George's Grand Christmas Concert

On Wednesday night we attended the BYU-H tree lighting ceremony which started with the Annual Elementary School Christmas Concert. Each grade level preformed a song with dancers and movements. Then all the grades joined together and presented a final number. In our little town that we live in, this Christmas concert is a big deal. Families and friends show up 1 hour before the concert just to reserve a seat in the Center. The concert is held in the CAC, which is the BYU-H large basketball center. I was shocked that the entire center was packed! George's class preformed an upbeat song about Blitzen the reindeer...I'm sorry I don't know the name. Here is George sitting with his classmates waiting for their time to take the mainstage and preform.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie....

I asked Mark to get the baby ready for church so I could get ready and this is what I found when I came into the bedroom this morning. Like father like son, two Sunday sleepers! I thought this picture was too cute to pass up. I can't believe that it has been 6 weeks since Theodore has come into our home. He is so sweet, mild mannered and cuddly. The boys have taken to calling him "Theo", I call him "Teddy" or "Teddy bear" and Mark just calls him Theodore. You are welcome to call him whatever you want. I just thought you would like to see the update in his development!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

For the first time in our lives, Mark, the boys and I spent Thanksgiving alone. Mostly this was a decision on our part because I was sick this week from Mastatis and I didn't feel up to a large group of people. However, spending Thanksgiving alone gave our little family a chance to really enjoy each other and be thankful for the blessing that we have. Mark and I spent the morning preparing a Thanksgiving dinner. Mark made the Turkey, stuffing and gravy, while I made the rolls, salad, green beans and mashed potatoes. We listened to Christmas music and the boys helped clean up the house. After our dinner George decided that we absolutely needed to set up the tree. We pulled out our decorations and Mark and the boys asembled the tree. After the lights were set, we decided we were all too tired to put the ornaments on so we cuddled up as a family, drank frozen hot chocolate (a little blender mix of mine) and listened to our Christmas tunes. Over the next couple days we fixed up the tree. NOte: George and Henry put most of the decorations on the tree, I just guided them and helped put the high ones on. Our quiet family experience this year really set the tone for Christmas this year. I am so thankful for our little family. I feel lucky to have two energetic little boys, and one sweet baby. I am grateful that Mark works hard at being a loving, caring father and husband and I am blessed to have supportive family and friends that I can always call at a moments notice when I need advice, help or just someone to chat with. Although the last year has been a great struggle for our family since Mark has been gone 16 or more hours a day with work and school in the evening, it has also made us appreciate our time together as a family. I know we are not perfect, but as a family we are working on being the best we can for each other. Thank you to all of our friends and family that keep in touch...we love you!!!

Its a Miracle!!!

Actually...not just one miracle, but 2 miracles and one crap shoot! Yesterday George came screaming into our bedroom, "We got him dad, we got him!!!" Yes, it turns out one of our sticky traps trapped a mouse. (Miracle #1) Notice that I wrote "a mouse". I was excited that we had caught the infamous potato eating mouse. My day was really picking up since I have been sick for the last 2 days with Mastitas (spelling?). So last night, Mark and I went to bed and I was feeling pretty positive about our mouseless living situation. I slept so good that I was shocked when I woke up at 6:47 in the morning...shocked because Theodore slept through the entire night!!! (Miracle #2) I have never had a better nights sleep. He slept from 10:30 last night untill 6:47 this morning! This night was the night that I needed it the most...the mastitas is really wiping me out. I woke up this morning with a smile. Great sleep, No Mouse, its a wonderful world. Unfortunately one of my miracles was quickly overshadowed. When I walked into the kitchen this morning the first thing I noticed was a half eaten potato! ugh...

By the way, thanks for all the great mouse insight. WE did seal the hole yesterday, so I do not know how the mouse got in last night...any other suggestions?

OH, for those who do not know, Mastitas (spelling?) is an infection in the milk ducts...if you breastfeed your baby, you can get this infection. It feels like the worst case of flu all over your body and the infected area is red, swollen, hot, and the most painful area on the body.

Mouse Hunters...

