Highlights of Hawaii 2010

We were quite a scene at the airport.

All true, they have the best shave ice.

The Polynesian Cultural Center

Ethan doing exactly what he does everyday at home.

Fun at the beach.

Our second visit to the north shore for shave ice.  We all preferred the shave ice at the Aloha General Store to the shave ice at Matsumoto's.  It was unanimous.  

I loved watching Tyler snorkel around the pool.  I was proud of my boys, they all snorkeled this year and we saw some pretty good stuff.  Including a turtle, right at our resort.  It was pretty neat!

The Pali lookout.

USS Arizona.  Of all the places, Kirk and I ran into a friend here from high school.  Turns out he was even staying at the same place as us, what a small world!

Hanging out before dinner.

These pancakes were worth the drive to Kailua.  Banana pancakes with macadamia nut sauce, they are to die for.

Death by pancakes.

Cousins at the beach.

Getting shave ice on the north shore.

At Pearl Harbor.

Aloha 'Oe-Farewell to you, Hawaii. Can't wait to go back!

My Little Brother

Yesterday my little brother got married.  I am very happy for him and love his new wife.  Today they are in Hawaii and I wish I was too.  All the wedding events turned out lovely.  The best part was I didn't have to make dinner for 2 nights in a row.  I am sure that wasn't the best part for them;)

What I Thought Was Cute Is Actually Disgusting!

Remember when this happened?  I was really heart broken when my kids destroyed all of those eggs.  They were such a pretty shade of light blue and I just thought it was so neat that the birds had made a nest on my door.  We recently discovered another nest in a different wreath I had on the door.  It quickly filled with 4 eggs.  I was busy preparing for our vacation and never got pictures.  The kids have been really excited this time and careful not to hurt them.  

When we got home from our vacation, we had little things that barely resembled birds.  Again I was busy and didn't get a picture, but today I did.  They are starting to look more like birds.  And they are disgusting!  There is bird poo everywhere and it was all I could do to even take pictures, it makes me sick.  I am dying to throw the wreath in the garbage, clean the door, paint it, and retire all my spring wreaths.  Of course I won't do anything until they are gone, but it is killing me!  Nothing about these babies birds is cute.  And yes, that is bird poo that you see all around them and on my wreath, gross!

My Son, The Super Hero

It reads-

With the power of Hercules and strength of He-Man and skill of Achilles and bravery of Percy Jackson, I David is the best hero of all time.

This is what I found this morning on his white board.  If only he had added "with the spelling and grammar of an English major,"  just kidding, he is pretty great, you can tell he thinks so too:)

Blog Trouble

So I was trying to make a slide show of our pictures from Hawaii.  I easily made one with smilebox, but when I went to post it, it said it could not be printed without a fee and it would include their ads.  I deleted it, it made me mad.  Then I started doing another one, it is still downloading, not nearly as easy as the first one, and I thought to look back at slide show I did last time we went to Hawaii.  It is not even on my blog anymore!  Where do they go?  What is the best way to document a lot of pictures?    

It Feels Like Christmas

This morning we woke up to 4 inches of snow.  All the snow on the ground made the excitement of our upcoming vacation even more powerful.  It sort of feels like Christmas-there is snow, cold weather, anticipation, and excitement in the air.  It's just too bad vacations can't last forever.  Tomorrow is going to be a good day:)

What is left of our chain...

The boys are all packed!

Hawaii, here we come!

Chomp, Chomp!

My Sunday nap was interrupted.  The argument started over a bag of popcorn.  We have a box of popcorn from Costco in the pantry, more than enough for us and the neighborhood, but I guess not enough to prevent fighting.  

Latest Adventures

Not much has been going on around here, just the usual.  I had to go to Michaels the other day to pick up some stuff for my mom.  While we were there, she said to buy Tyler a treat for her (since he had been sick, but he is fine now).  Anyway, he looked around at all the stuff and chose a foam army hat and a foam gun that makes noises when you pull the trigger.  It kept him happy and he played with them all day long.  While he was trying to decide on his treat, he also saw a pirate telescope for $1 that was quite tempting.  The next day he begged to go back to "Mikes" with his $1 so that he could buy himself that telescope.  We went back and got it along with some shrinky dinks.  My kids had never done them and I remembered loving them when I was little, so we made some and had fun.  Tyler even blessed the shrinky dinks in his prayer that night.   I guess we should go to Michaels more often.

Recently we went to Barnes and Noble as a family.  David says that is his favorite store and they must make a lot of money.  I don't know why we don't go there more often as well, we always have so much fun.  We went in search of some good reading material for the plane ride of our upcoming trip.  Ethan was really hoping to buy Indian in the Cupboard, but someone had come and bought all of them that day.  He was sad and I promised him we would go back, maybe that's what we should do today...

