Family Fun - Alyx

   I know that this has been a hard year and here are some fun things that you can do with your family during Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Some are service things and others are just to have fun and all of them you can do as a family!

• Write some nice notes and send them to your friends or family 
• Make a thankful tree out of paper and write what you are grateful for on paper leaves
• Do a service project for someone in need, like make a meal and deliver it to them, or maybe buy and wrap some toys and deliver it to them
• Make some blankets and donate them to people in need
• Read a Christmas story to your family 
• Make some food with your family 
• Listen to some Christmas music and decorate the house
• Find out what's your family's favorite thing about Christmas 
• Create a new Christmas tradition
• And the most important thing: Have Fun!!

The Now Not so Random Chicken Report - Anna Hawkins

The Now Not so Random Chicken Report

By: J. Annaliese Hawkins 

Illustrated by:  Joey Langford

Based on true events (mostly.  Also, sorry to disappoint you, but there are no flying pigs.)

Everybody had left the Thanks-give-a-gain party on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Now that all the guests had left, it was time to take care of the  thankful^1 job of animals.  When I walked over to the gate, I heard a rustle in the bushes yonder. A bear?  No.  A coyote?  Possibly.  A vicious animal out to eat me?  Most likely not, but still.  I hurried down the hill, leaving the unsettling thoughts behind me.  As I reached the chicken coop, I heard another rustle.  I looked around fearing for my life. The goats, it was just the goats.  I tucked them in noting the black hen in the corner of the vast room and rushed to the chicken coop.  There were only 8 chickens left. 3 down, not good. I double and triple counted on both my fingers and toes just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.  Still only eight chickens.  Sprinting up the hill, I rushed through the back door demanding an explanation from my dad. He calmly stated that the dog had escaped again and taken out three more chickens while I was at band practice (eating pizza^2. How ironic. Just kidding, that’s not irony.)  I took a deep breath and headed up to bed.

To be continued…

__________

1. It was a very forced thankful mind you, but with it being thanksgiving I thought I should have thankful words at the least.

2. The pizza wasn’t the important part.  It was who I was eating the pizza with. . .

Popcorn - Elle

 Popcorn the Dolphin from Cosmic Kids Yoga is my favorite.  I like her because she is smart and she says to me, "Keep breathing and stay stay calm." 

(Note from Anna)  I hope to catch a picture of Elle doing yoga some morning.  She used to do it every day, religiously, now it's more of a blue moon sort of a thing.

Photographer In Training - MyLiege

 One of the great privileges of my life is being Anna's mom.  She is an outstanding individual who is always showing me how to be a better person through her example. I often joke that she's a better mom than I am.  But it's not a joke - it's true.  She is endlessly patient, disciplined, helpful, and kind.  I am so grateful for this girl!  

Something I really enjoy about our relationship is that we love to explore many of the same things.  She is always game to jump in on a painting or woodworking project.  She likes organizing and giving things a good solid scrubbing every once in a while (as long as it's to avoid doing something worse - again, like her mama).  We have also been delving deeper into some design project we have bubbling in the background since the house will be turned all around again when Djeryd leaves for school in January.

This fall we had the lovely opportunity to photograph my niece's wedding.  My sweet Anna was by my side every step of the way.  She was my second shooter.  We spent the preceding months photographing everything.  We took our nice camera on every family outing and took turns shooting with it.  A month before the wedding my dad surprised her with a camera of her own (she was going to have to borrow his for the wedding).  What a thrill!  We did three full-on shoots with some friends' families to figure out what on earth we were doing and that girl caught some great shots.  We found a rhythm and we worked together beautifully.

Sometime soon I will share pictures from the wedding and share our experience, but suffice it to say I don't know how I could have done it without her.  Not only did she manage to capture some incredibly beautiful moments, but she was an anchor of support and encouragement.  We laughed and talked and planned and had such an amazing time together.  I loved watching her skills grow from our first prep shoot to our last wedding shoot (we had three separate wedding shoots in one week). I hope she will share some of her images on here so you can see her talent.  She is one of my very favorite people to spend time with and I absolutely adore this amazing person I get to share my life and eternity with.  I love you, Anna.  Keep creating.  You have so much to Become.  And thank you for helping me along my way to Becoming as well.

Cozy - MyLiege

 

I am on a mission to take our home up a notch on the coziness scale.  We are tackling it a little bit at a time.  One room at a time. We have pretty generous sized rooms in this lovely home of ours.  But that can sometimes provide a challenge in the coziness realm. When I decided to make our library a little squishier I got some push back from my family.  We inherited an antique sewing machine from Sean's family and the library made the most sense for such a special piece.  And Sean's working from home necessitated a major overhaul of the office, so the china hutch (from my side of the family) needed a new home as well.  

