thanks for the thoughtful gifts guys! You are amazing! 

We also got to visit Uziel's family. I only got a couple pictures of Cora with Uziel. His mom made the tastiest hot chocolate for me. Reminded me of the cocoa we had in Mexico a couple years ago. Yummm! 

Christmas Morning!

Traditional picture on the stairs Christmas morning:

Cora, Hema, Vela, Dellin and Sterling Henry.

Doesn't Hema's face just say it all?

Some shots of the present opening...

Books!

 Hello!!

 Glow Bug

 Power Rangers

 Working in the kitchen

Aiming for a bear (like the one Uncle Jason shot!)

Busy Ball Bopper

 My sweet presents! Love my family so much! 

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we always gather with my family. We eat fabulous food, act out the nativity while my dad reads the story from the Bible, sing songs, play games, do the family gift exchange and open presents from Grandma and Grandpa. Also, each grandchild got to perform a musical number or talent if they chose to. Little Hema played a duet of "Frosty the Snowman" with me on the piano. It was so cute to see how excited he was! This year we were missing two families - Jen and Jim and Jake and Tyra. It really wasn't the same with out them there! I think all of my siblings should either move back to Utah or write into their work contracts a requirement to be in Utah for Christmas. Just a suggestion of mine! :)

Here is a picture of the nativity. A lot of the older cousins weren't there and this younger group was a bit unruly.

Hema was a wise man (David was his camel), Vela an Angel, and Cora was baby Jesus.

Grandma usually does slippers for the grand kids but this year she did pjs. The kids loved them. Somehow I ma missing a few of the grand kids in every picture I took.

Cora got some pjs too - I'm not sure why she isn't wearing them in the picture.

Jess and Sterling and our family stayed over at my parents. We got the kiddies down to sleep and set in helping Santa get things ready for the next morning. 

Hema's presents:

Vela's goods:

And for Cora:

It was a wonderful night and we love all the traditions we do as a family over Christmas! I love that my kids have so many cousins to play with. They love all their Hawkins and Katoa cousins and were so happy to have so many visiting from out of town! 

Little Miss Independent

Lately our sweet little 3 year old princess has become little miss independent. I hear the words, "Mommy no help, I can do it myself," about a thousand times a day. She loves to dress herself and change her clothes many times throughout the day. I've got to be honest - I am not loving some of her fashion decisions. A few weeks ago we seriously went to church with Princess dress up shoes. She switched them right before she headed out to the car and I didn't notice until we were at church. Nice huh? Probably no mother of the year award for me - have you ever noticed how noisy those dress up shoes are? Not really ideal for sacrament meeting. I try not to get worked up over clothes and I let her wear anything she wants to bed. Her bumblebee dress up, Hema's old PJ's, a church dress...I let her creativity blossom at night! Here are a couple recent pictures from the past week.

Her pj shirt and Hema's bottoms:

Look at the smile on her face! She got the bottoms on inside out and backwards and the top is buttoned crooked, it is backwards and inside out too! I offered to help her switch them and she simply said, "No Mommy. Dis how I like it!" Okay sweet girl - still adorable to me! 

One thing about Vela though, she is a total snuggle bug. She will stop pretty much anything she is doing to get a hug or quick "nuggle." Every time she gets really excited or happy she throws her arms around my neck and says, "Thank you Mommy and Happy Birthday." It is so cute and funny. I guess Happy Birthday is her way of wishing you good things. These kids are growing up way to fast! I've thought this at every stage so far, but man I wish I could just freeze time right now. 

More of Cora's Tricks!

Disclaimer: If cute little baby videos bore you, just skip this post. This is mostly for my far, far away family and Cora's sweet birth family. 

I can't believe how quickly Cora has become so mobile. Hema didn't crawl until nearly 10 months (but then he did walk about 2 weeks later) and Vela didn't crawl until 10 months and she didn't really walk until nearly 14 months. It is amazing how different every baby is! Well Cora has been crawling since she was barely 6 months old! She is just everywhere now! I think it is all the muscle she's built up in those thighs kickin' in the tub!

The video is foggy because I left my camera in the car last night and it was still really cold. But by the time the camera warmed up, she had figured out how to pull the washcloth off! 

A little bit of Cora crawling:

She couldn't figure out what was in front of her on the carpet - it was the sun coming in through the window. It really has been a while since we've seen the sun and I was starting to forget too! Hooray for 2 days of sun in a row!

And finally, Cora going up the stairs. I love having these 2 little stairs between the kitchen and family room. They are perfect for babies to practice climbing and learn going down without falling to their death. 

Well that's all the tricks for today! 

A little about Cora!

Man, I have soooo much to catch up on. We had the best holiday break...the adoption finalized, Cora was sealed to us, the party, Cora's blessing, Christmas, New Years, lots of family in town, Cora is doing a million new and fancy tricks....there is so much I could go on and on! I think I will do a series of short posts on random topics and hopefully be all caught up by the end of the week. 

This little post will be on this sweet one! 

We just can't get enough of her. She is doing doing new things every day now.

A couple weeks ago, Cora figured out how to pull herself up in her crib. (She is now pulling herself up on everything!) She would stand up, but hadn't learned how to get back down to sitting. So as soon as she would get tired, she would start to cry. It was so sad. Sometimes I would go in and lay her back down 10 or more times in a row before she quit standing up and fell asleep. Luckily, she has finally figured out the getting down part.

Cora is eating everything she can get her hands on now. She of course loves her formula, baby food (squash, green beans, peas and bananas are her current favorites), any little bits of bread, puffs and she goes crazy for this little fruit chomper. I bought this for Hema he never really liked it and neither did Vela, but Cora could chew on this thing all day long. You just cut up chunks of fresh fruit and she chews and sucks on it until she gets it all out. Her current favorites in this are pear and cantaloupe. 

She is also crawling everywhere, she can easily go up the 2 stairs from the family room to the kitchen and of course she puts every little thing she finds in her mouth. So with the 2 little crumb droppers around here, I sweep about 4,987 times a day to keep Cora from choking on some random little left overs.  Tomorrow I will video her crawling and doing the stairs and download those.

The other night when Little Hema was saying our family prayers he said, "bless this little one with the chubby little cheeks that she can keep growing and being so cute and happy." So funny how he prays for his little sister. We sure do love these little munchies!