What a week!

Have I mentioned that I LOVE living in Hawaii?!?!?! We have been so busy the last couple weeks and I love it. The busier I am, the better. :) We have had a couple of get togethers and meet-ups with the groups I joined. I am so glad that I found the meet-up website. It is such a great way to meet people. I am really excited to become more active with the Military Moms group. They have park, beach and in home play dates every week, along with other various activities. We went to the beach with them on Wednesday. It was at the Ko'Olina Lagoons. This is a great place for children. Very calm and shallow water so you don't have to worry as much about them being carried off by the waves. The boys loved it.

Thursday Maw Maw and Kenzie arrived!!! We have been counting down for this day during calender time. The first couple days weren't real exciting as far as showing them the island. Friday was completely focused on getting ready for Parker's birthday party. We kept it small and had burgers and cake at the house. Parker had a great time. Jenny came with Logan and Avery. Parker and Avery played on his new slide for most of the evening. Parker LOVED his cake and made sure to eat the whole piece!

Saturday we went to Hanaumu Bay. It is beautiful there. We snorkeled and just hung out of the beach. It is a nature preserve with a lot of coral, so the boys couldn't really ''play" in the water. Took Blake a little while but by the time we left he really liked snorkeling.

Then we went to the Halona Blowhole. Again...Beautiful!

After the Blowhole we went to Wakiki and walked through the shops. The weather was wonderful. We came across a pirate (at least that is what hunter called him) with 2 parrots. The boys held the parrots and the pirate continued to place them all over us. We were able to get some awesome pictures. :)

On the way home, our wonderful day was finished with an amazing rainbow.

Sunday we went to the Dole Plantation for lunch, and pineapple ice cream. ;) Then went up to the North Shore to Waimea Valley. We hiked up to the waterfall. Ben, Blake and I actually swam up under the waterfall. It was freezing! Talk about a good workout too. If you stopped swimming for a second the current would push you back out. I haven't loaded pictures from Waimea yet. :( It was a wonderful weekend! So much more fun to come. :)

Parker turned 1!

My sweet baby boy turned 1 on Friday, March 25. So here is to my Parker.

Oh my! Little Handsome, you are 1! You are a complete mess. You love to climb on anything and everything. So happy almost all the time. But you don't let us forget to feed you! And what is that baby food crap? You want absolutely nothing to do with it. You are a big boy with 8 teeth...so you need some real food! Or so you think. ;) Some of your favorites are bananas, nutra-grain bars, mandarin oranges and anything mommy is eating.

You LOVE your brothers. You like to play cars with them, cuddle with them and just about anything else with them. They adore you. Blake tells me all the time that you are getting too big and he just wants our Parker to stay little.

You are such a little stinker. You have said momma 3 times...thats it. You refuse to say it. When asked...you just wrinkle that little nose and smile. That is mommy's favorite face though, so it makes up for it. :) You really aren't much of a talker. You have your own Parker language that suits you just fine. You clap, wave bye-bye, stack 2 blocks (no more because you HAVE to knock them down), walk, run, climb up and down.

Some of your favorite things include cars, climbing, playing in the sand, and most of all...Gordon. You have to have Gordon. If you are sleepy or feeling under the weather, cuddling with Gordon makes everything better. You are also very much a momma's boy! You follow me around the house. Wherever I am, you are with me or close by playing. You love to help cook by emptying the cabinets.

All in all you are simply amazing. You make me smile over and over everyday. You are now 1 but even when you are 50...you will still be momma's baby. :) I love you Handsome.

Exciting week!

Everyone knows it is coming. The blog about the Tsunami. :) I will start off by saying that I am not one that worries about weather or natural disasters. There is nothing you can do to control it, so just get ready and go with it. It was just as we were putting the boys to bed that we heard we were under a watch. Shortly after, it was changed to a warning. The sirens starting going off and they started evacuating the coast. They evacuated a 1/2 mile inward depending on where you are on the island. We are about 3 miles in so we stayed put. It was so odd to be preparing for something with no real warning. Storms don't start first or even wind. You are just waiting for this huge wave to wash everything away and then go back to being calm after the surges are over. With it being at night and not very many points through the ocean to monitor size, they had no idea how big the waves would be. I stayed up most of the night watching progress on the news. It fascinated me. I didn't know very much about tsunamis before so it was an exciting learning experience. Ben and that boys snoozed away! We were very lucky that it didn't amount to much. Oahu didn't suffer any damage at all. Just a lot of panicked residents and tourists and A LOT of tired people. My heart goes out to Japan.

