Christmas Card 2017

I couldn't pull off real Christmas card this year, but here's a good substitute...

Greetings from the trenches!  The Hawkins have had quite the year.  The biggest news is the arrival of little Thomas Lloyd Hawkins on November 22nd.  He's been a celebrity from the beginning and is the best baby any family could ask for.  He's growing a ton already and will soon be able to defend himself against his brothers.

Drew (2) has been having a hard adjustment not being the baby anymore.  Other than that, he's been growing a lot and saying more and more words.  He loves to follow Dallin around everywhere and will not be left behind.  His greatest loves are candy and grandpas.

Dallin (4) just keeps going and going and going!  He loves his preschool and all his friends.  His favorite recess activity is chasing the girls.  He's obsessed with cars, machinery, and trucks (especially if they have a siren).  He has the tenderest heart and smothers baby Tommy with kisses every day.

Anna (7) is living the dream of a 1st grader.  She loves going to school all day and loves all her friends there.  She's greatly improved her reading and language skills this year.  She has quite the following of stuffed animals and keeps them all on her bed.

Bevan's highlight for the year was running the Boston Marathon!  He ran it with his sister, Trisha, and had a great experience.  He's already talking about running it again!  He's still working at Deer Valley and loves that it keeps him in shape.

Donna is holding it together, adjusting to 4 kids.  She felt really good being pregnant with Tommy, and was blessed with ample energy throughout the year.  She kept working in Park City right up to delivery, even if it did get her some looks from clients.  Since then, she's switched to 24-hour mom, and loves every minute. 

We hope the Christmas Season finds you well!  We love the Savior, Jesus Christ, and the hope the gospel gives us.  We know the new year will be a busy one with our growing family.  If you don't see us much next year, don't worry, we'll see you in 2019!

Eve

Christmas Eve was so amazing and ended in quite dramatic fashion.  We only had sacrament meeting that morning, which was just right for our wiggly kids.  Later on, we headed to American Fork for dinner and the annual nativity production.  Once again, we provided the baby Jesus!  Tommy was spectacular!  He just laid there in all his swaddling cuteness!  It was fun to catch up with the family.  Those teenagers grow up so fast.  

It was snowing lightly as we were leaving (kind of a trend lately), but it got cold super fast.  By the time we got to the mouth of Provo Canyon, they closed it!  The trooper claimed there were a dozen slideoffs they needed to clear, which might take another 2 hours!  Back to American Fork we went.  Anna was getting nervous about missing Santa, but there was still plenty of time.  We killed time by watching cheesy Hallmark movies with Grandma Beverly.  We left once the UDOT cameras showed traffic in the canyon again.  The drive was still sketchy and we wondered where all the snow plows were... but we made it home at 11:45pm.  I've never seen Anna get ready for bed that fast!  It's all so magical when you're young.  I find more joy in seeing Christmas through their eyes now!

Almost Christmas...

Our ward has the most fabulous playgroup!  Well, actually it's for anybody with smaller kids that like to get together and play.  This is good because the wards all split and we're not in that one anyway.  My good friend Margaret is now in charge and she plans the most fabulous activities!  She's also good at delegating, so it spreads out the work.  We played "Pass the Parcel", make pipe-cleaner wreaths, and decorated sugar cone Christmas trees!  I managed to get pictures of both Dallin's and Drew's before they got dropped.

That night, Anna, Beverly, and I went to see the Nutcracker.  It was performed by our local dance school and they did an great job!  There is some amazing talent in this valley!  Apparently they did an abbreviated version.  I'm not a regular patron of ballet so I couldn't tell the difference.  The length was perfect for my attention span.  I asked Anna afterwards if she wanted to get into ballet dancing and she politely replied, "No thanks".  Phew!

With only 2 days left until Christmas, we thought it would be fun to drive around and look at house Christmas lights!  Unfortunately, our citizens must spend more time practicing ballet then decorating their houses.  We found ONE good house!  It was way over on the east end of Heber.  Oh, how I wish there was a street comparable to Winder Lane, back in West Valley!  Oh well.  The night wasn't a total wash.  We ended with ice cream cones at Dairy Keen.  According to the kids, it was all worth it!

Party, party, party!

The weeks leading up to Christmas were pretty uneventful.  Having a newborn forced us to keep it simple.  I only left the house if I was desperate enough, like if we were out of food or (even worse) diapers!  Yikes!  We did have a fun Saturday on the 16th.  It was Grandpa Lloyd's birthday party as well as the Ackerson family Christmas party!  I pepped myself up, did my hair and makeup for the first time in weeks, packed extra diapers and outfits, re-arranged ALL the car seats, and set off.

Lloyd's birthday dinner was at Golden Corral in Orem.  It was so fun!  The kids were in heaven, being able to eat whatever they wanted, mostly just pizza and ice cream!  Little Tommy loved being held by Auntie Tina.  Thank you Grandpa Lloyd, for having such an awesome birthday!

It started snowing on our way up to Centerville, but luckily the traffic wasn't that bad.  We arrived just in time for dessert and cousin presents.  Sharon was Skyping from Maryland and that was a lot of fun!  Dallin got his first nerf gun and the 3 bullets it came with were gone within minutes.  No matter, he's happy without bullets and so am I!  We lingered way too late and I ate way too much junk.  The snow was really coming down by the time we left, but luckily, it got lighter and lighter the further into the mountains we got.  Go figure!

All I want for Christmas...

...was a tree!  With the arrival of little Thomas Lloyd, and the crazy amount of time he takes up, I knew some things would get cut from Christmas festivities.  We bagged outside lights for the house, making fresh wreaths, visiting temple square, Christmas cards, the town party, and even neighbor treats!  The only thing I wouldn't budge on was cutting down our Christmas tree.  We worked so hard to get that permit, which involves standing in line at Soldier Hollow at 4am to get the wristband, which is later exchanged for the permit itself. 

Once again we left the kids in the care of Grandma and Grandpa Ackerson.  They live very close to the forest boundaries there in Francis!  Some day, we'll take them along and make it a whole-family-tradition, like the Grizwalds....  But for this year, we had to be fast!  We drove to the same spot as last year: the very first pull-off once you pass the forest boundary sign.  Good enough!  It was a pleasant walk and it was fun to see snow again.  We had to walk a little further up the hollow to get a good tree.  It couldn't be too big since Bevan was on his own dragging it out.  We finally found one and Bevan cut it down in no time!  It was late by the time we got back to Midway, but the kids and I decorated it the next day.  I also learned a valuable lesson on trimming a very fresh tree:  do it first thing!  Don't let the tree sit inside for a day because the sap will start moving and leak out with every trimmed branch!  Ugh!

Anyway, the kids are enchanted with it!  We've only broken 4 bulbs too.  If this is all we do for Christmas, them I'm perfectly satisfied!