The Hawkins Family: Year in Review 2016

As we close out another year, I can't help but reflect back on the events of the past 12 months. We started out 2016 with a precious little baby! I have enjoyed watching Hooper grow this year and hit all those first milestones! Including his first birthday, which we celebrated in November. You can read all about it HERE. We celebrated our April birthdays HERE. I can't believe we will have a 16, 14 and 11 year old in just a few short months. 2016 brought a whole new set of parenting challenges by dropping a licensed driver on our plate. This is by far the hardest part of parenting yet. Teaching a child to drive, especially now a days, is the most stressful experience of my life. Although he is doing well and I am proud of him. He is a good driver. He also completed his 40 hours driver's education course this year which makes me feel even better about him being behind the wheel! He had 6 hours of road time and 6 hours of closed course driving (which he loved, because he got to do fun things like slam on breaks and fishtail on the course). But, I will say that I am glad to have gotten that "first" out of the way. Teaching a teenage boy to drive is no joke. One down, 4 to go...

The year would not be complete without some travel! We love to travel and visit new places. This year was no exception. We started the year off with a week in Disney with my sister, nephews and Mom. We went for winter break in February. We had the best time ever! The boys had never been to Disney World, so it was awesome to watch them experience it. We did Disney on a budget, but still had an amazing time. Read about it HERE. We spent spring break in Gatlinburg this year. It was so relaxing! We had the most amazing cabin (which we recently learned burned to the grown in the fires). We hiked, went to Dollywood, celebrated birthdays and enjoyed our time together as a family. It is always so good to reconnect with each other after months of life rushing us around. Read about our trip HERE. Kevin kept us going with an all expense paid trip to St. Thomas! We took Hooper with us (since he was totally breastfed) and left the other kids home. We had a great time! You can read about it HERE . We visited Panama City with friends (read HERE), then at the end of the summer took a family cruise (read HERE). We love to travel!

Somewhere in the summer we celebrated Kennedy's 5th birthday. She is the spunk of our family, that's for sure. We would be dull and boring without her. Read about her big day HERE!
As summer came to a close, we headed back into our busy schedules. Carter started a new school this year, Griffin Christian, and we have been very happy so far! The girls kept me in the road everyday with soccer and cheerleading (read about that HERE). Carter kept Kevin busy running around with football and basketball. I feel like we didn't see each other from September to December. With all the games, tournaments and practices.. we were not even able to sit down for family dinner. I don't like being so busy, but I am afraid with 5 kids that we may just have to get used to it. Kennedy also started taking riding lessons this year. She loves horses sooo much! She is very good at it to! Here are a few pics:

This fall, we were able to take one break. We snuck in a cruise last minute with some friends. It was not under ideal conditions.. but we did end up having a great time with our friends! The week before we left, Hooper fell down the stairs. He fractured his skull and had a small brain bleed. He was fine, but it was very scary. I was an emotional wreck and had a really hard time forgiving myself. It was my fault he fell. Anyways, the day before we were supposed to leave for the cruise, Hurricane Matthew hit. We had no idea if Port Canaveral was even going to be there after the hit! The cruise line kept us in lingo , and at the last minute decided to sail. It was not a good experience. The islands had been hit hard and we skipped several ports. Despite the chaos and stress, our friends made this trip a memorable one for us!

Hooper had a huge bump from his fall :(

We managed to make it through the busy fall. Thanksgiving this year brought a time of family and a time of sadness. My Grandmother passed away at the end of November. She has been sick for a long time, and I am so glad she is now with the Lord! I am also thankful that I got to see all my cousins and aunts and uncles. I don't get to see them all very often.

One of the last pictures I have of all the kids Grandmother.

We made into Christmas finally and We had a very low key, wonderful Christmas this year! I didn't get around to blogging about it, but here are a few pictures.