Christmas Is Coming!!!

I am so excited about christmas! This time of year is probably the best time of year and I am even more excited to be spending it with my family. We have been so blessed by our congregation to be able to spend christmas in OKC. I am looking forward to everything. Swadley's, Taco Bueno, Red Robin and even the occasional Taco Bell run. (yes we have taco bell in canada but it isn't the same) Of course I'm looking forward to spending time with my family. That's a given.

LG Life is good

Life is good right now. But life is also hard and trying at times. It has been a rough couple of weeks with the boys taking turns being sick and then Syb and I taking turns being sick... We are trying to figure out how to get both the boys to sleep all the way through the night because when one wakes up the other one does shortly after. It didn't used to be like this. They both slept so good through the night. So that's one thing we are working on. It is so fun having two boys especially when I see how they are so much like what my brother and I were like. It is so fun to see them play and fight and love on each other. It brings me so much joy. What I am thankful for is the stage that they are in right now. Rather than wishing they were older so that they could understand things better or be able to behave better, I am thankful for how they are and the way that they act now. Because in 10 years when they are 13 and 11 I am going to wish that they were running or crawling all over the place and wanting to play with me every minute of everyday. I know that when the time comes that I will miss that. But it isn't something that I am going to wish away at this stage of their life. It's busy and crazy but I wouldn't want it any other way. When I think that I need a break for a bit I will come down to our office or go to the church for a bit and work on some things. Then give me a couple of hours and I'm missing them. People have said that they wish that they could freeze their kids at a certain age and from what I've been told that age is anywhere between 9-11. But give me a 3 and 1 year old any day. I love my family with all that I am and my goal right now in life is to be a better husband to my beautiful wife of 5 and 1/2 years and to be a better father to my two incredible boys. When I have succeeded at that I have succeeded in everything. 

Eric

a little bit of Oklahoma

Hi-lights from our trip down south... Jan 10th- 24th

1. Provision

It has to start with God's provision. A love offering was taken at the Tab and the amount that we received for Christmas was 3dollars more then what our tickets cost for the 4 of us to fly. God knew we needed this trip more then we even thought we did.

2. Home alone

You know that scene in Home alone when they are running through the airport. That was us. We were delayed in Great Falls so what was going to be an hour and a half in Denver turned out to actually be ten minutes. We landed at 4:40 and our next flight was leaving at 4:50. We were running as fast as you can with two little boys. They kept calling our names over head, "Hawkinson party of 4 please report to terminal 28" easy for them to say we were dashing from 89 all the way to the twenties. Every place to eat we passed Noah would say, "Mom I hungry." But we were so thankful that they held the flight for us.

3. Ludingtonville

We spent the first week with my side of the family. It was awesome, full of hanging out and checking out their new home and church. Such quality time. I was so thankful we had a full week with them. Noah couldn't get enough he was waking up as early as 5:30 and wanting to play right away. They all helped so much and it was a much-needed break for me. I was very thankful.

a. Lou Lou's Dino

b. Maddy's fort building with Noah

c. alot of church playground fun

d. Youth group (overwhelmed with the fact Lou is in Youth group, so proud of that amazing young lady)

c. quality time driving with Miranda to get Noah to sleep

d. New cousin pics.

e. “Uncle Tis” and Noah’s new dino book

f. our first official date night with out our two boys

4. Food

In between all the fun we got to eat at some of our favorite places. It is always a treat. We really try to limit ourselves at home how much we eat out but when we are in OK we splurge.

5. Hawkinson’s Home

For the second week we stayed at Eric’s folks home in OKC. It was nice to get to see everyone so much. We saw all of Eric’s grandparents, cousins, and a few of our friends in between everything. Teresa was able to take a few days off so it was fun running around with her.

a. Price is Right breakfast with Depaw

b. Cousin time playing/fighting

c. Grandparents

d. Seeing Brent’s work

e. A windy day at the outlet mall

6. Friends

We never seem to get enough time to catch up with our friends. It is always hard trying to squeeze them in. We were thankful for the time we were able to get either running into people or visiting with them.

7. Home

As much as I need to see our family and have a bit of a break from normal life, it was so great to get back home. It has been a bit rough getting the boys back to normal routines but we are almost there and it was well worth it.

Well... We need an update

So much has happened that we haven't written about and it's time for an update.

We now have two boys. That's right, two.

Noah and Ezekiel

I can't believe that we are now a family of four.

Life has been an adjustment so far but is so great. The boys are wonderful and God has been so good at providing us with time to spend with them. We are so blessed to work where we do because we get to spend so much time with our children.

