California Trip: magician birthday party

Little Von and Addi have birthdays in December, in the middle of all the holiday craziness, so Ian and Alisa decided to throw them this amazing magician birthday party mid October. If I took better pictures, I would submit them to Martha Stewart's party planning website (does she have one?). Alisa did such a great job on this party. All of the kids had top hats, staches on a stick, and homemade capes! Yummy homemade mexican food was served. A bounce house was blown up in the back. Everyone had such a great time.

Homemade cupcakes topped with cute little faces.

My favorite part of the party, the sugar cookies.

The birthday babies. They are so adorable and had so much fun!

You guessed it, homemade white chocolate stars.

Top hat cake turned up-side-down with cute kids jumping out.

Prepping the food for the party. Abracadabra/Hocus Pocus streamers.

The birthday kiddos with mom and dad in the photo booth!

Me, my momma, and Tristan. T was so cute because he knew exactly where to put his stache

Dad, Mom, T and I.

Everyone gathered to watch the Magician! They hired an old buddy of mine from seminary. He was incredible! He stumped all of the adults with his tricks. I'm still amazed and confused at how he did it. It was cute because after every trick, Addi kept yelling, "Wow, that was so magical!". It really was!

This is where I found Tristan towards the end of the night.

Everyone was pooped by the end of the party. Addi didn't even have time to untie the balloons from her wrists, she was so tired.

20 months

• Some new words; "water", "Juice", "Zoo", "Cheeeeeeeze", "Pease" (please). "Papa", "Tutututututu" (Grandma in Hawaiian), "Nama" (Grandma in Californian), "Willllla", (the neighbor's dog), "Car", "lawdlawdlawdla" (banana), "Baby" as he points to children smaller than him, which are rare to find.
• His obsession with Buzz Lightyear has gone extreme. To get from one place to another, he first needs to poke his chest (the button to expand his wings), spread his arms out, shout "Buzz!" and run as fast as his little legs can handle. In his nursery class at church, he shouts out "Buzz!" in the middle of the lesson when they are asking the kids who created the animals. Buzz solves everything; when he's having a melt down, all we need to say is "Buzz?", and he immediately cheers for joy.
• He almost goes to bed willingly at night. We just have to keep the door open, lights on in the other rooms, and continue with our evening so he knows that we are still there. Some nights are better than others, but we are making progress.
• We haven't been to the doctors in a month or so but I'm assuming that he's still not on the charts. I'm not worried. He's easy to carry! He will get his growth spurt soon.
• He is always so thrilled when "dada" comes home from work. He immediately stops what he's doing and runs and tackles him to the floor.
• Tristan is still into kissing his mom and dad...on the lips...sometimes using tongue. I'm not sure where he learned that from but oh my!!! Should I be concerned?
• He makes friends wherever he goes and gets along really well with them. He's a lover, not a hater. (see bullet above)
• He has taken an interest in sitting on the toilet, with the seat up, and his clothes off. Signs of potty training? oh boy.
• Some of his favorite games; Simon Says, Red Light Green Light, and Hide and Seek.

Aiea Heights bbq

Last month we teamed up with a group of friends and headed out to Aiea Heights for a bbq. Sometimes it's just fun to pretend like we're not on Oahu and hang out on a chilly campground. This place was beautiful!

Tristan and Abigail blowing their bubbles:

So we've learned that our little boy kind of enjoys being a loner. Don't get me wrong, he's very social and interacts well with other kids, but like his dad, enjoys deep thought and the occasional alone time to ponder life. While mom was gabbing away with friends (or pretending to be on the phone)...:

...we lost track of Tristan for a minute, and Dad spotted him far off in the woods (the picture below doesn't show how far he actually was). He was just hanging out, eating his roll, becoming one with nature. When his dad went to see what he was up to, Tristan led him to a spot just behind where he sat (he knew where he was going)- to the edge of a little cliff, and started picking things up and throwing them off it. Good thing he's so cautious.

Picking things to throw off the cliff. He and Dad bonded a little over their embracing of loneliness and Dad brought him back to the party.

We made homemade sliders with chopped up onions and mushrooms mixed in with the hamburger using hawaiian sweet bread rolls for buns. Was unreal.

Here's the gang:

Finally, we stoked up the fire enough for smores and hung out until it started getting dark.

Good times.

Kelly Slater wins 10th world title!

Pele's Chair

...is just one of the names that this place is called. (don't ask me what the other ones are, I can't remember :). We finally took our little boy back with us to this special place. We left early to get the best conditions and met our friends, the Wards, there. We were expecting possible crowds because it was a holiday, but we had the place to ourselves for a while!

Tristan found his stick and began exploring the beach. We first settled here on the beach, but then were quickly reminded that small sand tornadoes come through this cove and wipe everyone out, so we had to move. It's the weirdest thing! And unfortunate, because that beach is perfect for little ones.