The boys are off track and we have officially enjoyed our first lazy morning.  I love seeing them laying around in their pajamas reading.  Jacob is loving the Percy Jackson series and we get to hear about all things Greek from him.  

Kirk has been really busy at work.  For the longest time I have been so grateful for his job and that he is busy, even if he has to travel, but now I am getting tired of him being so busy.  I think he is too, we both need a vacation.  I am still grateful for his job and I guess I am glad that he is busy.  It is better than the alternative.

I have been busy in search of the perfect swimming suit.  It has been a difficult job.  My brother and his family are coming with us.  Last weekend we went out to dinner with them and some of my brothers.  My sister in law and I were discussing the trip and discovered we ordered some of the same swimming suits.  I would be happier about this if she weren't so tall and skinny and pretty.  Oh well...

A coupon came in the mail for "glitter toes"  I thought that might be fun to try, so I did, and they were cheap.  I am not sure I love them.  I am now debating whether or not to have them taken off before our trip.  I don't even know how to get them off, little did I know that glitter toes involved gel, like acrylic nails.  

Maybe someday I will look back at this picture and think, "what nice toes I used to have," but right now I am wondering why I posted this.  

Grateful

Tyler is sick.  I hate seeing my kids sick.  He is usually so full of life, so when he slows down, it is so noticeable.  Tonight I gave him lots of medicine, turned on the humidifier, and rubbed Vicks on him.  Minutes later he was upstairs saying he might throw up.  I figured it was just because of all his coughing, didn't think much of it.  Then he cuddled with me and I could hear his crackling lungs.  We went right to the doctor.  Tyler finally quit coughing on the drive over and even fell asleep.  I nearly turned around, but realized if not tonight, I would probably be there tomorrow, so we went ahead.  As soon as they took him back, he threw up all over.  Poor little guy, he only came down with a cough on Saturday.  They think he has pneumonia.  So now we will give him more drugs and wait for him to heal.  This is a first for us, thankfully, and hopefully the last.  As we sat and waited for doctors and x-rays, I reflected on the day and felt grateful I was able to get a nap in earlier.  And I am grateful for kidscare that is open late on the weekends, and for pharmacies that never close, and for a husband who went to fill the prescriptions.  Tyler will get better and I am especially grateful for that! 

Easter Sunday

The day started out with yummy food and we ate and ate all day long.  For that reason, I am glad it is over.

We dyed Easter Eggs and later ate them.

I got interviewed by Chelsey, my soon to be sister in law.

Grandma got teased by Tyler...

We did lots of puzzles while we listened to conference....

We had an Easter Egg hunt after the snow melted.  We have had more snow in April than we had in February, and I am ready for that to change!

It ended with a bath in the big tub...

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

Books

Just before I delivered the twins, I was invited to join a book club.  I remember we read Cold Sassy Tree, I think.  Anyways, a good friend had invited me and I knew another girl from my ward, the rest of the girls were new acquaintances for me.  It was so fun to make new friendships, hear new ideas and opinions, and come away feeling better because of it.  All of the girls had such different life experiences.  Some were single, some had careers, some were married and had children.  I continued to attend after the twins were born and then we later moved away.  It was such a positive experience for me that I was anxious to do something similar in my new neighborhood.  A book club got started and it was good.  A good book can get me through a bad day, I love to read.  It was strong for awhile and then it would fizzle, pick back up, and fizzle again.  After awhile it died.  I found myself wanting to read and needing that association, so we started back up again and on a schedule that really seems to work, and I must say that I love it!  I really enjoy hearing everyone's opinions, and I love that everyone has an opinion!  The girls that I meet with are intelligent and capable of good conversations.  It is always so fun to meet because they are friends that I don't get to see very often.  And it gives me something good to read.  I love book club.  Next up I am reading Left to Tell.  I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of it. 

It's A Big Chain!

This is a long chain, but the countdown is still on!  We will take one off each day until the day we leave on vacation.  Inside each ring, I wrote down something we will see or do.  The boys were excited to take one off this morning.  It is helping us all get excited and giving us something to look forward to.

Embarrassing

Today Kirk and I went to primary to hear Tyler give the closing prayer.  He was very excited and waved to us when we got there.  I had asked him earlier if he wanted one of us to help him, but he said he didn't need any help.  He offered quite the prayer asking for lots of things and failing to list any thanks.  But the part that got me laughing and made my face turn red was when he asked to, "bless the mommies to be nice."  If his teachers and the rest of primary haven't already wondered what is going on in our home, I am sure they are now. 

