The Hawkins Family: April 2009

Yosemite

My friend Melissa and I decided to be spontaneous, packed up the kids, and headed to Yosemite for the day today. SOO glad we did! It was hotter than heck here in town and was AMAZINGLY gorgeous in Yosemitie. The falls are at their peak and were phenominal!

Jace at the lookout point.

It is so beautiful it looks fake! How could you find a more spectacular backdrop?

All four of us. (I was quite proud of how many times I actually asked people to take our picture!)

On the trail up to Yosemite Falls. Half Dome in the background.

Mel and the kiddos at the lower falls.

The boys, being boys

Jace just loves his "Mabo"

Heat Wave

We are having a bit of a Spring time heat wave. Today was 87 and by Monday we are looking at hitting the 90s. Such is life in the Central Valley. Jace took full advantage of the warmth and decided that he wanted nothing more than to run through the sprinklers. He was literally running as fast as he could and squeeling with delight. It was great! I remember running through the sprinklers as a kid and thinking it was just the greatest thing ever. I have a feeling Jace was thinking the same. Oh to be a kid again!

Easter FUN FUN FUN!!

On Friday Jace's school had a really fun Easter party for the kiddos.

There was Easter cookie decorating. (Please note the frosting on his lips. More went in his mouth than on the cookie.) Our buddy Marco is in the green. Isn't he cute!!

Face painting was not a hit, but "Sissa" (my friend Mellisa) was able to sneak a tiny heart in.

Egg hunting..of course!

Saturday night we dyed Easter eggs. Up until I put the little cups of dye on the kitchen table I had such visions of the two of us dipping eggs and having a grand ol time. It quickly became clear to me that Jace is not quite old enough for such fun. LUCKILY I remembered that I had some food coloring pens that I bought to decorate cakes. They didn't work for beans on my cake, but turned out to be Toddler Terrific for paiting eggs!

An egg for Mommy, Daddy, and one for Jace (My little Picasso!)

Here's my little man in his Easter outfit.

Wow! That Easter Bunny sure can pick out a cute basket!!

Gotta love the Easter Bunny Mr. Potato Head!

The Easter Bunny must have stopped by Nonna's house too!

I think little Miss Leah likes her Easter basket!

She's such a Superstar!!

Hope everyone had a great Easter!!!

Jace's First Day of School

I have had such mixed emotions about the decision to put Jace in a daycare program. After alot of soul searching, Jeremy and I decided it would be a good thing for Jace and for Mommy. Jace gets to go socialize and learn, and Mommy can have an afternoon off to run errands and focus on schoolwork. We found a WONDERFUL "KinderPrep" school to send him to and are really happy with the school. Today was Jace's first day and he did pretty well. There was the obligitory cryfest when I left him, but his teacher called me after about an hour and said he had a short nap and was now enjoying cuddles. By the time I went to pick him up he ran right past me, too busy playing with his friends to be slowed down by Mommy. He had alot of fun.

Lunch: Shephard's Pie and Mandarin oranges. (The school has a GREAT chef! Makes me want to stay for lunch!!)

Jace loved this little dolly. He rocked it and gave it kisses. It was too cute!

His favorite toy...

Jace led an escape effort, running the poor teacher's aide all over the school trying to corale him and his buddy Devyn.

Jace is lucky enough to have two of his little friends joining him in school. I will be posting pics of them now and then so their mommies can see them having fun at school too.

Buboouu in Dallas

Buboouu is Jace's stuffed monkey that he gave to Dadda before he left for his deployment. (Jace named him, we provided the closest spelling that we could.) Daddy will be taking pictures of Buboouu throughout the trip to Kuwait and his deployment to send to Jace. This has already proven to be a fun idea. Dadda sent us this picture today of him and Buboouu waiting in the Dallas airport. Jace saw it and got really excited saying "Dadda and Buboouu!!!" All day he talked about how Buboouu was bye bye with Dadda.

Deployment Blues...

This was an especially hard weekend for the Hawkins Family. We had to say goodbye to our favorite Hubs/Dadda for a whole year! This is the second year long deployment Jeremy and I have faced, but the first with our little love Jace. You can only imagine how much harder saying goodbye was this time around. We had several events throughout the weekend to keep us busy, but none were able to distract us completely. It was an incredibly emotional few days and the year ahead is still feeling quite daunting for all of us. Fortunaltely we know that we have lots of people praying for us and keeping us in their thoughts and we appreciate it tremendously. Here are a few snapshots from the weekend:

Jeremy's Deployment Ceremony on Friday