Like Mother, Like Daughter

Kolea loves her baby dolls. She cuddles, cradles, rocks, sings to and even kisses her baby dolls. No doubt she's seen me do this a time or two to her brother! Not to mention, experienced it herself (by me.) This is what we do with babies!

This is also what we do with babies...

She cracks me up! What a good little mommy!

Alligator Pond

This is a fun little keiki (kid) beach near our house. There is some reef that looks like an alligator, hence the name. We took River and Kolea one morning. Ryan had never seen River's reaction to dipping his toes...

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER!

Poor baby. :) It really isn't that cold. I think it's more of the shock that he didn't know what was coming. Let's try this again...

TAKE TWO!

Aww So REFRESHING!

And about a half hour later...

It's so exhausting being at the beach! :)

Halloween Festivities- Better Late Than Never

Those of you in Fort Collins know that each Halloween we have an annual Pumpkin Carving Party at our house. Last year, we moved to Hawaii on October 15th and unfortunately we didn't have any friends to invite over for a party! So this year we made up for it- BIG TIME!

See all of our yummy treats? I was so impressed that everyone went all out!

Here's another view- as well as some of the fun pumpkin carving happenings!

I'm not kidding- we meant business!

You go ladies! Carve those pumpkins!

Much of the men-folk babysitting. Good times!

Some of the fine ladies helping out in the kitchen. We were washing pumpkin seeds, preparing them for roasting...

I had the brilliant idea to use our salad spinner to spin off most of the water, to quicken the drying process. It was a great plan until I took my hand off the lid for ONLY a split second - and that's when it happened...

Pumpkin seeds FLEW out of the salad spinner going 95 miles an hour in a 360 degree radius. It was INSANE! And completely hilarious. I'd trashed the ENTIRE kitchen area with pumpkin seeds. Too bad we were all too busy laughing- and then cleaning up to think about taking a picture of it. :(

Thanks everyone for celebrating with us- we had a blast!

Hunter and Gabriella got dressed and ready for school on Friday, 10/29 to walk in their Halloween Parade. Hunter wanted to be a vampire. And I'm all about the costumes you put together. I think he looks great! Gabriella was my sweet angel and looked so pretty!

On Saturday, 10/30 we were lucky enough to live in a community where they wanted to celebrate Halloween a day early! We decided to slick back Hunter's hair this time and thought he looked much more the part. :) Gabriella is hilarious with her "no-teeth" smile.

Where is Kolea? She is being her ol' two year old self and not cooperating. She did not want to dress up or be in any picture. WHAT??

So here is our family of SIX! Kolea is wearing the dress I'd put her in that morning. Since she would put on her witch costume I found bunny ears and a tail in our Halloween bins and craftily put them on her! Hehehe- the sneaky things we parents do! So her little dress worked out to be a cute costume after all.

Ryan was a sport and dressed up as a Mexican "football" sports fan. I am obviously Pippy Longstocking (as if you couldn't tell by the hair.) Unfortunately we couldn't get things timed right with River for when he was awake and changing him- so he's in a boring ol' onesie. That's OK. We have many Halloweens to come!

See Kolea's cute little cotton-tail? She is adorable! When she's not acting like the devil that is... and I say that with as much love a mother can have for her darling little basket-case of a two year old! Ha!

Some fun costumes I wanted to showcase. Our friends, Axle and Jenny. They won our ward's costume contest AGAIN this year! Way to go guys!

The zebras are my bro-in-law and sis-in-law, David and Danielle. She has THE MOST BEAUTIFUL hair in the world. I covet (k, not covet- maybe envy) her hair. They used "hair glue" to try and make it stand up like a mane!! I forgot to ask them how long it took to wash out...

And my friend, Rachel. She was Glinda- the Good Witch of the North (?) I think it's the north... time to watch Wizard of OZ again. :)

Happy Halloween everyone! Or should I say, Thanksgiving??

I'm so out of it. We even blessed River the other day and I forgot to tell (or remind) my entire family. I think four kids have sufficiently killed enough of my brain cells and I should quite while I'm ahead...

I swear, any more kids and you might as well call me a vegetable.

Comparisons

I love taking pictures of River laying on our Luv Sac (if you couldn't tell) b/c of the bright red cover. It makes everything look better :) Don't ask me why- I'm not a photographer by any means. Maybe just b/c the fact that it's a solid color background so I'm able to focus on the person in the photo- who knows??

Anyhow, this is my darling baby at 9 days old. Dressed and ready for his first day at church- well at least part of church. We left after Sacrament meeting. :)

I actually wish I'd had him in a onesie so you could see how "bird-like" my little guy's legs are here! He's so scrawny- well, was!

This is River as of yesterday, 8 weeks old. He's filled out a bit- the little chunk! And he's a bit more... aware :)

Just thought it'd be fun to see these two pictures side by side and see how they compared.

River

I've been dying to do an update on River. Since my time seems SOOOOO short these days I decided to give you most of his pictures and a short synopsis on them. Kind of like a time line of events from the last eight weeks. You heard me- 8 weeks!

This is River today, Friday, November 12th at 8 weeks old!