Noah is 2 now and talking like crazy and Zeke is almost two months old. It's crazy how fast time flies.

It's christmas time here in Canada and it's about time too, because they celebrate Thanksgiving in October. So after that we are already in full christmas swing but halloween hasn't even happened yet. Now everyone is catching up to Christmas and it's great because there are christmas lights up, snow on the ground, and christmas cookies being baked like crazy around here. It's been such a wonderful last couple of months and we just wanted to share just a bit of that with you.

But I better go because i just heard Noah waking up from his nap and sliding down the steps like he always does. Which means that he will want to wrestle or play with his dinos. Which is going to make for one fun evening.

Eric

Sometimes I am amazed at how smart Noah is. Last Sunday at church while in the nursery with Ms. Val after Daddy was done speaking in service and praying Noah said ," Amen, Daddy done." and then proceeded to try to leave the nursery. Val told me this today and I could not stop laughing. There is a speaker in the nursery that is on so you can sort of hear the sermon, well to our surprise I guess Noah might find it comforting to hear Daddy preaching. What a funny kid. I am still having a hard time getting over that he is really 2 and that we are only 6 weeks away from baby boy #2. wow.

SNOW and more snow!

at the lighting ceremony downtown Lethbridge, it was -1 but we bundled and had so much fun
Noah's favorite thing was the horse drawn carriage, he just sang along with everyone and loved it. Here we are all bundled up keeping warm. Here atleast his face is showing, at other times it was all tucked up that his eyes were only visible.
The first day it snowed he found it so amazing. He just wanted to climb all over the white stuff.
This was so funny he just kept eating the snow. He also was face diving into the snow in the yard then screaming when his face was cold. He would then lick it off and I would stand him up and he would do it again, then laugh.
Seeing the snow for the first time. He was amazed.

That time again.

It's that time again when school has started and the weather has started to change. It's getting a bit chilly here and looks like it will continue to get even colder as the months go on. But there's something about this season known as fall that I just love. I love the colors that we see on the trees, I love the feel of walking into a warm house, and I love the smell of the candle that's in our living room that smells like cinnamon and apples and cider. It's amazing. As much as I say I don't look forward to the cold and the changing of the season, I truly do look forward to it. And before we know it, it's going to be Christmas. But not yet though.

Eric

a new school year begins

Life is back in full swing again, but we are jumping in feet first and enjoying every minute so far. We should have planned out New York trip a little bit better because it felt like a whirlwind when we got home. We arrived late on a Thursday night then the next day ran around preparing stuff for youth to begin that night and then after youth Eric left for the weekend to go to "Man Camp" to speak. So needless to say it was busy. Fun but busy. Now we are just pushing on and moving forward with the rest of the things on our to-do list.

this is what today looked like....

woke up to Noah talking in his room, wanting to come join us.

got ready in a mad rush while feeding Noah oatmeal and blueberries and throwing on his cloths while walking out the door.

stopped by Barb's to get van key and turned out to get her too.

Dick came by Barb's so we were a bit late but good to see him.

drove in pouring rain out to the Phifner farm to pick up 2 vans and a trailer.

drove to Canadian Tire with two vans. dropped off one van.

drove back house to drop off trailer in garage.

picked up the 3rd van from our house.

went back to Canadian tire and tried to explain to the nice guy what all the different vans needed done for camp season.

went to lunch at El Comal with Barb, Eric, and Noah.

talked about camp stuff and began again to get so excited.

drove back to Canadian tire and picked up 2 vans that were ready.

drove them to our house.

then took Barb home to her house.

came home so Noah could crawl around for a bit.

did 3 loads of laundry.

Eric fixed bathroom door.

went to store for diapers and wipes.

picked up 3rd van and locks for trailers.

ichatted with Mom and the girls.

cereal for dinner kind of night.

Noah napped a tiny bit while Eric and I cleaned up the office.

fed Noah dinner.

went on amazing walk with family, stopped by the pet store.

bathtime with Noah.

now Eric is putting the little man to bed.

Such a great day. Full of camp prep and quality time. It only rained til about noon so I was so excited about that and cleared up enough for a good long walk tonight. Thank you Lord for the wonderful weather. Now we just need to pluck away at our camp to-do list and get things ready for Lou and Maddy to get here. I can't wait.

I feel like I am running on fumes these last few weeks. I have been so tired and can't seem to get back in the swing of things. I also think that Noah and I keep trading colds. It is not fun.