superbowl sunday

Superbowl Sunday wouldn't be complete without a Superbowl party! Luckily David and Shan threw an awesome one (complete with BBQ ribs and BBQ wings. Woohoo!) and we got together with the whole family.  

Oh. . . and it was also fun to watch the football game.

Hosts to the mosts - David and Shan

Wayne and Inoke enjoying the Hawaiian Sun drinks.

Joe and his famous fall-off-the-bone ribs

Me and cute baby Madison

Malia and the giant football

The group

Ending outcome? The NY Giants won! It was a great game, but honestly I wasn't there for football - it was just fun to enjoy good food and be with the family.  Love Superbowl Sunday!

floooorida

A couple weeks ago, my sister Melba asked if I'd like to accompany her on an all-expense paid trip to Florida that she was taking to attend a conference for her job. I had to think about it for maybe a second. 

The conference was in Tampa and we stayed in a beautiful hotel right on the beach.  It was gorgeous. I spent the weekend reading, eating and tanning by the pool. It was incredibly relaxing and sooo fun for me.  It's the first trip I've taken by myself since I started having children four years ago.  It was so wonderful to spend my days doing WHATEVER I wanted - I can't remember the last time I did that.  I also loved kicking it with Melba - when she was in classes during the day I kicked it on my own (being by myself . . .something I don't get to do very often - it was beautiful!) and when she was free we had fun together.  Seriously, it was an awesome weekend. I loved it. Here are some highlights. . . .

Our beautiful room - loved the down pillows and comforters. 

Melba and the hotel overlooking the Gulf of Mexico

The hotel had several restaurants on the grounds - we tried most of them. This one gave us each roses when we finished our meals. Nice touch.

This is how I spent most of my days - by the pool or on the beach reading. Ah! It was heaven! (A little side note - I started the first book in the Hunger Games series on the plane there and finished the last one on the plane back. I was hooked and it was awesome.)

The hotel was like a little community with tons of activities for it's guests. One day we took a water tour on these little paddlers.  

At another restaurant - enjoying my Diet Coke.

The weather was beautiful and so was the white sand beach.

Playing pool at the resort - we are both pretty bad so it was a looong game. . . but I came out victorious. Yup, yup. Went DOWN like Charlie Brown! Haha! Rematch Melba?

Enjoying the warm Florida night weather on the boulevard.

That's me. Reading in my hammock. On the beach. While sipping my Diet Coke. . . . Seriously? I know.

DEFINITELY one of the biggest highlights of my trip - eating at Bahama Breeze.  It a very popular restaurant that is only located in Florida and Las Vegas.  I had the Guava BBQ ribs - they were AMAZING.

Florida is one of those places I would probably never visit if it weren't for something like this.  I'm so happy I got to experience it in this way - THANK YOU MELBA! It was awesome! It was one of the most relaxing and fun weekends EVER! And big shout out to Wayne and my mother in law, Vai for taking over at home with the girls while I was gone. THANK YOU!

crazy hair day

Malia and Avery

**Quick story of the week - We pick up little Avery for carpool once a week.  One day Kina accompanied me and Malia to pick her up and met her for the first time.

Kina - "Hi. I'm Kina. I'm Malia's sister. We're brown." 

Avery - "I'm Avery. I'm. . .clear."

s'mores anyone?

After I got home, it took me a few days to get back in the mode of things.  Wayne stepped up and made dinner for us a few nights. One of those nights he thought it'd be fun to roast hot dogs outside.  We borrowed the fire pit from our neighbor, invited the family over and had a yummy dinner.  Of course, we had s'mores for dessert.  The kids (and adults) had a blast. 

hawaii hilites

WARNING: This is a very very long post.


We went home for a couple weeks.
We had SO much fun.
I took a lot of pictures.
This is about a fourth of them.

We went to the beach EVERY SINGLE day we were there.  I became a pro at packing up and spraying on sunscreen and the girls became pros at handling the waves and playing in the sand. They LOVE the beach - everything about it.  On this day, I found these cute mermaids washed up on shore.

Love the slippers, Kina.

Malia in the little circle. I love this school.

A little Hizzouse Reunion/Girls Night In/Baby Shower for Titi at Leimana's house. I love/miss my girls so much! Highlight of the night was Vance's spaghetti (soooo delish) and doing our music video to OUR song "Best of My Love".  Low point of the night was when one of us (I won't mention any names in case she reads this haha) was trying on Leimanas' Mrs. Hawaii crown and it dropped. Leimana (who is now Mrs. America) was like, "Small kine. At least it was just the Hawaii one" . . . but we still felt really bad.

I love seeing Tali's face like this - pure joy.

Malia in the muumuu she wore to church.

The beach was THE highlight of this trip. We got to spend time with lots of different friends and enjoy the beautiful Hawaiian sunshine everyday. Uncle Ali'i and Uncle Inoke buried the girls this day . . . Tali was jealous.

Papa is planting a few new papaya trees in the backyard, so he had the girls help him get the seeds started. They were so excited to help.  I'm looking forward to showing them their little trees on our next visit.

A few days after we got there Inoke, Tali and Amalani came. I love being home at the same time as Tali - takes me right back. And the girls love playing with Amalani.  They all had so much fun.

Grammy got the girls matching swimsuits and we thought it'd make such a cute picture with all four of them together.  Yeah, this is the best we got.

We didn't eat out too much while we were there - no budget and trying to eat a little healthy (keyword trying). But of course I had to get my carrot cake fix at Ted's. I have so many memories of driving there with my girlfriends during my college years to get slice. It has a lot to live up to and it didn't disappoint.

