The Florida Hawthornes

I was able to chaperone both Taylor and Kaitlyn's field trips this year. It was kind of bitter sweet.

First was Taylor's field trip to the World of Nations.  We live in the suburb of a larger city that sponsors an annual event full of food and festivities from countries all over the world.  We woke up extra early that morning because I needed to drop Savannah off at the sitters.  The sitter had texted me the night before letting me know that she wasn't feeling well, but had arranged a "plan b" as a back up in case she wasn't any better by morning.  A bit nervous to let go of my control freak nature and go with the flow I decided to trust all would work out. 

Needless to say my new founded go with the flow didn't sit well with me.  When I texted to confirm my sitter was feeling alright and could keep Savannah I found out from her husband that she had an awful night and wasn't any better.  Trying to stay calm, which is very hard for this control freak to do, I called "plan b"; there was no answer.  Now I was freaking out!  I could see the worry on Taylor's face in my peripheral vision.  What was I going to do?

My friend Katie had just watched Savannah last week while I was in Utah and I really didn't want to bother her again, but I was desperate and she really has been one of the only people I can truly count on, besides Savannah LOVES her!

A phone call later and Katie was to the rescue.  I headed to the school to drop the girls off early.  I told Taylor to let her teacher know that I was trying my best to make it, but could he please add her to another group should I not make it back in time.  Thankfully he had only assigned Taylor to me as a chaperone.  We were going to join two other groups for her to be with her friends. 

On top of everything else it was raining.  Why does it always have to rain when I am in a hurry?  I behaved myself, followed all of the traffic laws, and barely made it back to the school in time to follow the bus. 

Taylor's face when she saw me was worth all of the stress and chaos to get there.  I could tell she was relieved.  Then within a split second I was beginning to second guess just how worth it all was to be there.  My Taylor who use to hold my hand during field trips and not leave my side was now leaving me in the dust heading off to explore the festivities with her friends.  They would say "Hey Taylor look at this" and she would laugh and respond with a "so cool" or "ewe", but when I would point something out I would get the "MOM" look as if to say, "please don't". 

I learned today that we have entered the next phase of parenting.  The one where she wants me there, but just in the background, like a security blanket, comforting, but silent.  I remember what it was like and I remember that was the type of chaperone my mom always was, there in case I needed her, but silent until I did.  She understood and I am beginning to understand. 

It rained the entire day.  The field where most of the nations were displayed was a mud pit.  It was fun to sit back and watch Taylor interact with her friends.  She really is becoming a lovely young woman.  At least she let me get close enough to take a picture.  Can't you see the excitement on her face?



My next field trip was  a bit different.  I was going to chaperone Kaitlyn's field trip to the museum.  This time Savannah was allowed to tag along. 


Kaitlyn and her friend Suzanna were the only two girls in my group, talk about score!  It was so cute seeing Kaitlyn's personality come to life.  She tried so hard to get a butterfly to land on her in the Butterfly Rainforest.  The guide told us at the beginning that the secret to have a butterfly land on you is to be extra still.  I had to keep telling Kaitlyn to move, otherwise she would have stood their all day long waiting. 
 


Kaitlyn loved the new exhibition Titanoboa: Monster Snake. The Florida Museum of Natural History scientists recently discovered 60-million-year-old remains of the largest snake in the world, Titanoboa cerrejonensis, in a Colombian coal mine. Measuring 48 feet long and weighing 2,500 pounds, this massive predator could crush and devour a crocodile. The girls were adorable wanting to pose in front of the exhibit pretending to be frightened!

Savannah really is the sweetest baby.  This is how she spent the morning, in her stroller, loving on Sonni the Bunny, and sucking on her two fingers.

The last event of the day was the water relay.  They were to take a cup full of water from one bucket, run across the yard dumping their cup of water into another bucket, only to run back to start handing off the cup to their next team mate to begin again.  The first team to the selected height wins.


From the looks of it the first annual "Aunt Jodi Field Day" seems to have been a success.  I can't remember who won, all I know is that we made it through without any injuries and trips to the emergency room, which denotes success to me.

Since they were already wet from the water cup relay I decided, what the heck, let's go swimming!





The YMCA had a family fun day and we decided to squeeze it into our busy Saturday schedule in between soccer games and volleyball camps. Kaitlyn absolutely loved it. She waited in the hot sun for what seemed like forever to ride a pony for about a half second. There was a fire truck and several activities for the girls to enjoy.

Taylor on the other hand is slowly outgrowing these type of "kids" activities. Nothing seemed to catch her eye and we couldn't even get her to compete with Kaitlyn in the long jump.

