Ammon

Ammon is such a little stinker. You can see it in his eyes and his dimples. He is hilarious he always has every one laughing. He also thinks he is in charge of Emma which does not go over well with her. He is constantly telling on her or trying to tell her how to do things which causes most of there fights. He is a funny guy, he is really into his big brothers 3DS's he steals them all the time and gets mad when they take them back and wont let him play him play with them. He tries his hardest to be a big helper. He keeps Sam from falling down the stairs and tries to keep Emma in line. Ammon is a good kid and keeps me laughing. Notice in the pictures he likes to do his own hair now. A funny thing he says is : if someone asks for a taste or a bite of his food he says " you didn't brush your teeth, I don't want your germs"

Emma Loops

Emma is such a funny girl. She thinks she is in charge of everyone! Maybe because she was so spoiled before Sam came along. Her and Ammon fight all day long. Those two just can not get along and they think they are in charge of each other. Emma has a horrible screach that she does. She pretty much screaches all day long at him. It is like nails on a chalk board. However when she wants to she can be the sweetest little thing. Emma loves to read. She loves you to read stories while she is holding her own book. She will copy what you say, like she is reading her own story. I think she is memorizing the books just like Hannah used to do and then she would recite them back to us. Emma has to have a kiss and a hug before she goes to bed every night. Then she always says kiss hug daddy and I say daddy's at work and she always says ya ya daddy's at work. What is funny is that she does this also at nap time. She can not go to sleep without a kiss hug and saying ya ya daddy't at work. She loves her daddy more than anything!!! Emma has Chase wrapped around her little finger.

Sam

Sam melts my heart, probably because he is my baby and my last. I can not get enough of him. I am eating up every minute of him that I can. He is such a happy guy. He just goes with the flow. He is almost 11 months old. He started walking this month and he is soooooooooooooo proud of himself. He thinks he is one of the big guys. Even though I still think he is tiny. Chase always says he is not tiny he is a big guy and I say he is the tiniest thing I've got. He still sleeps in my closet. I really need to put him in his room. It is a shame that he has a nice room and a comfy crib and he sleeps so much better tucked away in my dark closet. He also got four crazy teeth this month. He got his top two first which is weird and then he got his two bottom that are so crooked the are shaped like a V. I love little Sam and I am soaking up every ounce of baby out of him that I can. It is going to be so hard for me when I don't have a baby around anymore. Sam weened himself at 10 months he loves food any that he can get his hands on. His favorite is oatmeal for breakfast. His hair is getting long and looks like a mullet but it is hard for me to cut off, maybe for his first birthday.

Dusting

I got these little dusters one day at the dollar spot at Target and Ammon and Emma loved them. They went to town on the stairs and now they always want to dust.

Park

We had a nice sunny day, which is few and far between here. We went to the park it was so nice to get outside and let the kids run around. It reminded me of being home in AZ when we would go to the park every afternoon. Sam swung in the swings for the first time ever! He loved it! Emma loves to slide and swing. After she would slide down she would scream" that's fun mama!" the boys played basketball, soccer, rode scooters played kickball in the mud and played at the park. It was a great day, I wish we lived somewhere where my kids could go outside. My three little ones don't know any different there outside time is walking from the front door to the car to go drive siblings around. It is sad. I love the outdoors. I crave taking walks, going to the park having kids ride their bikes up and down the street and just being outside. It's hard when it is so wet and cold and you live on the side of a mountain. Maybe someday our situation will be different. For now we soak up the sun whenever possible.

Ben's Eighth Birthday and Baptism Day

Ben turned eight on Feb. 17th and was baptized on Feb. 18th 2012. We had both grandparents and four cousins come into town (Brooklyn, Emmet, Brig and Brady). All 19 of us stayed at our home, you might argue 20 because we had Jake in the corner of the family room on skype all weekend. Jake even joined us for family prayer and scripture study and ate dinner with us. It was another fun and crazy weekend at the Hawkins home. Ben 's baptism was so special. He is such a quite and sweet boy, but he has such a strong spirit. When he got baptized he was so happy and I could feel how strong his spirit was. The only way I can explain it is thunderous. Which is different than his disposition. He will someday be a strong, noble, valiant missionary. I will always remember that feeling or glimps I got to see of him that day. We are so proud of Ben. Chase had surgery on his arm in January and got his cast off a day before the baptism, he isn't supposed lift anything with it so they had to practice baptizing him with basically one arm. Chase said it was easy because Ben is so light and under water he weighs nothing. After the baptism we went to our traditional place to eat Old Country Buffett or as my kids call it Old Crunchy Duvet. Sunday morning Chase had to speak in another ward in the stake so we all packed up and went and listened to him. It was a nice weekend and was not as crazy as I had expected.