Thanksgiving Holidays

Well, we are sadly coming to a close of a busy but great nine days off (except for the tummy virus that hit everyone but Jeremy, as usual).  We've had Whit's birthday party, Thanksgiving with both our families, Big Papa's 90th birthday party, the Pink Pig, cut down the Christmas tree, art projects, breakfast with Santa (that was my virus day), and we wrapped it all up by lighting the first candle of the Advent this morning at FBC.  Going back to school tomorrow will be tough for all of us, but on the bright side, only three weeks until Christmas break!  

Hamp was TERRIFIED to say the least!

OK, feeling a little better about the big guy in red, but I'm still not sitting on him!

Whit's Birthday

The Bathroom? You Sure?

A couple of months ago the GEMA guy ( GA safety guy) came for his annual, riveting presentation, and I vividly remember him saying that his suggestion for tornado situations would be to place as many students in the bathrooms instead of along the hallway.  I think we all just kind of took for granted that that would never really happen.  Well, today it happened when the code gray watch turned into a code gray warning.  We immediately shuffled our confused third graders into the hallway to resume the position we've taken for so many years during drills.  That is until  we were told to hit the bathrooms.  So down the hall we went where we proceeded to cram four classes into the boys bathroom.  The girls were looking at me as if to say, "seriously?", and the boys thought it was PE- they were pumped.  I even had one use it while we were in there.  His excuse was, "Well I shut the stall door!"  Anyway, the kids were having a ball while we teachers were thrown into claustrophobic attack breathing the stale, hot breath air, lack of air, carbon dioxide.  I was stuffed in the very back with the one kid who was terrified of storms, and once he finally joined the party, I moved to the front to get some much needed oxygen!

We were there for about an hour at least.  The kids did an awesome job.   Of course as a mom, I was concerned about my three kids; 2 were in the school, and Hampton was out at Mrs. Gay's (the bomb of all babysitters).  In a split second, I will go all Momma Bear on somebody if I feel like my kids are threatened.  But I just want to make a quick point.  We teachers will also go Momma Bear for our students.  Our number one concern is keeping them SAFE.  So while a situation like today may seem confusing or even hectic to outsiders, we had it all under control.  And our kids knew they were in good hands.  That's my quick point.

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!

This beautiful Saturday was spent building the much awaited and discussed FORT!  Paw Paw and BG came over with tools (Paw Paw even wore his cute little Home Depot apron) to help, while the girls hung out, built a bonfire,  and bossed the guys around.  We are not real sure what the boys (the little boys that is) did all day, but they emerged from the woods around dinner time covered in red dirt, exhausted, and ready to eat!

A Blog, Really?

That's what some of my friends said when I told them I was starting a blog.  The truth is, I have no clue how I will have time for this, but I want to give it a shot.  Surely I can post a couple of times a week at least.   I've read a few blogs and it seems like fun.  So, here we go!  In this very first official post, I want to start by introducing the Hawkins family.

 My husband, Jeremy and I started dating in college and have been together since.   After getting married, we had several years of the kid-free life.  It's hard to even imagine or remember now!  We adopted our first son, Luke, from Korea in 2004.  The second we laid eyes on that thumb sucking baby boy in the little pouch on the Korean escort, our lives were changed forever.  Two years later, Whit came home to us, also from Korea.  He had (and still has) a fire in his beautiful eyes that tell you he's UP TO SOMETHING!  And the rotten stink pot, Hampton, came home in 2008.  We were all in for it when the girl drama began!

Needless to say, we are wide open all the time.  As a family, we enjoy camping, hiking, going to the beach, and pretty much anything outside.  I try to fit in workouts and runs into any available time slot I can find to keep myself sane.  The kiddos are involved in various sports and activities which can make for a chaotic week, but I've learned to tell my OCDish self that it's ok if the beds don't all get made every day, and it's ok if the laundry is piling up.  It's even fine if we do have to dine in the swagger wagon some evenings.  The important thing is we are having a blast together, and as we are already seeing, time goes by extremely fast, and we don't want to miss a single moment we have with our precious gifts from God.