Christian doing his thing.

Dan doing his thing.

We spent the rest of the day floating in the water. This floater was perfect for Tristan. We couldn't touch the ground and there were several rocks under us, and T loved it. (Christian was having an interesting hair day. See below picture also.) (Christian just added this comment about his hair. I think his hair is great, especially in the picture above, it has a nice under curl. Men would kill to have that look.)

We stayed in for awhile. No complaining from T either. Just some blue lips after awhile so we had to get out.

The sea started to get a little too rough for us, so we made our way to these sand-bottom swimming holes.

Tristan trying to find the biggest rock he can throw.

The Ward family.

Ava is probably one of the cutest and sweetest little girls we know. We just love her!

We look forward to coming back here more often.

P.S. Rest in peace, Andy Irons.

Happy Halloween!

Love, the little Hawaiian Woody.

gorilla vs bear

My good friend Dane told me about Gorilla vs Bear recently. He hooked me up with their Halloween mixtape. I hadn't heard of the site before, I wasn't quite cool enough. Now, it's a different story. Lots of good music from bands you or I have probably not heard of. They have monthly mixtapes that you can download and listen to at your leisure and expand your music mind.

*****
yeah it's Halloween!

now... where's my family?

cool tricks, cool tricks!

Just a quick spotlight on our family star, Tristan. Over the past few months, he has figured out some cool tricks, and since mom and dad like to capture everything on film, we are able to share some of them with you! One of his personal faves right now: standing on dad's hand. This cute grin always goes along with this trick.

It may look as though he has had some professional training in gymnastics or perhaps ballet, based on his form, but I promise that the camera just caught these poses at the right moment.

Here is a video of some of his other cool tricks. Enjoy!

month in review

Here's a quick update on what we've been up to this past month.

We made another trip over to the Big Island. Here's Tristan at Beach 69. I can't make out who that sexy guy is in the background of this picture, but he sure is hot. And later we did make out...

It rained almost the whole weekend we were there, but we enjoyed the cool weather. Tristan was itching to play outside.

We got out the fireworks that were supposed to be used on the 4th, and lit some sparklers. Tristan was a little nervous about them but enjoyed them from a safe distance. "WOOOWW" could be heard for miles.

Went to the always beautiful Waipio with the parents. This horse showed up and hung out for a little while. Tristan loves his animal friends.

Pat the bunny.

Dad went out for a surf and Tristan was as anxious as ever to get out there and join him.
Note: We do feed him, he just loves sucking in all the time. We're trying to teach him it's ok to have a cute little baby belly.

Mama's two boys. It was a great day at the beach, then to Cafe Pesto on our way to the airport. Thanks to Christian's parents for having us!

Tristan received a superman/ batman reversible cape from Nama Clawson. He has a hard time leaving it on, but loves admiring himself in the mirror in it.

We had an impromptu outdoor dinner on a Sunday evening with our friends, the Garners.
Was pretty and peaceful and great to get outside and enjoy the forest.

Tristan learning how to start a fire. His father has much to teach him on the joys of pyrotechnics when the time comes.

Everybody enjoyed an appetizer of freshly picked strawberry guavas while we waited for our tin foil dinners to cook. And why does hamburger, potatoes, onions and carrots cooked over hot coals taste so amazing, anyway? Ponder that one.

Christan got upset when the paparazzi showed up. Yes, stars are just like us and cook tin foil dinners, but he just wanted to spend some quiet time with his family.

Tristan was his usual sassy self. He enjoyed licking the guacamole off the chips.

Our nature boy.

Not sure if it's a cut, or dirty hands or just being sassy.

Trying out his new headphones. A trial run of watching a movie on the portable dvd player. The upcoming flight to California will be much easier if he can be entertained for some of the time with it. We think he liked it.

Tristan decided he's ready to wear his swimming medal.

*And that concludes the highlights of our September.

costco finds

We love Costco passionately. Free lunch of all-you-can-eat samples, stock up on many of our staples and then the occasional discovery of something unexpected & amazing.

Two recent finds we thought were important to share:


You no longer have to be a hippie to drink soy milk! (I do love hippie jokes) We had a shot of this sweet nectar from a sample lady and haven't looked back. As a youngster, I really enjoyed these:

but haven't seen them in years. This new find is similar and takes me back to those good ole days. Even 'lil Tristan opens the fridge now and points at them and says "Dis!"



Next are the chocolate acai balls. These are also pretty great. Since they're made from a magic berry and the chocolate is dark, you can tell yourself they're healthy and go ahead and eat the whole bag.

Thanks Kazuko!

dance machine

T has come up with some pretty groovy dance moves. I'm very impressed! The "power stance"? That's the coolest dance move ever invented! And he figured it out all by himself. He's pretty amazing.

Untitled from Shandra Hastings on Vimeo.