December

Happy Winter! Here are a few shots from our last (crazy busy) 6 weeks. We had a gorgeous snowfall last night we had been anxiously awaiting for over a month. The boys started trying on their deep winter gear in November. Apparently pants are optional:

James found a new hobby / obsession. He will "tut" anything an everything he gets his hands on. Sometimes I let him cut magazines to his heart's content and he'll be there for an hour or so (!)

Scotty made a Thanksgiving costume for his preschool feast, complete with hieroglyphics that tell a story.

Mid December we ventured to You Nork to "see" the tree. We naively thought we would be able to get closer than a block away, but no such luck. Note to selves: never attempt this again on a weekend!

It was still fun to be in the city (what it is about that place?) and we don't regret going, but we'll see if we can't go during the week next year. Here's a rip-off Mickey the kids were excited to have a picture with

And Scotty and Jeremy's hands-down highlight of the day, the Lego store at Rockefeller Center:

Last week James had a Christmas party thrown by the folks at Early Intervention. It was more fun than I had expected, for the boys and for me! Here's the dog room, crammed full of the sweetest ever therapy dogs:

A therapy swing - come - sleigh:

A snowman they could demolish by rolling down a cheese mat:

And the greatest ever Santa complete with super thick New York accent and dark black stubble:

Christmas day gets more fun every year. It was the first time since I was a kid that I felt impatient for Christmas morning knowing how much fun the boys would have with their loot. Surveying the scene in their new glow in the dark rocket Christmas jammies:

One last pose in front of our smooshed-in-the-corner scoliosis awareness tree:

And, later that day, chillin with Uncle Ben and the Davidsons in Ellicott City. We love having family on the East Coast! Thanks you guys for hosting (again)!

Here's a pic of my favorite doggy, Delilah. I love dogs, and loved growing up with dogs, but couldn't ever see them in our family's future until I met this one. She's a miniature greyhound, and much more like a cat than a dog. She *loves* Ben and the boys love her. Such a sweetie:
Finally, I wanted to post a few of our Christmas photo shoot duds. Watch James' facial progression. If Jeremy's head wasn't cut off anyway, I might have considered using one of these for our "official" pic. They make me laugh every time:

Three cheers for little boys. We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and that you have a Happy New Year!

Come on, Robin, to the Bat Cave! There's not a moment to lose!

I can't remember now who chose the costume -- me or Scott, but I do know we both had lots of fun with it. Our neighbor was Superman, and his mom found satin on super sale, so the three amigos dressed in style.
In the 20 minutes between Superman getting home from preschool and Batman leaving for preschool, they couldn't get enough of the capes. Neither could I!

That 20 minutes was worth alllll the time I spent on the costumes! Little boys are the best. Little girls are pretty cute too. Here's a cute and bewitching witch:

And as the icing on the cake, Scotty's little church bff was Batman too.

Yay Halloween! That was fun. I'm already looking forward to next year :)

Scotty's 5!: update #9

Scotty turned 5 on the 21st of September. Every year that day comes and goes I'm amazed that it's been so long, and I'm grateful that all the September 21sts since 2005 have been much, much less painful for me. :) Scott requested, *very* specifically, a "caramel popcorn turtle cake with strawberries and chocolate frosting." We've never had anything like it, and doubt we ever will again, but it was pretty fun to make.
We got to celebrate with leftover fireworks with our neighbors -- Scotty's friend has the exact same birthday as Scotty.
We had Scotty's first friend party this year, which was more fun than I was expecting! He wanted a flying saucer cake, so it kind of turned into an outer space theme.

We made alien hats
And alien rock buddies
Danced .a lot.
Played pin the alien on the spaceship
Tried to play "robot, robot, who has the robot," but the kids had a very difficult time grasping the concept of stealth
And ate lots of yummy flying saucer cake
Another rite of passage happened just a few days before: Scotty's (second) first day of preschool
He technically made the cut to start kindergarten this fall, but we decided to wait on the recommendation of last year's preschool teacher. Not too surprisingly his award at the end of the year was "most spirited." Here he is last May at graduation:
We know he's spirited, and that's half of what makes him so delightful! And I have to say --a little selfishly-- I don't mind one bit keeping him home for one more year. Happy Birthday Scotty!

California Dreamin': update #8

Jeremy had a conference in San Diego, so we jumped at the chance to join him and get part of our trip reimbursed (thanks, St. Luke's!). We're in love. We really can't see ourselves being able to afford living there, but it's officially cemented into our future vacation plans.
Sunroofs were made for southern California...
Jeremy hit the waves as often as he could. And the boys acted like they'd hit the sandbox jackpot. There were some pretty intense sand castles out there.
Here's mine and the boys' version of the above:


My brother Nathan and his family are 1/2 hour from San Diego, and my brother Pete and his family are in LA right now. Some of my Athay cousins are there too, and my Aunt Janet and Uncle Russell were in the area. I talked my sister Katie into flying down from Denver for a long weekend, so we had a PARDAY! There haven't been 4 Hawkes in one place for a long time, so this was a big deal.

Daphne got lots and lots of attention
We went to the park
Reconnected with my childhood (my mom painted this door on a playhouse my dad built for us -- isn't it cute??)
Wrestled lots and lots with Jake (we wish you were here Jake and we would hire you as our permanent babysitter!)
Did a little yoga
And went to the mall with Aunt Janet and Karen to ride these crazy little mini motorcycle things
Pete and Nate even joined a soccer game when Jake's opposing team didn't show
Jeremy's family decided to join the fun and *all* came down from Vegas to see us for the weekend, so we ended up having a double family reunion!
We went to the beach and Balboa Park for an outdoor organ concert and the Botanical Gardens


They even threw a double birthday part for Scotty and his cousin David
Jeremy's parents are always up for a trip to Disneyland, so we decided to take the boys on the pilgrimage every child should go on at least once.


It turned out to be a little tiny bit too early to make the pilgrimage for James, though. He was too short for some rides (the pictures say a thousand words!) and scared on others. Maybe in another 5 years we'll try again...


It was so fun to be there with Grandma and Grandpa! Thanks for coming, guys!
Jeremy's brother and his family came too, and my cute white-blond nieces caught the eye of the guy picking kids for Star Wars Training camp so that Scotty could have the opportunity every 4 year old Star-Wars-obsessed kid dreams of : defeat Darth Vader face to face
Getting his game on

The enemy himself -- or wait? Maybe it's my father...
And the final battle
My favorite part of the day (Jer's too) is in the background here. If you've never been to California Adventure and ridden California Screamin, add it to your bucket list now! Best roller coaster .ever. Too fun to miss.
Another highlight: World of Color. It was like the Bellagio show on steroids. So fun! We killed four birds with one stone, and had almost more fun than we could handle in just one week! But we survived, and lived to tell the very happy story.