My little brown Malia

One morning we side-busted on Kamehameha Preschool with Ame and Hazel.  The girls had a blast playing dress-up, painting, singing, crafting, playing and eating snacks. Makes me wish I was a little bit Hawaiian.

 

"Malia"

One night we made puppets with Grammy.  Malia wanted a dragon (of course) and Kina, who has been wanting EVERYTHING Malia has lately (a whole other post), wanted a princess dragon.  

 Best friends

My mom is trying to sort through some of her stuff and found a box of old clothes she's saved since my childhood.  That's me, Tali and Joseph on the right and Malia and Kina on the left wearing the same dresses. I love it!

It was an awesome trip.  I love being in Hawaii, but even more I love watching my kids in Hawaii.  Thank you Wayne for making these travels possible.  I am so grateful. Thank you Mom and Dad for ALL you do to make our trip so enjoyable.  We love you so much and miss you already.

 Me and my girls

iPhone pics

Ever since I've received my new iPhone 4 a couple weeks ago, I've not only been loving the built-in camera but ALSO the Instagram and Vintage Cam apps. I LOVE the convenience of having a good quality camera and editing tools together with my phone. With it I think I'll be able to keep better record of our lives and save more memories for my children. 

Here's just a few I've taken this last week.

(Of, course I thought it only fitting to publish this post from my iPhone! Ah! the possibilities are endless haha. Yup, I'm pretty much obsessed.)

my little helper

Sometimes I feel like I'm a maid in my house. That all I do is pick up and clean up after the four other people that live here.  Well, lately I have had a little assistent in my daily chores - Malia.  I love it and the best part is, so does she!  She is very good at staying on task and taking direction.  The other day we just went from room to room till the whole house was done and she was completely gung ho about cleaning the whole time.  I was so impressed.  I love my little helper!  

Malia tackling Tali's latest obsession - writing on the walls.  Luckily, I had a whole pack of Mr. Cleans' Eraser sponges - they work miracles!

i love kids

The point of this post is to present that kids are priceless.

(I hope you appreciate my use of alliteration)

Last week was my brother Joseph and Gioey's 6th anniversary so Joseph asked if he could bring the kids over so they could go have dinner to celebrate.  Of course, I said of course. Little Joseph headed straight downstairs to play with the toys.  When he came back up he had stuffed his chubby little feet into some plastic high heels.  They couldn't have been comfortable and he kept slipping and falling, but he wobbled around in them for the next couple hours. 

Last week, Kina accompanied me (for the first time) to drop off Malia and her cute little haole classmate we pick up on our carpool.  As soon as she got in the car, Kina started to talking with her. 

Kina: My name is Kina. I'm three. I'm Malia's sister. We're brown.

Avery: I'm Avery. I'm four. I'm. . . clear.

I was busy in another room, but heard the rustling of paper going on for a while.  When I finally got up to find out what it was - I found Tali in the middle of this mess.  She is so helpful.

Kina in her prayer the other night: "Please bless Mommy she won't be mad cause she has a big tummy".

The other day on the way to preschool, Malia asks me, "Mommy, where did we come from? God or Hawaii?"

it's a new year

I can't believe it's already the 8th of January and I haven't blogged yet.  To tell you the truth, I've actually sat down a few times to write a New Years themed post, but I always walk away with nothing written.  I don't know - I've been in kinda a funk lately.  Like, small-kine down and blah. I don't know what it is . . . but I know if I don't post something tonight another week will pass with no record of my growing family, and I don't want that. So here is my feeble attempt at an update (pls excuse the randomness).

For Christmas, the girls got pajamas and LOVE being matching before bedtime.  I love that my blanket kicking children stay warm throughout the night in our somewhat cooler house.

We rang in the New Year with little pomp or circumstance.  I completely missed the countdown.  Actually, the most exciting thing I did that night was to get my lashes done by my sister, Melba. Love her and love that she does lashes - totally makes me feel gawgeous. Excuse the picture. Whaaat? So fia aulelei yeah? haha

Malia and Kina started piano lessons with Aunty Kalo.  To say they're excited about it is a gross understatement.  They tell EVERYONE they are "Aunty Kalo's students" (they've become familiar with the term because of Daddy's piano studio).  Kalo got them some awesome kid-level lesson books for Christmas and they've been enthusiastic and upbeat about it everyday since. I hope this love for music and learning lingers for a very very long time.

As one of my many NY resolutions to better myself and my life (don't even get me started on that list. We'll be here all night), I've committed myself to get fit and healthy before summer.  One of the things I'll be doing to obtain that goal is weekly 5k's. Our first was last Saturday around the temple - my goal was to run the whole thing and I did it. If you want to join us, call me!

After a totally snow-less Christmas and New Year's I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever get any white stuff to play with.  Luckily, yesterday it finally snowed juuust enough for the girls to go outside and enjoy themselves.  Malia was a pro at making her snowman. She rolled the balls all by herself - she even had to re-roll the middle ball twice because she dropped it while trying to carry it over to the bottom ball.  I was very impressed with her determination.  She used a carrot for the nose, cookies for the eyes and pine cones for the buttons.  Just bummed I didn't get a pic of the finished product. . . I'll try post it later.

In closing, I'm hoping and praying for a wonderful new year full of positive growth and progression for me and my family.  I'm thankful for so many blessings at this time. I'm so grateful for my healthy and beautiful children who bring me so much joy. I'm grateful for my families (especially my parents) who show me so much love and support - I really feel so unworthy.  I'm grateful for my husband who works so hard to provide for our family and someday reach our goals.  Here's to a wonderful New Year!

Oh! Lastly, I'm also grateful for this little girl for making me laugh.

Happy New Year!