Happy Holidays: Hau'oli Lanui!!

Merry Christmas! I have anticipated all year the lights, sounds of Christmas music, lots of food, and all our family!! We had the Christmas decor up since the first week of December because I get so excited!  Kea loves the lights too, she points and says, "pri-ee"(pretty). We are so grateful for Jesus Christ in our lives and that we get to celebrate His life. He makes hope, forgiveness, repentance, and life eternal possible. How could we ever repay Him but to live our lives to the best of our ability and give all our mahalo (thanks) daily. And in return we are blessed even more! How wonderful it is that there is a God and that He loves us so much!! Merry Christmas, and a Happy and blessed New Year!!

Started at Twilight, finished by morning!

          Well, I finally gave in to all the fuss about the Twilight books. Though slow at first, it definitely grew on me! I read the first one in 8 hours! I hadn't planned on reading more, but a friend insisted that it gets better. So, I read the second one...in 10 hours. The third and fourth books were short to follow and before I knew it I was all vampired out! I also read Angels and Demons (the in-depth version with pictures and maps, so awesome!) between those books.  So, within a matter of 2 weeks I had finished 5 books. Tom had always said, 'I never see you read for fun'. And I would always reply, 'You don't want to!'...I think he understands now. But the best part of it all, since I read Angels and Demons for Tom (one of his favorites) he is now reading Twilight! He gets quite the teasing from his friends!! He is finishing it right now, and we have a date set tomorrow night to see the movie. Such a fun thing to do together, and I am quite proud of my man!!

Kealani loves reading too!! She is getting pretty good at recognizing certain things in her books and repeating them, counting (to five), animal noises, etc. We love learning!!

NASCAR...Down In The Pits!

          So, most of you know that Tom is one of the biggest Nascar fans (especially if it has anything to do with Dale Jr.). He watches every race and even wears his Dale Jr. pajama pants and shirts. Tom has been into it since college when he worked with his friend, Matt Faulkner to build a late model car for Matt to race.  

           Since then Matt has worked his way up, with incredible speed and talent, to work for the Nascar #59 Truck team as the lead Engineer.  Matt got me, Tom and my  brother Nick into the pits for the recent race in Phoenix. What an incredible experience! I have been to races before; Matt's races, Grand Prix races with my dad in Longbeach..but this was quite the experience being in the pits. Tom was in heaven: cars, thunderous roars, tires, tools, the smell of gasoline and burnt rubber made for the perfect day. He came alive with the roar of the engines... and I plugged my ears. :) 

The boys down by the pit wall just as the race started. Nick and Tom got to listen to everything going on through the team headset. 

Matt was watching the video prompts and going over some race strategy. So cool to see him in action.

Tom helping the guys get the race car back on the truck after the race.

Terry Cook (the driver for the #59) and all of us. 

Matt came to our house and the boys went out for some RC fun after working on the '69 bug. 

Tom and Matt with their bugs.  Matt and Tom getting ready for a race.

Thanks so much Matt! We had a great time!

Gettin' His Game On...

Tom has been spending every week playing softball in a city league.  He has been the team pitcher and has a great batting average. Kealani and I had such a fun time going to the games. Kea proved to be quite the cheerleader yelling "Daddy" the whole time.

My hot man, posing for the pitch.

Definitely past her bed time, Kea got very cuddly on my lap.

Good job babe! We love you so much!!!

Lots and Lots of Treats

Tommy and I started the tradition of eating pumpkin waffles for Halloween dinner, unbelievably delicious (if anyone wants the recipe, let me know!) Then Kealani got dressed up as a little lady bug and we headed out with Maiya and Papa(grandma & grandpa). Kea's too-too even bounced up and down as she walked! :)

Kea held on to her ever increasingly heavy halloween bucket the whole time.  She said, "Peeeese" (please) at every door, and said thank you as we left.  She was content the entire time, just having fun socializing with everyone.

  

Tom dressed up in his waterpolo gear and parka. Thankfully I talked him out of sporting a pair of speedos!!  Kea fell in love with a little puppy at a neighbor's house. They both kept going for the candy.

  

Well, it was a great halloween night! It was so fun to be out in perfect weather under millions of bright stars.  Kealani figured she'd earned her prize...she unwrapped a sucker and started happily licking away. Her first piece of candy(well, a few good licks anyway)!! As soon as she was in bed, she was sleeping! 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!! 

We started the day out at the lake, and Papa (grandpa) came with us!  

We walked two miles and then stopped to play around. Tom brought his RC car, and Kea thought it was the best little pet to chase around.