Over the last 2 weeks, Mark and I have woken up each morning to find half eaten potatoes or nibbles out of a loaf of bread that might have been on the counter from the night before. We came to the conclusion that we had a mouse problem. We tried scrubbing down every inch of the kitchen and only leaving out the bowl of potatoes, but the mouse kept coming and eating from the potato bowl. In addition to the eaten potatoes, the mouse correctly assessed which cupboard contained our food storage and then attempted to scratch its way into the cupboard.

Mark and I discussed the situation, and I opted for just hiding the bowl of potatoes every night instead of putting out traps...ugh I couldn't stand the sight of a half dead mouse in the morning. But Mark insisted that we get traps so we settled on sticky traps. Mark surrounded the bowl of potatoes in sticky traps, but after 3 nights he had no luck. Mark started acting fanatical and he cut up a variety of different types of food in hopes of luring in the mouse. Well, last night at 3am we were woken up by a loud plastic banging sound. It would sound out every 2 minutes or so and then die down. I quickly figured out that Mark got his mouse and it was trying to get away.

Mark lept out of bed and found a partially stuck mouse to one of his traps. The only part of the mouse that was stuck was its tail and one of its paws. While Mark was trying to figure out how to get the mouse in the trash bag without touching it, the mouse made its way out of the kitchen, down the stairs, into the and to the opposite side of the living room. There, a few seconds before Mark could pounce its prey, the mouse miraculously freed itself from the sticky trap and ran behind our T.V. hutch. Mark moved the hutch to find a large hole in the wall that leads into our next door neighbors apartment. Thus....all hunt and no glory.

P.S. This story might sound gross to some, but this is a normal everyday occurence of living in Paradise.

It has been 1 month!!!

I cant believe it has been a month since his birth. It seems like he has always been a part of our family. He is so sweet and I feel lucky to have such a wonderful baby. I just love every little inch of his baby body. Here are some snap shots I took of his body this evening. In the last month Theodore has learned to Eat, sleep, poop and pee on the doctor...hahaha.

What a sweet face and adorable feet.

Look at those long fingers!!!

More Halloween Pictures!!!

The weekend before Halloween we went to dinner with a group of our Laie friends. We dressed up in matching couple outfits and traveled to Kaneohe (30 min away) to eat at Ruby Tuesdays. It was funny to see people's reactions to each others costumes. My sister Rachel and her husband were Nacho Libre and the Nun and Mark and I were Elvis and Priscilla. I guess you can tell from our blog that we really like Halloween...or we just like to dress up....hahaha

Family Time

This weekend we decided to take some Hawaii pictures of our growing family. We drove out to Haleiwa and my sister took our family pictures and then we ate lunch with Rachel, Jason, Klailea, Rykell and some friends, MOlly and Trevor. We ate at a burger restaurant called KUAAina Burger! I was shocked with how good it was. We have lived on the North Shore for 1 1/2 years and we have never been. It was the best burger I have ever tasted. The burger was huge, but the best part was it had almost an entire avacado on it. If you ever come visit us in Hawaii, we will all go to KUAaina Burger.
Here is a picture of the cousins hanging out.
And Here is our family picture on the beach.

Here is Henry and George being little goons! Henry loves to make crazy faces.

Gimme Some CANDY!!!

If anybody knows me very well, they would know that my favorite food is candy, candy, candy. Sometimes I feel like Will Ferrell in Elf! Well, obviously now that I have kids of my own, I have really hit the jackpot on Halloween. hahahaha...just kidding....well kind of.
This year I didn't think we would have much luck because it was raining really bad, but about 4 in the afternoon, the rain let up, so we took the boys out about 5. While we were trick or treating, we met up with Sarah and Audrey (my cousin's wife and daughter) and Rachel and her daughters (my sister and kids). We on our second road the rain started to lightly drop and within 2 minutes we were caught in a full down pour. Luckily we were 1 block from Rachel's house so we headed back. But by the time we got back, I was soaked, the boys were soaked, Mark was dry...hmmm...but I managed to keep the baby dry. Unfortunately the boys only had gotten a little bit of candy, so after we dried off and changed, I let the boys do a few more homes. Literally we only went to 6 more homes, but I think they felt bad for the boys and so they loaded the boys up with candy! I think the boys brought more home this year than any other year! What a great come back!