We have loved our library since the very first day we moved in - even when it was full of boxes and random lamps and pictures.  Over the past four years I have been trying to get the furniture close enough together that you could have a warm conversation, but still fill up the room so it doesn't look like we just moved in and we haven't finished furnishing it.  (Wait a second, I guess that's exactly what it was!)

Moving the china hutch and the sewing machine into the library worked like magic!  It took some tweaking to balance the side tables and lamps and plants, but I think we nailed it, for now.  How can I tell? People are always in this room, reading, talking, eating, being still. The room is situated a little bit away from the normal hustle and bustle of the house, providing a sense of quiet and coziness in a home that is now constantly peopled.  

I am learning to appreciate, all over again, the essentialness of time in truly putting together a home.  It needs layers.  Layers take time.  Coziness takes time.  It's history and comfort and memories and warmth and love and beauty all wrapped into a space.  Four walls.  If walls ever do talk, I want ours to talk about laughter and cuddles and story time and deep conversations and play and fun and faith and tears and great food and sweet whispers and love, love, love.  I want them to speak of the stuff of life - the best stuff of life.  Cozy kisses and cozy cuddles and cozy conversations.

A Tree Comes Down - Sean

 About 2 weeks ago, our next door neighbor knocked on our door and told us not to hire a tree service to "cut it up". I had no idea what she was talking about. Apparently, the night before one of the big trees in our yard came down and landed on the road. Someone had cut it up enough to get it off into the ditch.

So, I borrowed my dad's chain saw, grabbed Djeryd and went to work. Now, I am a computer programmer not a tree-feller. Ask me questions about C# or Javascript and I have an answer. Using a chain saw is a new experience. So I immediately learned that pinching the blade in a large log is very difficult to remove. I was so grateful that the next door neighbor showed up with gloves and immediately went and got her husband with his big chain saw and made quick work it. I am so grateful for good neighbors! 

Apparently, the roots rotted out. I think we are going to have to take out the other 4 trees in front of our house. 

Exercise - Love/Hate Relationship - Sean

This last weekend my wife and I decided to change up our schedule to ensure that we are having sufficient time, and thus better success, with personal scripture study, exercise, and family scripture study. Not that we have been doing bad. We simply know we can be doing a lot better.

So, Monday morning, we wake up and start our new schedule. Lately, we have been doing 1 to 1.5 mile walks, but because of the change in weather, we needed to come up with something else to do. Thus enters the “7-minute-workout”. A cool little app on my smart phone that walks us through a bunch of exercises. The way it works is it calls out an exercise such as jumping jacks, pushups, wall sits, etc. for you to do for 30 seconds. Then it gives you a 10 second rest before calling out another exercise. In all you do a total of 12 exercises. (Yes, for those math wizards, that actually adds up to 7 minutes and 50 seconds of total time, but only 6 minutes of actual exercise.) How hard can it be? It is only 6 minutes of actual exercise, right? So, I give it my all. When we get done, we are actually a little winded, but proud of ourselves that we at least did something, however meager it was.

Tuesday morning comes and I go to get out of bed and I can hardly move. Every muscle in my body hurts. My calf muscles hurt. My thigh muscles hurt. My arm muscles hurt. My pectoral muscles hurt. Muscles I did not even know I had hurt. My next thought is, I have to exercise again today. Or rather, do I have to exercise again today? But, heh, we are on a new schedule. I am going to do this! So I start the app which always starts with jumping jacks. My hands go in the air and a groan escapes my lips. Pain, all over! Everywhere! I am in too much pain. My wife starts chuckling from the corner. Man am I out of shape! Here I thought walking those mile or so every day was getting me in shape! Yesterday, Ibuprofen was my friend.

Today is Wednesday! Still very soar! It is going to be another Ibuprofen day. I will get back on the bandwagon, but maybe start a little slower this time. 

The Best Intentions - MyLiege

A few years ago I decided I wanted to make a bed quilt for Elle.  All of the other kids have quilts that I made for them - just for them.  I bought a jelly roll of rose printed fabrics in various pastel shades.  The perfect palette for Elle's first big girl bed.  It was everything I imagined for my last little lady.

 But here we sit.  A full three years down the road from all those intentions and all that work, and it is not finished.  It is still a pile of lovingly made squares sitting in a pile somewhere in my sewing stash.  I do not even know which box it is in.  And now we are off into a whole new stage and color scheme for her room.  In January she will have her own room - all to herself.  She is not a baby anymore.  She's growing and changing every single day and I want her space to reflect who she is now and who she is becoming.  And believe me, as sweet as this little girl is, she's got plenty of spunk inside her and I want to celebrate that in her surroundings.

So I have a half-finished quilt.  A quilt that I still want to finish.  And a quilt that still belongs to Elle.  It's still her baby quilt.

