It's good to be home!

I went to Utah last week (by myself) to go to Jason's farewell. This is the first time I have ever gone anywhere for a few days without my kids. I had so much fun spending time with my family and friends! I stayed up later than I have in years (for me that is not saying much I have always gone to bed early). But despite all the fun, I sure missed my family! Mark and Madison came to the airport to pick me up and as soon as Madison saw me she ran to welcome me with the biggest hug. She sat and stared at my face for awhile remembering what I look like. It's so much fun to go on vacation but it's just as much fun coming home!

Cousins

Gavin and Madison had so much fun with their cousins over the holidays. I'm so glad they got to spend time with them. I have such fond memories of playing with my cousins when I was growing up.

Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma Hawk's


Gavin, Madison, Abbie and Elijah playing with all of the toys.


Gavin, Madison, and Hobbs at Grandpa and Grandma Binks' house.


Gavin ate a few too many cookies over the holidays. He gains weight just like his mom, it goes straight to his behind.


Jason thought it would be funny if he stuffed pillows down their pants. Not only did it entertain the kids for awhile but we were quite entertained as well. My stomache still hurts from all the laughing!


Madison and Hobbs had so much fun hiding from everyone. There were several times when they were MIA. This was one of their many hiding spots.

Christmas Highlights

Our holiday kicked off with Gavin's school program. All of the kids did such a good job singing the Christmas songs. The songs were complete with actions. It was so funny to see their arms all over the place. Gavin actually got hit on the head several times from the kid sitting next to him and you could hardly see him because he was dodging arms. It was really funny! Gavin's teacher came up to me afterwards and said "Gavin is so patient! I saw that he got hit in the head several times and asked if he was okay, and he just nodded his head". Madison also had a school party and Santa brought her a present. The Santa was quite scary and Madison didn't dare sit on his lap. She told me on the way hom that he wasn't her Santa. We made sugar cookies about three or four times. Daisy's sugar cookie recipe is the best and I couldn't get enough of them! We also made a gingerbread house and the kids ate lots of candy in the process. On Christmas Eve we played the M&M game and Santa's beard game. The kids had so much fun and I think Gavin had the biggest beard. We got a phone call from Katie on Christmas Eve. She was stuck in Chicago and couldn't get a flight to Ohio until 7:00 p.m. on Christmas day (United Airlines didn't want to pay their employees overtime so they cancelled her flight). She ended up flying to St. Louis and we picked her up at 7:00 a.m. on Christmas and she spent a few days with us and we drove to Ohio on the 28th. It was fun to have her here to spend Christmas with us. We were very busy over the holidays but we sure had fun spending time with our family and friends.

Finally some snow like we're used too.

Jolly Old St. Nicholas lean your ear this way...

Santa Clause came to our ward Christmas Party. Gavin and Madison were very excited! As you can see Madison was keeping a very close eye on Santa making sure he didn't make any sudden moves. Gavin on the other hand kept giving Santa hugs. He probably gave Santa four hugs in the 3 minutes he was on his lap. He must have been buttering him up hoping he would bring him all the toys on his list.

School is Cancelled

We got a phone call at 4:51 a.m. and a recording that said school was cancelled today. You would think that we would have seen this outside....


But instead only this...

I couldn't believe it. There was a chance of freezing rain today so school was cancelled. But so far there has been no freezing rain and I have one upset child at home. It wouldn't be such a big deal but Gavin loves school. He was so disappointed when I told him. He said (yelled is more like it)"Now I won't have school for three days and if I don't go tomorrow it will be four!" In Utah I don't ever recall school being cancelled because of weather. We would still be going to school if it snowed as much as it did in the first picture. Now I can use the famous line that our parents did "I used to have to walk to and from school in a foot of snow" and I'm sure my kids will be amazed just like we were.

Our first snow fall in Illinois

I woke up this morning to my kids yelling that there was snow outside. I expected at least a couple of inches but soon realized that it was barely a dusting. They were so excited and the majority of the morning I heard "Oh cool, look at the snow on the roof" or "Wow there is snow on daddy's truck". I heard Gavin tell Madison that they should go outside and touch it. I am still in bed at this point. I heard them outside and they were having so much fun. I grabbed the camera and went to see what they were doing. They were just enjoying the dusting of snow! I didn't dare burst their bubble and tell them how much snow we used to get in Utah. How quickly they forget. I was worried that this year my kids wouldn't even see snow so I am happy they at least got to touch it. Madison told me the other day that it wasn't Christmas time because there wasn't any snow. We can now enjoy our holiday thanks to all this snow.

Gavin realized that he probably should have grabbed a coat in all the excitement.
This is Madison doing one of the poses she does best!
This is a couple of years ago in our backyard in Utah. There is quite a difference but we will keep that a secret for now.