Birthday Ballgame

Carter's second ballgame fell on his 14th birthday.
Let the game begin.

Nice moves, Cart.

Check out that scoreboard. Carter's team is the Guest. It's getting intense.

What a great birthday present. They won 33-32 !

Party Time

I remember when it only
took one guy
concentrating
half this hard to light all the
candles on Carter's cake.

"This wish thing only happens once a year. I better make it good. "

Let them eat cake!

On your birthday, the rule: 'Don't throw the ball in the house'-- doesn't matter. Just make sure your younger brother doesn't snap a picture in case your mom sees it and disagrees.

Carter enjoys receiving birthday calls from his out of town family. Thanks for calling!

14 Years have flown by

Carter at 2 weeks old.

Carter at 1 year.

Carter as a kindergartner in his Buzz Lightyear costume Grandma made.

Carter's 1st grade school picture.

The handsome 14 year old.

Happy Birthday, Carter. We are very proud of you and cherish the memories of each of the 14 years you have been a part of our lives. We look forward to making many more. We love you.

Carter's Basketball Game

We enjoyed watching Carter play in his first official basketball game. Carter's team was Home. It was a good first game for them.

DE-FENSE!

Carter makes the basket.

Caleb is impressed with his big brother's shot.

Chloe is impressed with the snacks.

After the game the little brothers enjoy taking their turn on the empty court.

Larry and Carter enjoy a little post-game analysis.

Chloe doesn't want to be left out of the action and enjoys running around on the court playing her own personal game of dodge ball.

Chase's Ordination

Chase with Bro. Clark, Uncle Bridger, Uncle Jim, Dad, and Grandpa Hawkes. He was ordained a deacon before church so he was able to pass the sacrament.
Thanks to a supportive family for coming to support Chase on this important day in his life. Chase even made 4 dozen rolls from the Lion House recipe book for Sunday dinner with the family. They were delish! The family sits down together to enjoy Chase's rolls and some other food. We are grateful they came to visit and for Grandma taking these pictures to document the day.

Happy Birthday Chase

Chase models his new Quarterback Wristband, gloves, and under armour shirt.

Chloe enjoys the brownies & ice-cream.

Here is Chase listening to one of the family phone calls and their singing of "Happy Birthday". We had American Idol on in the background while we ate brownies and he received phone calls. Don't worry he will never let Simon hear your singing, guys.

Wow, that is some serious fire! Chase is not a cake man, so opts for brownies ala mode.

Today Chase turned 12. We had big plans to celebrate with his cousins by making pizzas, and chowing down on brownies and ice cream. Chase was then going to be set apart to become a Deacon. That all changed and had to be re-scheduled thanks to his dad, mom, little brother and baby sister being sick. We still tried to make it a fun celebration despite the circumstances. Chase wanted to still do the pizzas with his cousins so he opted for a different dinner tonight. He requested steak topped with sauteed mushrooms, fettucine alfredo, corn, creamed spinach (he didn't request this), and homebaked rolls (thank you Rhodes). Carter mixed up a big batch of brownies that were served hot with vanilla ice-cream. Chase loved his presents which focused around football playing and church clothes (white shirts, specifically). Chase is a remarkable kid. He is kind, gentle, loving, peaceful, happy and thoughtful. He is incredibly creative and artistic and is also a very coordinated athlete. He makes our home and lives better and brings great joy to each day. We put the kids to bed reading from Chase's baby book. It seems that a common theme were passages about Chase's pleasant disposition. He also loved noodles, pizza, and sweets from an early age. It was fun reading about him and looking at the pictures.

Wear Shoes in a Snowstorm

This morning was the kids first day back at school after the Christmas break. It was a nice surprise waking up to several inches of fresh snowfall that continued to come down most of the day. After taking Carter & Chase to their school, I came home and started trying to get the other boys up and focused on getting to school in a timely fashion. This was proving to be a challenging task. With just a few minutes to spare before the tardy bell would ring, we were headed out the door. I was in my pjs, sans makeup, and sporting a ball cap. Chloe was also in her jammies. I quickly grabbed her sippy cup of milk, her blankey, and went to grab my shoes when she threw her cup on the floor and sent milk splattering everywhere. This was all we needed in a time crunch. I found a towel, threw it on the milk, realized my shoes weren't by the door, reasoned the drive was short and the car was still warm, loaded up the kids and pulled out onto the snowy street for the short drive to the school. Half way to the school my car started sliding off the road narrowly missing a tree by about 6 inches. I could tell I had hit something but with bare feet wasn't prepared to get out and check. I carefully backed my car out of the snow bank and drove to the school parking lot with the car obviously in distress as it was pulling and shaking the whole way. I didn't know what to do. Once at the school I persuaded Corbin to give me his boots so I could assess the damage. I waddled to the passenger side with my feet hanging over the top of Corbin's boots to see the hub cap hanging off and a blown out tire. I'd left my cell phone sitting on the counter next to Larry's, who had accidentally left his home that morning, too. So much for calling him to come help. Luckily my sister lives close. I wrote her number on a paper and told Corbin to go in, tell the secretary what happened, and call Aunt Laura to come rescue us. I sat in the car waiting and watching the minutes tick by on the clock. Panic started to set in as I thought Corbin didn't get a hold of her and never came to tell me. Just as I was debating the barefoot, pj clad, baby-toting sprint into the school, I saw Laura's car turn in. She pulled up along side me waiting for me to hop out, so I opened my door and flashed her a glimpse of my bare feet. She smiled & shook her head. As she hopped out to get Chloe, I enviously admired her jeans tucked into warm boots. She apologized for being late noting that she was moving all of her items and shoes out of the car due to her late arrival from Utah the night before. We couldn't help but chuckle at the irony of the situation. I didn't want to get my feet more frozen, so I grabbed an empty purse that was in my car, put one foot in and hopped over to her car. Seeing me hopping along, when I got in she said, "Oh no! Are you injured?"

Maybe just a little brain damaged for driving in a snowstorm barefoot in my pj's and then hopping through the snow with my foot in a purse!

Thanks to Laura for rescuing me and driving me around to find Larry who ended up being at home to pick up his cell phone!

Happy New Year

Christmas 2008

This year we took Christmas on the road and headed down Grandpa and Grandma H's house in Utah. We had a wonderful time and wanted to share a few pictures of the highlights. We pulled in just ahead of a snowstorm andt he next morning we awoke to a winter wonderland.
We were thrilled with all of the snowfall and really happy we pulled the trailer with our 4 wheelers. Luckily we didn't have a treacherous drive up or down and just enjoyed all the fluffy, white stuff once we were settled in at Grandpa and Grandma's.

While we were de-frosting and waiting for our snow clothes to dry out, we went and played volleyball and

goofed around in the church gymnasium.

Another favorite activity was playing RockBand with the cousins.
On Christmas Eve we kept up the tradition of opening new jammies.

These are the Big Boy Jammies

and these are the Cute Cousins in their matching Christmas jammies. Can you believe Grandma was able to find all the right sizes in matching? Amazing.

It kept snowing so we kept rolling out the four wheeler for Larry to take the kids on sled rides through the neighborhood. He was a good sport and probably froze the most of any one.

Aunt Haley helped the kids make a snowman. She was always willing to share her stuff and willingly lent one of her scarves and a hat to Frosty.