Savannah spent most of her time in the stroller, as usual, taking in the sites and enjoying the ride.  I've told Nathan  for a while now that she is pure Hawthorne, looking just like him, but I can't help and see a resemblence of her cousin Jamilyn in the top right picture below.  There is no mistaking the fact she is truly a Hawthorne.

 

Even though our Saturdays are filled with places to go and people to see I am so thankful we took the time to create some memories as a family.  As I am finding out all too quickly, it won't be long before my girls are all grown up and "family fun days" such as these are far and few between. 

We began Taylor's birthday by running errands, something she wasn't too excited about, but I had to get her out of the house so her class from church could decorate her room. I can't believe Taylor is 12 years old and will be a part of the Young Women's Program (youth) at church.

When we got home she was in total shock. I made her think she was in trouble for not cleaning her room. I had told her before we left that she needed to clean her room (I knew she'd be embarrassed if it was a mess when they came to decorate it) and so when I went to the back of the house I hollered for her, making her think that it wasn't "Mommy clean".  The bottom right picture is of her when she first went into her room.  You can see the surprise in her expression.






All of her friends and even two long distant cousins (thanks Grandma and Papa) were able to make it except for one...

Back (left to right):  Ashley Crews, Arora Bishop and Camilla May
Front (left to right): Ashley, Taylor, Courtney, and Jessica Eves




By the end of the night Taylor wasn't feeling so well.  She said her throat was hurting.  Needless to say, three strep tests later and both Kaitlyn, Taylor and myself had strep throat.  The cousins, Courtney and Ashley were supposed to stay and celebrate all weekend long, but ended up heading back to Jamie's where Courtney stayed until her parents could get her.  I couldn't blame my brother and sister for not wanting their girls to catch strep too, but Taylor was devastated!  Even though I don't think she meant it, Taylor said this was the "worst birthday ever"!  I wanted the night to be my little chocoholics dream, but I think it turned into a nightmare instead for her.

Side Note:  Party preparations...My favorite bakery of course made the cake.  I went to pick it up on Friday morning not only to have it crooked, but look nothing like I had described to the bakery manager (some people just do not have any vision).  I was so disappointed and almost in tears.  I had dreamed of this cake for weeks, searched the Internet night after night, and finally had created the perfect combination for a chocoholics dream cake.  I called Nathan immediately because I didn't know what to do.  He told me to take it back right now and so I did.  A few hours later I had not one, but two cakes (they gave me the first one as well as the fixed one) and it still didn't look like I wanted.  So I had to go to work, bought a box of chocolates and worked my magic.  It wasn't what I pictured, but tasted delicious and no one knew the difference. 

Spring break was a busy, busy week for our little family. We began the week by going to visit my little sister Jamie and her family. The girls love spending time with their cousins. With Mama and Daddy serving in the temple the beginning of each week we thought it would be perfect to split our week up. A few days with Jamie on the east coast and the the remainder of spring break relaxing at the Watkins' resort.

While at Jamie's house we played on the beach, went to the park and even hired a babysitter so the Mommies could play, a.k.a shop.  Melanie, Jamie's best bud from high school, and her girls stayed over too.

Taylor has been working on her Faith in God program since she turned 8 years old. She has been setting goals and working towards accomplishing them for the last four years. One of the projects she decided that she wanted to do was plan a Daddy/Daughter activity. She made the invitations, reminded the girls to bring their dads, made the decorations, planned the games and spiritual message. She even conducted and spoke during the event.

A couple of months before the night we were talking and I asked her what she wanted the theme to be.  She decided that she wanted to use a talk by Sister Elaine S. Dalton, General President of the Young Women Program for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  In Sister Dalton's talk she asked how do you raise a righteous daughter and her response was  to "love her mother".  Taylor really liked that message and wanted to show the Mormon Message of her address to the girls.  It was just a few minutes long and I helped her make a DVD of the video.   



The entire night was a huge success.  The girls loved it and so did their dads!  The first game Taylor decided to do was a "Get to Know You" questionnaire where the daughters answered questions about their dads and the dads answered questions about their daughters.  The second game was a little bit trickier.  You tied a piece of string to both of the dad's wrists and then tied another piece of string to their daughters wrist except before you tied the end to their last wrist you crossed the string under their dad's string.  The object is to uncross the strings without untying the string.  This was funny, but not as hilarious as the last game, "Cinderella's Not So Slipper".  In this game the Dad's left the room and were asked to take off their socks and shoes.  They rolled up their pants and hid behind a chalkboard.  Their daughters then had to guess who's feet belong to their dad.  The girls loved it and the dads were great sports. 

