No!

The word "No!" seems to be used quite often around here these days. We are at that stage where he wants to touch and break or eat everything. When he doesn't get want he wants, he throws a mini-tantrum and stomps his foot repeatedly on the floor and whines, until he moves on to the next breakable object to destroy. We knew that our house was not really baby-friendly, and we have held out this long without changing it. It's time. Oh, and by the way, the lovely walker that saved my life these last few months may already have to come to an end. I found Tristan the other day hanging up-side-down on the side of it, with his foot stuck in the foot-hole. He pulled himself out on his own. Danger. Tantrums and craziness aside, Tristan is a sweetheart. His sweet little voice is coming out and it melts us when he talks. He loves to wrap his hands around our faces when he gives us kisses. (super wet kisses). Greeting him in his crib in the mornings is my favorite. He is well rested and so happy to see us. So I don't mind his activeness and wanting to explore the world around him. He's a happy baby, and that's all that matters.

halloween festivities

I'm a little relieved that Halloween is over, so we can move on to my favorite holidays of the year, and we can legally start playing Christmas music! And the weather magically dropped 20 degrees the day after Halloween, which has been wonderful. It's been cold! Low 70's, it actually feels like Fall now. We did have a good time on Halloween though, and it seems to be more fun when you have a little one to celebrate the holiday with. Tristan was supposed to wear his monkey costume but it was too warm so we left him in his skeleton onesie. The morning of, we headed over to the pumpkin patch in Kapolei and picked up a couple of pumpkins with some friends. Then spent a little time on the North Shore. In the evening, we went to the Hallstroms for some food and trick or treating. Oh, and you can't have Halloween in the Hastings household without watching a scary movie. We watched "Drag Me to Hell" with some friends at our house. I wish I could tell you if it was good or not, I was sleeping through half of it cause I was pooped, but Christian said it was good. Not really scary, but good fun.

california bonfire

It's been soooo long since I've had a bonfire on the beach. I think I was in high school the last time we had one, and it used to be all the time. Even though I live in Hawaii with the best beaches in the world, there is something so great about a bonfire on the beaches of my hometown. Maybe it's the smell of the salt water mixed with the seaweed, I don't know, it brought back a lot of memories. One night while in CA my family went to Bolsa Chica Beach for a bonfire. We roasted hot dogs and smores and just enjoyed each other's company. It was nice.

Chelcie Welcie.

Brookie Cookie. It was a lot warmer than it appears in these pictures. I think we were just excited to bundle up at the beach.

Chelcie and Bronson chasing after the birds.

Me and my Mom.

Mom and Dad.

Tristan enjoying the music. My dad on the guitar.

Von and Tristan wrestling.

8 months

I still don't believe that he is 8 months old already. Maybe because he's so small still. His new nickname here at the Clawson household is "monkey boy". He's all over the place and climbing everything. You can tell that his little mind is moving a mile a minute. "What's that?, what's this?, what's over there? I must go there". I have a feeling that he could be walking in a month. He can hold himself up with one arm, and sometimes let go and stand by himself for a couple of seconds. Freakishly strong. It makes me happy to see that he's so happy. He is really easily entertained and rarely cries (unless he's strapped down in his car seat). Such a good baby. We love him to pieces. Happy birthday monkey boy.

halloween par-tay!

My parents hosted a Halloween party at their house last Friday. I was fortunate enough to be in town for the blessed event. We had a great time! Yummy food, lovely decor, and cute costumes! I've decided that Halloween is so much fun. It's been a really long time since I have dressed up, but it's fun to pretend to be something/someone else for the night.

The food:

My mom the cute 50's girl with Heasook the witch, getting the food ready.

The decor:

The costumes:

Al as a Reaper with his grandbaby bear, Jack. And the Oz family!

Me (Pippy Longstocking) with Adrienne the bumble bee and Kelly the hot 70's reporter.

My dad the Reaper, Chelcie as Raggedy Ann and Baby T as Monkey Boy, Bronson as Ostrich Man and Armando as Reno 911 cop. Check out those legs!

Brookie the cute strawberry with Adrienne, Sara and Dave as bloody vampires, and Brooke Baker as Bat Girl.

Kelly with her side kick reporter Jason, Chris as a beautiful Geisha, Zombafied Jenn and Will as a dead bride and a skeleton.

Happy Halloween!