Then we all got some ice cream cones to celebrate our exercising!! :)  Kea was trying to tell Papa what she wants, actually she would have no idea. The poor kid never gets sweets! (yeah, I am one of those moms).  She had a little, but it was much too cold for her anyway. We get a kick out of watching her face though.

 

Kea and Papa saying HI to Frankenstein.  She went to give Frankenstein a kiss, then turned towards Papa and kissed him instead! Kealani had a blast getting all wet at the fountain. Thanks GG for the cute shirt!! I will post again later with pics from Trick or treating!

Have a Happy Halloween!

Just 'Lei'-in' Around

Well, she must definately have some Hawaiian blood, Kealani loves her leis!  She has a few that she likes to string around her neck and then strut her stuff around the house and definitely in public.  But when we go to Maiya's (Grandma) house she wears them in the dozens. It is so hilarious to see the kid walk around, but you can't even see any kid...there is just a sea of leis!!

Working from home is tough sometimes, but it makes the time in between all that more special. Kea and I fill our day with lots of fun activities and picnics. I love everyday with my little bug, and I am so grateful to be her mommy.

Baby Signing Time!

     The wonderful world of toddlers and sign language!!! Kealani has really caught on to signing, which has made our lives a whole lot easier! We have been trying to teach her, along with the baby signing time DVD's and she has a growing vocabulary. She is now up to 30 words or more! She can sign them all and say them (but it is a lot easier to understand what she is saying when it is accompanied with sign language).  It has been so much fun because she catches on so quickly, everyday she learns something new! It melts my heart when she is tired and looks up at me with beautiful eyes and signs blanket.

Her current vocab includes words like; eat, more, water, milk, cracker (caka), banana(nana),cheese, all done, down, please (peeese), thank you (tee too), sorry (sayee), no, yes, baby, blanket (ben), shoe, socks, hat, hurt (ouwie), bath, potty (pie), change diaper (chay duhduh), wash hands, ball, book, dog-dog, cat, bird, baby, and lots more.

It was really tough cuz the camera would delay, but I got a few pics of her signing.

Hat

 

I told her to sign ouwie, and she did with a sad frown and then came to give my knee a kiss where my hand had been resting.

 

More and Please.

 The sign for eat. She also signed water and then gave me a big grin because she wanted some.

 

Kea couldn't help herself but sign quickly and run and get those objects. So cute! Signing has been so amazing with her.  And I can at least get a small glimpse of what goes through that cute little head!!

GOOOOO COUGARS!!!

Daddy and baby Kea in the proper attire for our Saturday games!!  What a great season we've kicked off this year! Especially the amazing shutout between BYU and UCLA! Go Cougars!!!

California August 2008

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted.  I actually had an unfortunate accident with my laptop and I lost many pictures and videos.  Thankfully a friend in the ward was able to read the hardrive enough to get much of it back. Here are some recent pics.

Where the beach is, there we will be also!! Tommy had another business trip to Cali and he took us along.  We had such a fun time as always hanging out with lots of family and friends!

Kea loves nothing more than a big bed and lots of pillows. She tried to be extremely cute in hopes of making the bed her permanent residence for the night, but the pack n' play was no different  once she finally had her favorite blanky in hand and sang herself to sleep.

   

Meeting up with a great friend and past fellow gymnastics coach at SCATS Gymnastics. We love you Tiffany! It was so great to see you, and many blessings to you in your new opening Gym!!!

  

Kealani's first surfing lesson. This time she loved standing on the boards, and was not as scared of sand and the water as she had been previously.

One of our favorite places we used to visit before we were married, the Long Beach Aquarium.  Kea had so much fun barking at the seals and watching all of the fishies.

Beautiful aquariums on display.  Kea finally fell asleep for a while in the stroller, but when she awoke she had even more energy than before as she screeched and pointed to all the sea life.

Thanks  to Grandpa, Rex, Emily, and GG, we had a blast at baby beach again. Tommy and I switched off between the stand up paddle and the outrigger canoe, trying our best to not fall in. In the end, Tommy didn't succeed and tipped the outrigger over due to a sharp turn.

Our little sea otter had such a great time and we can't wait to go back and play!!!!

Our little bug is growing up!

We've finally got it!! Total piggy tails!! So our cute little Kea came with hair, and then lost it. Struggling to recover from being like pappa, follically challenged, she has finally gained enough hair to pull back into two cute little bunches. Mom is soooooo excited!

Oh mom, I'm too cute to care!!

Kea loves hats, especially when they are from Uncle Nicky and are of the ANAHEIM Angels!