I am so proud of Taylor and the young lady she is becoming.  I love seeing her in action.  Most of the time she is very reserved, but when you get her excited or passionate about something you'll see the light in her eyes come on and all you have to do is sit back and watch her go into action.  It's hard to believe she'll turn 12 soon.  

Kaitlyn's 1st grade class had an Easter Party and Picnic at school the week before Spring Break. It is always an adventure when I take Savannah up to the school for activities in the classroom, but this time it wasn't too bad. I really enjoy spending time with my sweet little K.B. She is one of a kind and I wouldn't have it any other way.



P.S.  The jelly beans with the rabbit art project in the top right of the picture were "bunny poop".  Kaitlyn thought that was hilarious and if you know my K.B. her laugh is contagious.  Susanna is the little girl in the bottom right of the photograph and she is Kaitlyn's best friend at school.

It is hard to believe that little Miss Kinley is one years old. We celebrated her birthday by going to Grandma and Papa's house, eating cake, roasting hot dogs, and watching a movie.

Taylor's science project that she completed in partnership with her friend Hayden was selected to represent their school in the County Science Fair. The experimented to find out which type of cup material, glass, Styrofoam, or plastic would keep your ice coldest the longest. The Styrofoam won hands down. We are so proud of her and the young lady she is becoming. Judging occurred during the day so she was allowed to miss school, ordered a special lunch and yummy smoothie. She loves smoothies!

 

Later that night we went to the Fair Grounds for the Open House. Her friend Jessica came with us, which made Taylor so happy. We treated the girls to dinner out. They were ecstatic.

So after we returned from our weekend away, Little Miss Kaitlyn started running a fever and complaining of a sore throat. I immediately took her into the pediatrician to be tested for strep throat and sure enough she tested positive, then Savannah and yep, I followed.

We were all miserable. I can't remember the last time I felt that lousy. Savannah ended up developing complications and got Scarlet Fever from the strep virus. There really isn't anything you can do other than continue taking the antibiotics and treat the rash symptoms (if any). Fortunately she was a trooper and just looked like a strawberry for a few days.

Those tiny red bumps were all over her body.

Kaitlyn played soccer again this spring. We found another league other than the "Y" and decided to try it out because it was less expensive, more practices and what seemed nicer fields. Well needless to say we will be headed back to the "Y" this fall. The fields seemed to flood when the sky was just thinking of rain so games were cancelled a lot, coordinating our "volunteer" hours was a headache, and there were too many games on Sundays.

On the bright side, Kaitlyn really does love playing. She is such a fast runner, but gets intimidated when all of the players are running towards the same ball. She played goalie a few times, stopped several goals, enjoyed playing defense and even scored a goal while on offense.



I love watching my girls do something they enjoy. It invigorates me and motivates me to always encourage them to participate in extra curricular activities.

I was thrilled when I found out that Nathan was going to be headed south to work a marathon that Publix was sponsoring in the same town where my sister Jamie lives. The girls and I headed south on Thursday evening. Nathan and I had a mid morning appointment with Mom Hawthorne's financial advisor and Jamie was going to watch the girls for me.

 Later that afternoon while Nathan worked I drove Taylor and Ashley over to Orlando for my brother Chad to look at Taylor's foot as a follow-up to a medical procedure she had performed a few weeks ago. It was nice getting to see Chad and Natalie, Chandler too. Chandler came home from school right about the same time we were leaving. Their home in Orlando is beautiful and it brought back memories of when we lived in Lake Mary and I worked off of Colonial Drive. When traffic on I-4 would get backed up I would cut those the quaintest neighborhoods, just like theirs, the type you would see in the movies having block parties and kids trick-or-treating. I shared my feelings with Natalie and she said that is exactly what her neighbors do.

In the evenings the girls stayed the night at Jamie and Jeremy's home while I was able to go out to eat with Nathan and stay with him at the hotel. Saturday morning Jamie and Jeremy met us in downtown for the kids to participate in the fun race. It was literally 30 seconds. Jamie and Jeremy misunderstood and thought the race was later than it was and barely made it on time.

By the time we got to the starting line we had missed the instructions and didn't realize they were going to be doing it in heats of age groups so all of our 7 children ranging in ages from 11 to 3 ran in the 5 and under age group. It was hilarious. After the race the kids enjoyed oranges from Uncle Nathan's sponsor tent, donuts from Duncan Donuts (another sponsor) and pizza too.





Later that day was Hayden's Star Wars birthday party!  The cousins had a blast and Jamie did an amazing job with all the games and decorations.  I wish I would have thought to take pictures before the kids devoured all of the treats!  The cupcakes were the best...Storm Troopers, which I think is a great way to describe our crazy kids!