a blue and green thanksgiving

No altering photos here folks, these are for real. The real colors of the Big Island. This year we spent Thanksgiving with Christian's parents in Waimea. We brought the Garner family with us to join in on the fun. Great food, great scenery, visits with friends and family, it was a nice weekend.

Our friend Paul brought his zoom lens and took some shots of Christian in the water. The waves were a lot smaller than they appear. I believe the bigger swell hit the Big Island just as we were leaving.

Pololu Valley. There's actually a story behind this Valley. Long story made very short, Christian got stuck while climbing up the cliff (see second below picture, that's the cliff!), and a helicopter had to rescue him soon after he was found. He almost gave his poor mom a heart attack. Everyone thought that he was washed away at sea.

Check out that wall of rain coming in. We left just in time.

Crazy spider! The macro lens is tricky, you have to either have a tripod or be super still to get a nice clear shot. I wasn't that steady for this one.

Waipio Valley. Another black sand beach.

Checking out the black sand.

Our blue eyed baby boy.

The face.

Our attempt at a family photo.

The cute Garner family.

Sometimes we like to hang Tristan out the window while we're driving. It gives him a break from being tied down in his car seat. He loves it.

Akaka Falls

Our last day there, we headed down to the beach for a picnic (can't remember the beach name), and wandered around the tide pools. T was dying to get in the water, so we gave him a little dip.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Special thanks to JLynn for the marvelous Thanksgiving meal. My fav? the twice baked sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes with cream cheese in them, ambrosia salad, and of course...german chocolate cake.

my quasi

* arkotec

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9 months

Our sweet boy is now 9 months old. My whole world has turned up-side-down! So many new things, it's all happening so fast. I love how curious he is about the world. Everything around him is so new to him. He can pick up a piece of grass and examine it for 15 minutes. And those little fingers of his! I love watching him try and grab things as he struggles with his coordination. He's our little champ. He's now starting to dance! My favorite. His dad drops a beat and he bounces up and down and smiles. I love it. He has such a personality now. So happy.

I always wonder what's on that boys mind.

He is almost confident enough to stand on his own!

He gets into everything!!

My day consists of me following him around the house, as he finds new things to get into.

He's a climber! This is a new thing as of the past two weeks. He has figured out how to pull his knee up and push himself higher. He can do stairs now!

His cute little snaggle teeth on the bottom.

He has become quite comfortable sitting in the "cheer stance".

He LOVES being pushed around the house in the laundry basket.

Learning his puzzles. I love watching those little fingers pick up the pegs. He's getting better at it.

Surprisingly, he can sit through a whole book (depending on the night).

I wish he could stay this age forever. Happy 9 months T!

all too familiar

Last night we watched an episode of King of Queen's on DVD. In this episode, Carrie just found out she was pregnant, and is daydreaming while at work about what life will be like with a baby. I was laughing so hard when I watched this scene because it reminded me so much of Tristan in his walker. ha! It feels good to laugh out loud once in awhile.

learning the ropes

"Now son, once you have made it into the lineup, sit up and straddle your board."

"Make sure you pick the right wave. A wave that has not broken."

"Sunscreen is essential son. The Hawaiian sun can burn your skin."

"Make sure you leave your belongings in a safe place. Or your mom can watch them. She does that for me all the time."

"See those kooks over there? That's what you don't want to do."

"You ready to get out there for the season son?"

something to be happy about

Hallelujah! He's falling asleep on his own! I've been told that it takes 3 nights to train them to fall asleep on their own at night and I thought they were all crazy. I just knew that it would be different for Tristan because he's umm...a special boy. I knew I would be nursing the boy to sleep until he was 8 years old. We started the training process a few nights ago. Night 1 - he cried for 1 hr and 15 minutes. Night 2 - he cried for 30 minutes. Night 3 - he cried for 15 minutes. Night 4 - he cried for 1 minute. And last night, Night 5 - I laid him down and he rolled over to his side, and watched me walk away while I closed the door. (He did look a little sad while I was leaving). But there were NO tears. NO crying! It took awhile to decide to start training him because it's just too sad to hear him screaming in his room for so long. Then when we would go in and check on him, he would look so thrashed. He stands up the whole time and is sweaty and so exhausted, but wouldn't give up. I hope that this keeps up. I may be speaking too soon. I never thought this day would come! We now need to work on his naps.

recycle your wardrobe

About once a year I go through my closet and clean out clothes that I don't wear anymore, but sometimes it's hard to let go of a few pieces because they are still in good condish, I'm just over it, or it's outdated. How great would it be if we could reinvent our old clothes to look the way we want? If I were only good at sewing, I would have so much fun with that. I need to take more sewing classes! The fabric of our old clothes could definitely be reused. I stumbled across this book that gives you tips on how to recycle your clothes. She also has a website, where you can send her your old clothes and she can alter it for you. Pretty cool. This book may be a good Christmas present for all of you sewers out there.

influenza a

T must have caught something while we were in California. We were around a lot of people and he was held by many. I hate seeing him sick. You just don't know how bad he is feeling or what hurts. It started with a runny nose. We went in for his standard Doctors appointment and doc said that he had a little cold, and to monitor it. It then turned into a 102.6 fever and doc said we should come back in. This was a rough half day at the doctors for both of us. He wanted Tristan to run some tests, so he sent us all over the hospital.

First of all, Tristan hates being poked at, even with the stethoscope, which is pain free, he is screaming. Or when they take his temperature in his ear, it's all over. So I knew that these tests would not be so fun. We started with needles in his arm to take his blood. Two needles, 3 vials to fill. 2 people to hold him down, plus the nurse taking his blood. Of course, this is so hard to watch as he screams and squirms. Then off to get his urine tested. Which isn't that hard, they just had to put a bag on him, and we come back later when he's shee sheed. The hardest part of all was watching him get his lungs x-rayed. They had to put him in a cylinder clear tube, with his arms up in the air. He was stuck so he couldn't move, screaming of course. Heart wrenching.

So anyways, after all the testing was over, we found out that he has Influenza A, which is in the same family as Swine. I'm starting to become a big fan of his doctor, he called us 3 times that day to give us the results, or to check up on baby T. But what I didn't like was how a couple of his phone calls scared me. He was urgently telling me to go to the pharmacy right away and get him on the meds he's calling in. Then later that night he called and he was telling me about Swine Flu and how there are many babies who do not survive this flu, how it's associated with death, yada yada yada. Scary for me right?

We didn't get much sleep for the next couple of nights as T was struggling to get comfortable. The amazing part was the good spirit Tristan was in through all of this, aside from all the testing at the hospital. He still remained active and happy (for most of the part, he did have some bad nights). A couple of days into the flu, he started vomiting, a lot. Then his fever came back. We were back at the doctors (by their request, I'm not just a crazy mom that brings him in whenever any little thing happens), and they didn't show too much concern, just that this is all part of the flu and to wait it out. He's almost 100% better, with just a little stuffy nose still. I'm not a fan of having a sick kid. I probably got 3-4 hours of sleep every night, and all of the doctors appointments are not fun. But we are so glad to see our little Tristan getting better.

Poor baby boy was put into the bath during one of his high fevers.

A cheerful Tristan gets into his pajamas. This was actually one of his bad nights.

Drinking lots of fluids.

Not throw up on his face, just a rice cracker. So serious though.

Playing with his cords as usual. No rest, all play.

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 soon be obsolete. 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.