Maunawili Falls

While Rob and Anna were here (Christian's brother and wife), we decided to take them to Maunawili Falls in Kailua. The trail is about 1 1/2 miles each way and leads to a beautiful waterfall/swim area. The hike is fairly easy except for a few river crossings, which I'm not a fan of because I don't really trust my balance. Semi muddy, and apparently a lot of mosquitoes. I didn't realize that I was getting eaten alive until that next morning when I woke up with almost 25 bites on one leg. I even used repellant and I still got attacked. Unfortunately I think I am allergic to these pesky insects because each bite swells up and becomes really red around it. The sad part about this is that Christian didn't even put bug spray on and he didn't get one bite. Not one. Anyways, I'm glad that I didn't notice the bugs because I wouldn't have enjoyed myself as much as I did. It's a beautiful hike!

Digital Macro. Playing with our new camera.

Tristan was of course an angel. He loves being outside and looking at all the trees and water so he was very content. (Not one mosquito bite on him either. He must have his dad's blood. Lucky boy).

The boys jumped several times off the rock. Unfortunately I missed all of Christian's jumps, (his is the blurry one). It's too bad because he did some pretty cool tricks, double back flip into a swan dive. Pretty unreal. Rob had some pretty crazy jumps as well.

After the hike, we headed over to the North Shore for another dip in the water.

We heart this place.

food aversions

We are slowly learning which foods T-bone dislikes. So far he's not a big fan of peas and I'm sad to say, Avocado. Hopefully that will change. I thought these pictures were funny, capturing his dry heaves and yucky faces. The video below is kind of sad because we were laughing at him but he's still cute.

Branchaud Family

This is a family that I just love. I met Adrienne in Kindergarden but we didn't become BFFs until 4th grade. I remember Adrienne was one of the cool girls. She was really pretty and always had her hair in cool braids. I just knew that we needed to be friends! We started hanging out and then we became connected at the hip ever since. We lived at each other's houses. My family became her family and her family became mine. We made a million home videos, and loved to play office (so weird). We went on family vacations together, which included many summers at the Colorado River. I just adore them and was so excited to hear they were coming to Hawaii for their vacation!

Allison, Char, Tristan, and Adrienne. My favorite ladies. (Dennis was MIA)

Tristan loved all of his aunties.

Come back to Oahu soon!

cuteness

design your wall

We seem to be in the midst of a wallpaper revolution! I love what you can find out there now. It's fun to surf the web and look at all the fun patterns and prints. There is something for every taste and style. It did take us almost a week to apply the wallpaper in our front room, and that was just on one wall, not the whole room. To make your life a little easier, vinyl cut outs have taken over the wall decor world. Simply peel and stick. Perfect for renters because you can just peel it off when you move. I just wish that we had more rooms in our house to decorate, (and more moo-la, because it can get expensive!).

Health Care reform

I think that Congressman Mike Rogers says it best here.

3 kitchen appliances on my mind

Kitchen-aid Mixer:

I could probably live without this, but I just think that they are cute. I love all the colors it comes in and the vintage look it can add to your kitchen. One day.

Bread Maker:

I LOVE bread. Some of you may know that I can't make bread. I try and try and I don't know what goes wrong. My bread rolls always end up really heavy, Christian calls them baseballs. I tried my sister's bread maker this summer and nearly died when I saw how easy it was. And they were oh so tasty.

Food Processor:

I could use this one sooner than later. Baby food can get expensive!

7 months

Yes, more pictures of the little stinker. I'm getting a little sad because he's starting to look less and less like an infant, and more like a little boy. I want him to stay this size forever. I think his body doubled in size this past week, he's growing so fast. During his free time, you can find him unplugging cords and sucking on them, ripping up house plants, pulling over the trash can in the kitchen, opening cabinets in the bathroom, and pushing rocking chairs over. I think he is starting to understand the word "no!" now, but he still likes to test me. He is still a cuddle bug and he sure can kiss! He likes to plant little wet ones on me. He says "Da Da" a lot, and he may know what it means because he only says it when Christian is around. We also think that he secretly knows how to talk but he is just holding back, because we thought that we heard him whisper under his breath, "I no kea" the other day (pigeon for I don't care). He knows what's going on.

To celebrate his 7 month birthday, we took him on his first hike. Kevin Hallstrom (friend from our ward) took us on the Kalawahine Trail, up by Round Top Drive.

Can you see the similarity in this picture? (the one with the boys)

We have a little guide book of Oahu and we've decided that we are going to explore something new in that book once a month, just to change it up from our usual surf/beach days on the North Shore. There is so much more to this Island that we need to enjoy. Hopefully we can keep to it.

snorter

It's funny because Tristan goes through these cute and quirky phases where he does something over and over again, and then moves on to something new. Like the lion growling, or he started inhaling really loud as though he couldn't breath, (he was breathing, he's just a little over dramatic at times). His new thing is snorting. I think that he discovered this soon after he had his runny nose. Yuck, but it became fun for him to breath in and out of his nose. See video below.

