Thursday, February 21, 2013

Valentine's Week

It seems that Valentine's Day has become more about the kids than Christian and me.  Oh well, it's fun and it's become one of Tristan's favorite holidays.  We were never really big on celebrating it anyways.  

We finally hung these adorable pictures in the kid's room.  They were a gift from our friend, Alyse, who re-designed the image, printed and framed them from pallet wood.  The kid's names are printed on them too.  She's amazing!

The kids and I put together some valentines to pass out to friends and T's preschool class.  Tristan signed his name on each valentine, which was such a chore to do!  We had to break up the signing into three sessions.  Oh, the patience we have as parents.  I'm very proud of him though!  I didn't get a picture of his signature :(

 Tristan had the idea of sewing his dad a valentine bean bag.  We made one a couple of months ago and he's been begging to make another one for dad.  He thought a valentine one would be perfect.  He also wanted to make a couple more for his friends too.
  

The outfit below was put together by Miss Betsy herself, 100%.  And a tantrum was involved, so I gave in.  We can let it slide now, but this may be a problem when she starts school.  

Valentine's Day morning, the kids woke up to some goodies.  

Tristan had preschool this morning, and carried his valentine cards in his (girly) heart bag I made him.  
 

Betsy was devastated when we dropped Tristan off to school, as usual.  We both ran a quick errand, went home to finish her valentine cards, clean, snack and paint our nails.  She was so happy to put her cards in her heart bag and pass them out to Tristan's class when we picked him up.  

Betsy loves to read.  She loves all Gyo Fujikawa books because of the cute baby illustrations.  She loves pointing to the children and mimicking their expressions, or tells me, "She's sad", or "He's sleeping".  Fujikawa books are my favorite too!  

A couple of days before Valentine's Day, I cut my finger.  :(  We were walking out the door for church on Sunday and noticed one of the glass window panes was broken on our porch.  We just picked it up and put it in a box to take down to the trash.  It was pouring rain!  So Christian rushed down to the car with Betsy in his arms, and Tristan and I walked a little slower as I carried the box.  As we were headed down, I bent over to help Tristan with something, and the glass from the box started spilling out.  I went to catch it and it sliced my finger.  Genius!  I wasn't sure how bad the cut was at first because there was a ton of blood.  It was kind of puddling on the ground below me.  I knew I needed Christian to help me so I started yelling his name but he couldn't hear me because of the loud rain and I believe they were already in the car waiting.  

Then my little hero jumped into action.  Without even telling him to go get dad, Tristan took off running, as fast as his little legs could carry him.  He yells, "I'll go get help!" as he gets soaked in the rain.  The car was out of my sight so I couldn't see what happened, but Christian told me later that he stood by the car in the pouring rain.  C opened the door and said jump in the car, but he wouldn't, he just stood there for a second, then said "Mom had an accident, you need to help her!  She got cut by the glass".  I think at this point, Christian thought the worst.  He imagined that I slipped in the rain and fell on the glass somehow.  Both my boys ran to my rescue.  Thank goodness it was minor!  But it was bleeding so much and it hurt, I knew that a band-aid wouldn't do the job.  So we went to the ER to see if I needed stitches.  I was naive and thought that we would be in and out quickly, and then could make if for some of church.  Ha ha.  3 hours later, my finger was glued back together and we were able to go home.  Tristan loves hearing this story being told about how he was a hero and saved his mom.  Later that night when we told him again how brave and what a hero is was, he said, "We're heroes everyday..."

I appreciate this finger and everything it does for me so much more now.  
Get well soon, little guy!  
Finger glued together.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Punahou Carnival

The 2-day Punahou carnival happens every year and this was the first year we've been.  We've always heard that the crowds were crazy and it was really really over priced.  True and true.  We actually went early Saturday morning, and the scrip lines (tickets) were super long already.  It was so much fun though!  I don't think we would ever brave going at night because I heard that you're shoulder to shoulder.  It wasn't too bad for us yet.  The kids had a blast and that's all that matters! 


This is a picture of the carnival at night.  No thank you!

Gingerbread, Kalopa, and New Years Eve

Tutu did a fantastic job putting our cardboard houses together.  We had a lot of fun decorating them!  The kids loved it, one candy for the house, one candy for the mouth.  They definitely had their fair share of candy.  There is so much sugar in front of you, how can you resist? 

I love those chubby fingers:
 

We also decorated ceramic ornaments.  I think Tristan ended up painting seven.  Turbo painting!

The last Sunday we were there we headed over to Kalopa Park for a picnic dinner with the Wiberg and Marsh family.
 
Betsy gets jealous when I hold other babies:

Aunt Coco at her best:

A little preview of what our family would look like with 3 kids.  I'm a little nervous for that!

We celebrated New Years Eve with some fireworks in the yard.  After Betsy started doing the sparklers, Tristan became brave and joined in.  Betsy girl was addicted.  

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Big Island Beach Time

While on the Big Island, we went to the beach, a lot.  All of our beach trips are combined into one post, and they may be out of order.  I think that one of our best beach days was at Mauna Kea; warm, windless and beautiful.  Our friends, Brian and Jenn were in town and let us all come and play tourist with them.  

We made a trip to Hapuna Beach.  

One afternoon we made it down to Waipio.  It was a little colder that day.  The boys surfed while we bundled up on the beach.  


Tristan is such a sweet older brother.  Lately, when we've been at the beach and Betsy wanders off and I don't feel like getting up to chase after her, I tell Tristan to go get her.  He loves having this responsibility of rescuing his sister.  He holds her hand, and carefully walks her back.  And Betsy LOVES being rescued, and fully cooperates.  I usually have a proud mama moment as I watch them walk back to us.  It's so sweet.  A woman from the group next to us came over to Tristan after and told him how sweet he was for taking care of his little sister.  She was impressed too.  
 

Christian and Betsy were feeling sick one day, so instead of driving out to Volcano as originally planned, part of the group spent the afternoon at Waialea Beach.  I remember this day being extra windy, and the waves were huge!  Tristan had so much fun playing in the shore break, but I was really nervous because the current was pretty strong and could suck this tiny being out to sea within seconds.  (I have nightmares about that all the time, it's awful).  I also remember hitting my head really really hard on a very low tree branch.  Ya, that wasn't fun.  But it was beautiful there of course.   
 
Before the sun set that evening, we drove over to Puako to look in the tide pools and watch for turtles and whales.  

New Years Eve we went to Spencer Beach Park and met up with Christian's friend, Ian and baby Imi.  
The curls!

On the last day we went to Mauna Lani and had a beautiful beach day.  This little cove was sheltered from the crazy wind, it was awesome.  I can't get over how much Ever loved the ocean!  Such a water baby!