And I can't help but think of all the unfinished projects, started and stopped.  I came to terms with all those projects a long time ago, though.  Some things are worth finishing, some are not.  At this very moment I have a table I'm refinishing in the garage.  I have sanded it all down and it's just waiting for me to decide what color it was always meant to be.  

We made a bookcase for our bedroom on Saturday.  It's waiting for sanding, painting, and a really fabulous paper for the background. 

We also made a sofa table - also needing sanding and staining this time.

And just to add one more project, I cut up some 4x4" posts into little house shapes for a Christmas display.  They also need sanding and paint and some festive details designed by my ladybugs.  

So many projects.  So much to do.  So many wonderful intentions.  The trick is wrapping them up before they slip into the "Lost-But-Not-Forgotten" or "Not-Worth-Finishing" categories. Elle's quilt will get done someday.  Maybe this year, maybe next.  Maybe when she leaves for college or has her own little baby girl.  I'm not worried about it.  I know it will get done.  In the meantime I'm trying to wrap-up what's in front of my face.  Then we shall see what new project wanders onto my radar.  I have a fruit orchard growing in my imagination.  My intention is that February will be full of planting. Or maybe finally stitching up a nice, warm, rose-patterned baby girl quilt will be exactly makes February feel accomplished.

What You Never Saw Coming: A.K.A The Semi-Random Chicken Report - Anna

To Start off the Epic adventures of flying pigs . . .

INTRODUCING . . . drum roll please . . .

What You Never Saw Coming:  A.K.A. the Semi Random Chicken Report 

By:  J. Annaliese Hawkins

Illustrated by: Joey Langford

Based on a true story (based is the key word here)

        It was a sunny Thursday afternoon, and we were all waiting for the minutes to tick by to leave for Grandma and Grandpa Hawkins house for our annual Thanksgiving dinner.  All of the sudden, out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of white, a streak of fur, and heard a squawk. I was only partially aware of what I just saw and heard.  I heard another squawk, but this time it registered. Jumping up and out of the kitchen chair, I sprinted to the chicken coop with my sister on my tail.  As we reached the bottom of the giant hill, we understood what those flashes of color were: dogs. Big hunting dogs out for our chickens, killing them one by one. It was almost like watching flies go down, but there was no time to watch. Alyx and I quickly moved into action, chasing the dogs out and away from the large chicken coop as they continued to scurry through the small hole in the gate.  

As I scrambled to latch the door, coop now dog free, Alyx stood in silent mourning. I followed her gaze and then I saw it.  Lying just feet away, there was a chicken laying motionless, obviously dead. It was an old chicken, one we didn’t like much, but it was still family. When Alyx escaped her trance to close the other door, she stopped once more. This time I didn’t need to follow her gaze to understand what happened, the feathers scattered about said plenty. Another chicken, Cinnamon was the name.  She came from one of our newer batches of chicks. A dog bark and I knew we weren’t done.

At this point, dad had made his way down the hill to help.  I was put in charge 

of the dog with a collar, while Dad and Alyx chased the other two dogs all the way up and down the rolling hills that made up the back pastor.  They eventually chased them down the hill towards the shop where we regrouped.  Dad dragged the aggressive dogs across the deserted street to the neighbors house. 

When somebody came out to get the dogs, Alyx and I headed up the steep 

hill accompanied by the deafening silence of deep heartache.  When we reached the top of the mini mountain, mom was there waiting for us with her arms wide open, full of compassion and love.  Mom said that Elle, the heartless creature, had stormed in saying, “They're all dead.  Can we eat now?”  

Later after some music and jokes, with our spirits much higher than they had 

been, dad came in with news. Not good news, but definitely not bad news, almost melancholy. He said there were two injured birds, but no more dead ones. Dad had other news, but are immaterial and unnecessary, almost superfluous to the story.  In the end we finally got to grandma and grandpa Hawkins house for thanksgiving dinner two hours later than planned.

The end.

I hear the flying pigs come for sure next Tuesday.

Do 150 of Something - By Anna

 As a Young Woman of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints, I was invited do 150 of something that brings me closer to Jesus Christ.  I was unaware of this however until a face-to-face with the General Young Women presidency on Sunday.  Mom and I decided to commit and we decided that as a family we are going to do 150 blog posts before the end of the year.  Yes, that means everybody does one blog post per day until the end of December.  We are excited to share the sweet and simple things, and just the straight up funny things, that fill our lives each day with joy no matter how low it gets.

This is a quote I want to share for this post to inspire you to do something good.

Apple Tree

My girls decided it was high time they conquered the apple tree by the pond.

It has the best branches for climbing - relatively low to the ground and nice and long to fit lots of people.

Something I love about photography is I become so much more aware of moments like these . . .

moments of my girls together . . .

the tiny details of their young lives . . .

seeing them stretch and capturing it so they can look back and remember how far they've come . . .

and how much they've grown.

