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!

Nighty Night

I have tons to blog about between updating you on River and how big he's getting, as well as Halloween! But this is a short, simple blog. And it's what's been going on here.

Last night (Halloween) Kolea was playing in her baby pack 'n play. We told her it was bedtime and she climbed in, wanting to go to sleep in it.

Well, it didn't happen. But she was cute.

Then, this afternoon (Nov. 1) I put her to bed for nap time. After a little while I went to check on my sleeping babe.

What is wrong with this picture?

Where did my child go?

Found her.

She is everything a spunky two year old should be... and MORE.

River Christian Henry

Yes, he is HeRe. He is BeAuTiFuL! And he is MiNe.

OK, I will give Ryan some credit too. :)

I know you just wanted to see a picture of him before I got to the boring stuff like how it all happened...

I was admitted to Castle Medical Center in Kailua, Hawaii on Friday, September 17th at 7:30 am to be induced. I was NOT very happy about this.

River was five days overdue at this point. He was chillin in his little cocoon. I was his incubator and he was getting bigger and bigger by the day. They told me to expect him to be between 8.5 and 9 lbs. I thought- no way. He's really not THAT big...

Here I was getting hooked up to the Pitocin.

My last pregnant picture. I'm HUGE! The reason I was so unhappy about being induced is because it makes for a "medical" birth. I had that with Hunter and was very sick all during and after his birth. Then I gave birth to both girls without ANY pain meds and it was a totally different experience. Difficult, yes. But well worth it!

Ryan demonstrating his thoughts on the childbirth process. Thanks babe. Love ya.

Ok- Are you ready for this story?

We arrived at the birth center at 7:30 am and I was not in a very happy mood. It's one thing when labor just happens and you're thrown right into it- it's clearly another when you are electing to go into that much pain. Knowing what's ahead of you and not knowing at the same time how severe it'll be b/c of the drugs (pitocin) involved. Anyhow, I was hooked up to pitocin and saline through an IV by 8:15 am. I came in already dialated to a 3 and 60% effaced- but had been that way for a couple of weeks. By 8:45 I began to feel the first contractions. They weren't very strong but they were more than I'd been feeling on my own. And that's how it went for the next TWO hours! It was SO boring. My mom was reading, Ryan was doing homework and I was just walking around with my little IV tree- totally bored to tears waiting for something more to happen.

My midwife came in and said at that rate I'd be having the baby on Sat, 9/18 b/c I wasn't even in labor yet. They were doing things very slowly and not wanting to be aggressive b/c of how I wanted it to be as natural as possible. Then she said they could up the pitocin every 15 min (which is normal) and get things really going but I could expect to dialate one centimeter an hour until delivery- 7 hours at least!! Or they could break my water and see if that would kick start things. I decided to go ahead with that. I was there. I was hooked up to the IV and I already felt defeated about having the kind of birth that I wanted.

At 10:50 am they broke my water. At 11:10 I had my first STRONG contraction. And that did it. I was in labor. I'd planned to walk around, do hydrotherapy, sit on the ball, etc. But I was thrown into it so hard and fast - (I was still hooked up to the pitocin) that all of those plans went out the window. I just wanted to relax as much as possible! At 11:45 am they checked me and I was dialated to a 6! I was progressing so they turned off the pitocin and unhooked all of the IV's from me- yay! At this point I began saying I wanted an epidural. I was still thinking I could be having these intense contractions for the next few hours. I had nothing to prove- and I didn't care! I wanted pain relief! But Ryan kept saying "I don't think that's what you really want." Then my mom asked if I could do another contraction, which I did- and this went on for a bit. The nurse checked me at 12:15 pm and said I was at an 8! I knew that it was too late for an epidural now but it didn't really matter b/c I also FINALLY realized that I was in the home stretch! The whole time I was wanting the epidural I was still thinking "one centimeter an hour until delivery" which of course had me totally freaked out b/c I could NOT do that! Anyhow, I set a goal to have this baby out before 1 pm. :) I focused on totally relaxing and allowing my body to do its thing! Pushing was a bit of a challenge b/c he was so big! But obviously everything was fine and he was born at 12:41 pm. So I was in labor- total- for just under two hours since they'd broken my water! I swear that has to be a new record. All the nurses and my midwife were in shock! It was kind of funny! They kept saying- "if we'd known that's all you needed, we would've done it in the beginning!" But of course, who can predict or even pretend to know the path childbirth will take? All I know is that I'm grateful that it happened so quickly and that I didn't end up getting the epidural- thanks to Ryan :) And for ME it's a big deal b/c it cuts my recovery time to a fraction of what it would be otherwise.

And here is the big boy in all his glory. If I hadn't seen the scale my self I wouldn't have believe I'd just pushed out a 9 lb baby!

My awesome nurse and midwife

Proud Grandma- a 10th time over!

