In honor of my new camera (thanks to a lot of you, and a special thanks to Emily and Jake for orchestrating it all), this Weekly Reader will be long on pictures, and short on words. I remember on the days that our TIME magazine used to arrive, Jacob would come home from school and immediately sit down for an hour and read it from cover to cover. Only later did I find out he was only looking at the pictures and the short explanations under them – fast food style current events! Take a glimpse at some of the latest current events from our family:

First photo: Welcome to Ethan Cole Hutchings who arrived on December 30^th just in time for a 2008 tax deduction! Isn’t he handsome? I was called to come up to the hospital just minutes before he was delivered and was lucky enough to witness the miracle of his birth. He cried for just a minute, then opened up his big eyes and started looking around. Within 30 minutes he had about a dozen visitors in his delivery room – things have definitely changed from when I was having babies. We had to beg and bend the rules to have Gary in the delivery room, and then later only select family members could visit the new baby and that was after they had thoroughly sterilized their hands and covered themselves with hospital gowns. Ethan is still spending a lot of time looking around when he is awake, and very little time crying. Emily is ‘training’ him already and he is on a routine. I’ve not had nearly enough grandma time with him.

Second photo: This little gal, Lauren Mae Crofts, arrived two weeks early but still didn’t quite make a 2008 tax deduction for her mom and dad. Born Jan 5, her mom said she came way too fast. Rachel likes to enjoy every moment of labor and delivery and she got cheated on this one. This new little gal is beautiful and I can hardly wait to meet her in person. Julie, Claire, Ella, Lincoln, and myself are leaving for Dallas early in the morning in the reliable and old suburban. What’s another 1500 miles added on 250,000 anyway? Brian took the week off and has been taking good care of Rachel. Kate, with Taylor as her assistant, is reported to be taking good care of Lauren.

Third and fourth photos: ‘Visions of sugarplums danced in their heads!’ The excitement in Sofi and Lili’s eyes is a preview for the excitement at Hickory Hill Farm as Christmas drew near. Gary and I did host our annual ‘Older Folks Christmas Dinner Party’ the weekend before Christmas. We had a big crowd and some interesting white elephant gifts….like a six pack of beer! The college kids all made it home safely. Chase Verzello tagged along with Jacob and spent a few nights with us. Gary invited Rolando, our Spanish speaking carpenter/fix-it-up guy, to bring his family to our home for Christmas Eve. We thought he was bringing seven others along and we told them we would have dinner at 6:00. We planned a big Christmas feast for a big group. At 4:00 they showed up – Rolando and three of his brothers – not quite seven but hopefully four hungry men. At 4:30 they told Jake Sr., in Spanish, that they had to leave about 5:00. At this point I realized there had been some serious miscommunication between Rolando and Gary when the invitation was extended, which often happens when we only speak English and they only speak Spanish and Jake H. isn’t around to interpret! To make a long story short, when I started pulling out the bread and milk for them instead of the ‘feast’ whose aromas were filling the kitchen, they changed their mind and stayed for the evening. They even joined us for our traditional Christmas Eve reading of the First Christmas from the Book of Luke, complete with grandkids bringing their selected nativity piece to the scene, and our voices joining for carols as the story progressed. It ended up being a lovely evening filled with love, laughter, good food, remembrance, and sharing of stories and testimony. We sent our guests home laden with food and hopefully touched by the Spirit of Christmas. That night the stockings were hung with care after we bid farewell to Josh, Dagmar, Jasper, and the sugar plum fairies.

Fifth photo: You’ll see a group of us perched in a big old tree on St. Simon’s Island. We were lucky enough to find a beautiful home on the beach available starting on Christmas Day and through the weekend with time to play on the beach, swim in the pool, pedal on a ‘bycycle built for six’, compete in our own American Idol contest, play Ticket to Ride, and even sleep….a little.

Sixth photo: ‘I saw momma kissing Santa Claus….’ I mean, I saw Julie kissing Christopher! Chris Ricks joined us for five days before heading to Israel for a semester abroad. Julie is now a lonely heart. Chris is just one of those guys you can’t help but love. While he was here we went to Cirque Soleil/Jungle Fantasy on New Year’s Even. What a great show – fabulous costumes, music, and performance. The girls made sure Chris hit all of the hot spots: El Charro, Red Neck Gourmet, Café Pig. In case those weren’t southern induction enough, we bequeathed a bright red University of GA sweatshirt on him to replace all of his sweatshirts that Julie has taken over.

Seventh photo: Luke with his mom and Dad on the day of his sealing in the Atlanta temple, Jan 11. The sealing was over before I even knew it began J Because I was the lucky one that got to bring the boys into the sealing room from the children’s center, that meant I was supposed to help Luke put his hand on top of his mom and dad’s while they knelt across from each other at the altar. The problem was, Luke didn’t want to his hand to be put anywhere, so he started protesting which meant I stopped hearing, and the next thing I knew it was over and people were getting in line to congratulate Jake and Emily….and Luke. So, it was different than I expected. Cooper and Ethan got to witness all of this, too – and so maybe you could ask them for some more details. After pictures, we all gathered for lunch at La Madelaine’s: Hutchings (including Butch, Debbie, and daughter Jamie); Josh, Dagmar and family, Jana, Wayne, and Kailey; Jason, Claire, and family, Grandma Jewkes (hooray – she is here for a stay!), JD and Meredith Parker Ethington, and most importantly….Julie! We thought Jake Jr. was coming and missed him when he didn’t – he qualifies for ‘most important’, too.

Eighth photo: Luke and Ethan all dressed in white for their blessing day. Jake H. joined the ‘double blessing club’ (elite members are Josh and Gary) for having the privilege as Dads/Melchizedek Priesthood holders to give two blessings back to back. Jake managed to do it without having twins and Luke was a BIG sensation, and Ethan was a SMALL sensation. Jake gave wonderful blessings joined by the boys Grandpa Hutchings and Poppy Jewkes, Josh, Jason, Wayne. Special weekend for Jake and Emily who seem to almost overnite have grown from two to a family of five!

Since the last Dec 16 Weekly Reader Amanda, Hannah, Christian, Luke and Lucy have all celebrated birthdays. Lucy had her birthday dinner at ‘Lucy’s El Patio’ and that really is the name. Every time they would pass this restaurant on the way to church, Lucy would say, ‘There’s my El Patio!’ She had a Fancy Nancy party this week just like her big sister Madi had in December.

I’m going to quote Ella for the close of this Weekly Reader Photo Edition. She had her first close up of a temple yesterday at Luke’s sealing. Here is how it went for her. ‘Mommy, there’s a man on top of the temple! ‘So this is where Heavenly Father lives?’ ‘I don’t want to go home, I haven’t gotten married yet.’ You’ll see her in the final photo enjoying some freedom on the temple grounds.