I love the challenge of capturing their relationships and personalities vibrantly . . .

and joyfully, . . .

 artistically, . . .

and in all their silliness . . .

and beauty.

 

Elle On Wheels

Elle and I spent the afternoon in the garage with her bike (and occasionally her sister's scooter).

I am preparing to shoot my niece's wedding in a month, so my camera is permanently attached to my hand at present.

While Elle worked on staying balanced on two wheels and pedaling simultaneously,

 I focused on the fine art of exposure compensation.

I took many pictures of Elle's feet, which she found very confusing.

And I discovered shooting in the garage produces some fabulous lighting (look at those catchlights!)

By the end of Elle's riding time the entire family had wondered outdoors.

I love that Alyx has a book.  Admittedly, I had a book in my lap the entire time as well.  A girl after my own heart.

My Incomplete and Authorized Biography

I was recently asked to write up a brief bio of myself.  Since the purpose of this blog is to document our family history, I think it is appropriate to share here.  So, here goes . . .

I was born to my parents during their brief stint in a nearby state (I only lived there for three months - as a wee babe).  I spent most of my young childhood bouncing between California and various other western states.  I think I am a California girl at heart.  I love the sun and flowers that bloom all year round and moderate heat and warm rolling ocean waves.  I love Oregon, but it is a little hit or miss in all those areas (and forget about ocean water being anything above forty degrees!).  I have lived in Oregon for over 30 years and all of our family is here, so it is definitely home, but every winter I am sorely tempted to pack up my family and move ANYWHERE it's warm and the sun shines.  Sean says, "no dice", so I'm waiting for the Millennium - I assume it will be sunny then.  

Sean and I both grew up in the stake we currently live in and even went to stake youth conferences together, but never met until he was home from his mission.  We have a very cool courtship story, but it is VERY long, so I will simply say I believe in love at second-sight, and Sean had (and has) every single one of the 10 qualities I felt were most important in a husband and father (I still have the list in one of my journals).  We have been married 21 years and I am hopelessly in love with him.

I enjoy lots of things, but most not as deeply as I wish.  I love lists and find myself pretty wrapped up in the day-to-day running of our home and family.  However, this is the first time in 20 years I have not had a child at home all day and it's AMAZING! I love the freedom to get completely sucked up in something every now and again and not feel like I'm ignoring anyone.  So, when I can throw all time and caution to the wind, I read - mostly non-fiction - scriptures, organizing, design, healthy living, business management (this one baffles me - I have no explanation for my affinity), gardening, flower arranging, weddings, yoga (although the past couple of years I have been loving Tai Chi), sewing, photography, cleaning, and whatever else strikes my fancy.  And basically what I read about is what I do.  I think it is a strange compulsion that I do not seem to be able to do anything without reading about it as well.  But it's all very sporadic and short-lived.  I think it's called "Shiny Object Syndrome".  

Sean and I have five beautiful children all of whom I am trying desperately to learn how to love better and more.  Djeryd is our oldest and he is serving a mission in Fiji (and gets home in less than 8 months!!!!!!).  Erik is sweet and strong and brave.  Anna is my constant example in pretty much everything.  Alyx bubbles over with compassion and all things crafty.  Elle is so melt-my-heart yummy I find myself simply wanting to wrap her up in my arms as often as she'll let me.

My guilty pleasure is 80's TV mystery shows.  I have shamefully indoctrinated my children with them and they will probably struggle socially as a result for the rest of their lives.  On the upside, their teachers greatly appreciate that at least someone in class gets the cultural references from their glory days.  Favorites are Remington Steele, Murder, She Wrote, Scarecrow & Mrs. King, Matlock, and Perry Mason (yes, I know that one is from the 60's, but I watched the re-runs in the 80's - thank you, Mom).

If I could only eat one food forever it would be salad.  But I know that's a cheaters thing - because it's a dish of endless variety.  But, yeah, that's what I would eat.

Something nobody knows, and is a teeny bit embarrassing, is that when I was in high school, I used to sit in front of my bedroom mirror and practice giving my acceptance speech for Best Actress for the Academy Awards.  Night after night after night after night . . . I just wanted to make sure I didn't forget to thank anyone.

My relationship with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are the absolute most important things to me.  I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I have a deep and growing testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the incredible breadth of it.  None of us would be who we are or where we are without it.  I love the scriptures. I love our prophet.  I want him to be prophet forever - I just love him.  I love my family beyond anything I can express and I am eternally grateful for the eternal validity of the eternal sealing ordinances.  I love to learn.  There is always something to learn, always some way to grow and improve.  I love that.  I am so excited for the Second Coming.  I want to be ready. I want my family to be ready. That is becoming increasingly important to me; almost pressing upon me.  The Church is true! Jesus is the Christ! I love it!