Sweet baby, River! He still sleeps like that with his chin propped on his hands.

Brand, spankin newborns are probably my most favorite thing in the whole world.

Getting some daddy love.

When I originally began this post I'd planned for it to be more in depth. But in two days, it will have been 6 weeks since River's birth and that is pretty ridiculous that I haven't been able to post before now. However, I do have four children now. It is CRAZY HECTIC! There. I said it.

Now that you have the birth pics and story I can start doing updates! Yay!

BLOG? More like BlOb.

Obviously I've had a baby. Blogging? What's that? Blob? That's how I feel.

Birth story, pictures and updates soon to follow so stay tuned!

Kolea's Birthday

So before I begin, I'm laughing b/c while I was writing the title for this post I was thinking of the last post I did- about Ryan's birthday... and the NEXT post I will do-- about our new baby's birthday! No, he has not been born yet. He's still cooking away. I have a week until my due date. But I just thought how funny it was that I will have 3 birthdays in a row to blog about for the REST OF MY LIFE! Now on with the show!

Here is my beautiful baby, Kolea at one day old.

And here she is at TWO! How did THAT happen!?!

Kolea's birthday was on Sunday, August 29th. Luckily we have church at noon so I was able to make cupcakes that morning. She's loving that cake batter! Yes, I allow my kids to lick out of the bowl- with raw eggs in the mix. I've done it all my life... I don't think there is anything wrong with it. It's part of "kid passage." You HAVE to lick the bowl every chance you get!!
I am the Primary and Nursery song leader in my ward. Since we were only having family over in the evening to celebrate her birthday I decided to bring the party to nursery... After I let singing time for the nursery children I had them sing "Happy Birthday" to Kolea and I passed around these mini cupcakes! Kolea stuffed the entire thing in her mouth- it was hilarious!
Round #1: Ryan is lighting Kolea mini cake. And being VERY patient... she'd been waiting ALL day for this!
Half way through singing to her she blew out the candles!! It was hilarious! She (of course) didn't know that she ought to wait until the end of the song... So we had a good laugh!
Round #2: I asked Ry to light them again so I could try to get a pic of her actually "blowing" out the candles... this didn't go over too well with Kolea. Did I mention that she'd waited patiently ALL day?

She was out of PATIENCE! She's trying to blow out the one while Ryan is lighting the second!

We gave up and just let her blow out the second. It was really funny- but not worth the tears...

FINALLY!!

YUMMY!

All she did was lick the frosting off the cake- which is what I'd expected.

When she'd had her fill, we moved onto the presents... this was the look on her face when she saw her new (unwrapped and already put together) baby high chair and bed.

Ohhh what could it be??

"Bee-bee!"

And a diaper bad (with contents) to go with it all. She was in HEAVEN!

As was Gabriella. :)

Oh and the no shirt thing? I was busy getting dinner and putting the finishing touches on the birthday stuff... I'd asked Hunter to get clothes for Kolea and get her changed for me (out of her church dress) and this was as far as he got. Kolea refused to wear her shirt. Whatever- it's her birthday. She could be in her "birthday suit" for all I cared!

Happy Birthday Kolea! You are a light to our little family. We love you and are so grateful for you in our lives!!!

Ryan & Pike's Party

Ryan's birthday was August 23rd and our friend, Pike's birthday was the 24th. His wife, Lindsey and I decided to do a combined birthday party for the pair in our home on Monday, the 23rd. Sort of a pseudo FHE activity with dessert! We invited all of our friends and had a blast!

First, I had some help getting the candles lit on Ryan's ice cream cake and Pike's cupcakes. Everyone was waiting patiently...

We're singing "Happy Birthday" to them. I know Ryan LOVES ice cream cake, but maybe he really wanted cupcakes this year! He's sure eyeing those things in a funny way... :)

Make a WISH!

If at first you don't succeed; try, try again! Or let the little kids help. Hunter was more than willing to help blow out candles... what little boy doesn't LOVE fire!?!
And of course our beloved party goers- or comers. Whatever. We all had fun!
Birthday boy chatting with our friends and front neighbors, Luke and Ashley. Ashley is due only 3 weeks after me! So between our two houses on our little lot we'll soon have SEVEN kids to contend with! Haha!

Our Friends!

And more friends...

And more!! There was not a single dull moment at this party...

Especially with the number of kids that were running around. They got to eat an unlimited supply of Otter Pops too! They were SOOOO in heaven.
And of course, leave it to Miah and Michelle to come up with this fun little game to entertain all of those kids! They would fall simultaneously on the luv sac and the kid in the middle would fly sky high! They're holding onto Hunter so he wouldn't fly right off. Thanks for providing the entertainment for the kids guys! :)
It was a simple, yet fun night. Both guys seemed to have had a great time and it was nice to eat yummy cake and sit back and relax with our friends.