Lost

Digging up old pictures of the twins forced me to realize I need to take more pictures and organize the ones that I have.  Tyler, being the last child, has never had his pictures organized.  This was a slow week for me and I decided to start the process.  I spent one day working on it only to realize I am missing all of the pictures from his birth.  I have no pictures from the hospital or anything.  I do not know where they went and they haven't turned up.  It makes me so sad.  So for now, this is about as good as it gets.  I guess there are worse traumatic things in life....

We Are Rich!

This morning before the boys left for school, we were gossiping about the neighbors.  One of our neighbors put up a for sale sign.  They happen to have a little boy the same age as my twins, and they consider him a close friend.  The twins were very upset.  We discussed life, big houses, and why people might want to move.  Ethan chimed in and said, "We are rich in friends not money!"  And he is right.  Although losing great neighbors is hard, we feel so blessed for all our good neighbors and friends and we really are rich!   

A Trip Down 9 Years of Memory Lane

The twins turned 9 years old last week.  They are getting big and old.  Sometimes I feel the same way:)  It was exciting, just like all birthdays are.  It was Saturday and despite the nice weather in the background, it snowed all day.  So we stayed inside and spent some time together as a family.  Even though the boys are growing up, I love that they are still in a stage where they love legos.  Kirk and I are really good at legos too.  We have helped put together a lot of them!

Since my babies were born before blogging, I decided to put up some old pictures of them.  It was a lot of fun picking them out.  And since I don't scrapbook, I better scan a few photos in once in awhile, so here goes....

The boys turned 1 right as we bought our house.  We were a small family back then and I didn't even have enough stuff to fill all of my cupboards.  David and Jacob used to get in the lazy susan and ride around.  They thought it was hilarious!  I have two of these in my kitchen.  The other one was full of tuperware.  Another one of their favorite things to do was to throw all of the tuperware to the landing at the bottom of the stairs.  They would take out one piece at a time, walk to the top of the stairs, chuck it, and go back for another.  Sometimes I just left it down there.

I love this picture because it was taken at the house we lived in before we bought our home and it also has our old car in the background.  We had beautiful trees at this house and we spent our Sunday afternoons laying on the grass underneath them.  

This picture was taken soon after we came home from the hospital.  The twins were my littlest babies, even though they didn't stay that way for long.  I loved taking care of them all day.  

Even though David isn't looking at the camera, I still love this picture.  Our house was within walking distance of my grandma and we would walk over to her house often.  This was taken on one of our visits.  I also love it because I look so happy.  I really was so happy to be a mom and literally loved my life.  

I used to walk every morning with my dear friend Stefanie.  I bundled up those boys and off we would go.  They loved it!

This picture was taken on their blessing day.  As soon as they were born, it just seemed like life picked up and from then on it has been one event after another.  The time has gone by too quickly!  I remember Kirk giving Jacob a beautiful blessing, then handing him off to me and taking David and giving him a beautiful blessing as well.  I also remember I used to have to wake up at 6:00 am to get us all ready and fed for 9:00 church.  

As the boys got bigger, sometimes I would prop them up with their bottles as I folded laundry or did something else.  Looking at all of these pictures, I forgot how close they have been their whole lives.  No wonder David freaked out when he got his own room.  They have always been so close and they still are, though they both enjoy having their own rooms.  

And I love this picture because they are both full of mischief, just like they are now, goofing off is still their favorite past time.  I love those boys and I still love being their mom and I am still happy, I just look a lot older and more tired.  And that is because I am:)

My twins are special little guys and I look forward to all of the events, accomplishments, and learning that we will have together many more years!

Making Up For Last Night

You saw all that yummy produce, right?  Well, last night I made 2 different salads for dinner.  They had lots of ingredients, took lots of time, and tasted heavenly.  At least they did to me.  My boys ate them better than I thought, but it was the big boy who surprised me.  He seemed a little out of sorts.  About an hour after dinner he complained about being hungry and jokingly mentioned that I should not make salad for dinner.  I told him he could make dinner any time he wants and that it wouldn't hurt my feelings.  He replied that I could make a living any time I want.  Good thing it was a joke, we had fun laughing about it.  So tonight we had steak.  It is amazing the joy that steak brings to my family of boys.  Every single one of them was soooooooo excited for dinner tonight.  It was delicious!  We had steak, asparagus, left over salad :) and bread.  If you haven't tried Pugliese bread you should, I love it, we ate a whole loaf of it.  Now the dishes are done and the house is quiet, my favorite time of the day!

Look What Made My Day....

This morning I got all this produce for $15.  It really made my day and I so look forward to eating it all.  We made smoothies this morning with the fruit (the strawberries and blueberries are already gone) and tomorrow we are going to eat a lot of yummy vegetables.  If you are what you eat, I can see why healthy people look so good.  Doesn't this produce look yummy?  I just love it!

I bought myself a treat today.....

Happy Easter to me!