He's become quite the noisy eater. I think that he thinks you are supposed to say "yummm", or "ahhhhh" when you open your mouth to eat because that's what I did when I was teaching him how to eat.

just because...

we have way too many pictures.

Sweet blue-eyed boy.

Shopping with mom. He knows what he wants.

That walker has saved my life. He is free to roam around the house, therefore he is less frustrated and knows where mom and dad are at all times. Watch out for those ankles though! And yes that is spit up on his strap in the car seat picture. Sorry, but he just looks so cute. I can't wait until we are able to turn his car seat around to face us.

Mom and dad time.

He loves his sweet potatoes. He refuses to wear a bib, he rips it right off. Thank goodness for oxi clean.

visiting dad at work

He's a big fan of his dad.

Friday Night Lights

Every Friday night there is a firework show near Waikiki Beach. After our walk sesh and Christian's surf sesh, we decided to stick around for the show. Next time we will bring a big fat pizza to enjoy like everyone else did around us. We were drooling as we watched them all eat their dinners. This was Tristan's first time watching fireworks. He wasn't sure what to think of them at first and became a little frightened by a few, but I think that he enjoyed them. I look forward to more Friday nights under the fireworks.

camera obscura

The new Camera Obscura album, My Maudlin Career, came out earlier this year.
Wanted to give it space on the blog and say thanks to C.O. for this latest offering. I'm not going to describe it, it's above that. I'm not gonna recommend it to you, I'm not sure you're worthy of it.
But this is the call I'm making: this is the best album I've heard in years. period. end of post.

monkey in his cage

Ever since T started standing up in his crib, we realized that it was time to lower the crib mattress. It was too scary. He could easily fold over and fall out. Now, I think he likes the challenge of trying to get out. It got too easy for him. He stands up and falls, and climbs and falls. Thank goodness for bumpers!

Mainland Trip - McCall, Idaho

After our California stay, we flew out to Salt Lake and then drove 8 hours up to McCall, Idaho. First things first, we need to thank Courtney and Anna for planning all the details of this trip. Christian and I knew we would be fed well and we were not let down. The meals and desserts were delish! We had a really fun time in McCall. Sorry for the picture overload. We tend to take a lot of pictures and it's hard to narrow it down.

First stop in Salt Lake, Nana and Papa's house for some pizza. This was the best picture we could get with Tristan. He was sleepy and cranky. Aunt Lina and Cousin Lisa came over, as well as my very pregnant girlfriend Steph, and her husband Anthony. It was so good to see all of them.

Our drive up to McCall. I sat in the back with T-bone most of the way.

The cabin.

Down by the lake. Christian and Jim inching their way into the water. They regretted not bringing their wetsuits.

Tristan with Tutu and Grandpa.

This is where Tristan hung out for part of the time, in his car seat on the sand. We were able to catch him being cute.

In love. :)

Bundled up with Dad.

Canoeing with Tucker.

We went Ice Skating on my birthday.

Pulling some cool tricks. Christian ate it big time while we were trying to race each other. He got a nasty bruise on his hip afterward. Poor guy.

Doesn't he look like a newborn in this picture? Or do I just have big hands?

My delicious birthday cake, German Chocolate Cake. Oh so yummy. Tristan was in awe of the candles. Maybe because there were so many of them!

While the crew went rafting, Anna and I stayed back with the little ones.

Fire pit = Smores.

T kicking it with Aunt Whitney.

Back in Salt Lake. My very pregnant friend Steph (noted above) had her baby!!!! 5 weeks early. Sweet little Benjamin Sterling was born on my birthday. He's precious. Amazing timing little man. We are so glad we got to meet you before we headed back to Hawaii.

Me with Baby B. I thought this picture was cute with my boys hanging out in the window.

Our last night in Utah, we headed down to Springville to visit with Christian's grandparents at his Aunts house. It was good to visit with all of them.

We flew home that next morning. I caught some sort of flu bug that last night and had to travel home sick. I think that traveling sick is the worst thing ever. I threw up while going through the security screening, and I had a fever and sore throat the whole 7 hour flight home. I'm so glad Christian was with me to help with T-bone. I couldn't have done that trip home alone. It's good to be home though. Thanks to all of our friends and family for making our mainland trip so fun. We miss you folks already.