So we start at the beginning. Saturday, Sept. 18th. Coming home from the hospital. Clearly I'm delusional and have my baby wrapped as though it's snowing outside... old habits die hard. It was in fact 85 degrees and sunny. A perfect Hawaiian afternoon.

Monday, 9-20: Saying goodbye to G'ma. We are all sad. :(

Friday, 9-24: Showing his "Zoolander face"

I LOVE little baby yawns! Aren't they so adorable when they scrunch up their little faces??

Saturday 9-25: A week old. Getting his first sponge bath.

And getting dressed after the bath. He LOVES the water! But then, all of my babies have been water babies :)

Wednesday, 9-29: River's first trip to the beach! We went to Alligator Pond.

Saturday, 10-2: River and the kids listening to General Conference.

Sunday, 10-3: Enjoying some bonding time with daddy after G'ma Ginger put him in a coma! :) Sorry G'ma we didn't have a good pic of you holding River during your trip... :(

Tuesday, 10-5: A quick trip to our favorite beach- Sunset!!

Same day, having a cuddle with tia Camille :)

Wednesday 10-6: 12 days old and another day at the beach! This time it's Shark's Cove. I dipped his feet in the ocean for the first time- and he screamed! Ha!

Friday, 10-8: Just chillin

Sunday, 10-17: One month old! He's all ready for church ;)

Saturday, 10-23: Hangin in the swing again! Mommy is so busy with the other children as well that often times River ends up here- a safe place until he can be held again...

Same day, we took a walk (2 minutes down the street) to our beach!

Saturday, 10-30: Hanging out in the car seat waiting to go trick-or-treating. No costume for him- he gets way to warm in just a onesie!

Saturday, 11-6: Sleeping at the beach again! This time we went to Turtle Bay and mommy got to swim for the first time postpartum. YAY!!

Today, Friday, 11-12: Eight weeks old and oh so cute!

River you are such a blessing in our lives- even though we feel like our world has been turned upside down! Mommy has gone off dairy and sugar for you. Yet, you still cry more than we think you ought to!! Of course, babies just cry. You've cried so much these last few day- who knows why?? But you've lost your voice! Is that even possible? Evidently. It sounds so cute, yet so sad all at the same time.

Well you definitely know how to get us wrapped around your little fingers- whenever you let out a little whimper we come running! We love you and are excited for the adventures that lay before you in life.

Lost Teeth & Super C

The morning of November 4th, Hunter lost his front tooth. It had been loose for a while and it finally fell out. He was SO excited b/c to him it meant getting $1 from the tooth fairy!

THEN...

The afternoon of November the 4th, Hunter PULLED OUT his other top tooth! Eek!

It was a loose, but not to the degree of his first tooth that had "fallen" out that morning. He came to me all bloody and excited crying, "the tooth fairy will bring me TWO dollars now!" :)

And he said it didn't hurt.
So, um, yeah. The tooth fairy TOTALLY FORGOT to come that night and he was crushed. We felt so bad- but the tooth fairy made an appearance the next afternoon and Hunter had his payday!

* * * * * * *

This is what was going on at my house last night. That is Ryan's sister, Lexie and her roommate, Maria. They were making candy leis for Hunter. Hunter was nominated as a Super Citizen again! Some of you may remember a post last Spring when he was a Super C in Kindergarten. So instead of spending a fortune on pre-made candy leis, I decided we ought to use the left over Halloween candy that I'd put away a while ago!

This one is super cute!

Hunter is bringing in his chair for the assembly. That building in the background with the awesome mural is where Hunter's classroom is.

Here is Gabriella in her Kindergarten class patiently waiting for the assembly to begin. They have one each month and we always pray for no rain. Unfortunately it rained twice during this assembly. Gabriella had left her sweatshirt in the classroom so I ran out to give her mine. :) I figure she has to stay at school and I can go home and change if needed. So I'd much rather be the one in wet clothes for the time being...
Here are the Super Citizens of the First Grade at Lai'e Elementary!
After they are done announcing all the children in the same grade, family and friends are welcome to go up to their student and congratulate them by giving them gifts. It's tradition to always give a lei when someone is being recognized. And for kids- often they get candy leis!

Tia Lexie giving Hunter his first of four leis! When I hugged him he said, "I hope I get lots of candy!" I pulled his leis up to his face and said, "what do you think all of this is!?!" He laughed. I think he was so overwhelmed that he wasn't really paying attention! Sooo like Hunter. :)

Hunter's teachers love him! He is well behaved and a great student. He does as he's asked and is quite a social little guy! In fact at his recent PT Conference that was the only mark that wasn't a top mark for him. He's so social that it got him in trouble a couple of times. :)

Hunter is a wonderful big brother although he LOVES to tease. He's almost 7, so I'm pretty sure that comes with the territory. He is a typical first child and tried to parent everyone else and make them follow the rules! But above all he loves to play and have fun with friends!! We love you Hunter and thing you are the best Super Citizen ever!

At the end of the assembly they also recognized the top fund raisers for a recent walk-a-thon that the school put on. They raised money for their school in order to buy better computer equipment and those types of things. They raised over $8,000! And Hunter was among the top 10 students in the school who individually raised the most funds. Way to go dude!