Next big change...Parker. Oh my goodness, this child amazes and scares me. He won't be a year until later this month. the child already pulls himself up onto the couch and then continues to climb onto the back of it. Then to get down he falls back to the sitting part of the couch and then dives head first to the floor and flipping. CRAZY child! He will be the one that we find on top of the frig. Everyday he is doing something new and showing more personality. He loves to make you smile and laugh. He has also starting eating solid foods. Loves bananas, green beans and carrots. He still gets formula at night and first thing when he wakes up. Throughout the day we have started to introduce milk. Only 2 more weeks and my baby will be one!

I am starting to feel more at home here. Starting making some friends and found a couple activity groups. I have joined "Active Moms" and "Military Moms". Both groups just meet up for various activities for the kids with an occasional moms only activity. We have something planned Tuesday and the following Wednesday. I am so excited to start getting out and making friends. I took the boys to the beach Thursday with a friend and her little girl. We had a great time. She was the one who thought it was a good idea to torture me with spin class yesterday too. Ugh! This afternoon we are going to the beach with her and a group of her friends. The boys are so excited to hang out with her son.

Speaking of spin class, I am officially announcing my plan to get into shape! They say that the more people who know of your goals...the more likely you are to stick to it. So my goal is to shed 10-15 lbs and tone up. I am not a hardcore dieter but I am going to cut back on dessert, portions and soda, and drink more water. I will be exercising  a lot more. Spin yesterday and a run this morning. Off to a good start!

Less than 2 weeks and Linda and Kenzie will be here! And my kitty, Monster, too! :) Can't wait!

Day with Sarah and Parker's 1st haircut!

Thursday night we had some pretty crazy storms. There is only one road into Ewa Beach. Along the way in a tree feel onto the power lines. This started a ripple effect and snapped 1-15 poles. The whole town was out of power for almost 24 hours. Luckily we had a wonderful reason to be gone all day. Ben's cousin Sarah is on the island visiting a friend of hers. She is on the Kanoheo side, which happens to be one of my favorite areas. So pretty. We went over there and took her out for lunch and then hung out at the beach. I rained for the first 10 minutes we were there. This worked out in our favor though because everyone else left. We had the beach almost to our selves. :) Then we noticed down the beach there was a group with a bunch of lighting props. There was a guy directing people around the area so that no one would walked by the group. Nosey me finally went to talk to him to find out what was going on. They were filming Hawaii Five-0. I may have to start watching the show now. :)

It was great finally getting to meet Sarah. They live in Washington State, so Ben hadn't seen her since they were little. I met her Dad when Ben and I were dating but never had the chance to meet the rest of the family. Hopefully we get a chance to go to Washington soon.

My sweet baby Parker got his 1st haircut yesterday . :( This makes mommy really sad. My little man is growing up too fast. Just a few more weeks and I will never have a baby again. :'( He did so good! Never shed a tear and sat fairly still. Funny that after the baby crazy curls are gone, you wonder what took you so long to cut them! He looks so cute!

Some of the same...

No big adventures lately :( Ben has been working a lot. On his days off it has been nice to just relax. We have started Mommy and Daddy days. Every month, Blake and Hunter will get an afternoon out with just Daddy and another afternoon our with just Mommy. I felt this was important especially for Hunter. In fact, the idea came to me when I was talking to Hunter after he had gotten into trouble. It dawned on me that the only time I spend just talking to him is for school or when he is being scolded. He needs some more positive face time with mom. :) Saturday I let Hunter decide what to do. We ended up going to the park. We played soccer, football, raced up the slides and just had a grand time. He actually decided he was hot, tired and hungry before I did! He then picked our eating place...Taco Bell. Yum! After we had lunch we tried out the Orange Groove. It is a frozen yogurt place that I know highly recommend. It was a great afternoon. He is such an amazing little ball of personality. My entertainer.

Home schooling is going great. We have a routine going now. Parker is starting to get the hang of it as well. He was pretty whiny at first when he wasn't getting the attention that he thought he needed.

I discovered a book that I want to recommend to all my teacher and parent friends. It is called "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" I was really worried about how little my boys seemed to pay attention to others and their feelings. I started searching for ideas and ways to make them more aware that there are other people in this world, not just them. And, that their actions can impact how a person feels. This book uses the idea of bucket filling to explain just that. When you do or say something nice to someone, you fill their bucket. When you are mean, you dip into their bucket and empty it. The more full our buckets are, the happier we are. The boys really liked the book. Everyday we are talking about ways that we helped fill others' buckets and how we may have dipped some too. I have been able to point out a few times that others at the store helped fill my bucket. A nice man took my cart back for me at Costco, so that I didn't have to walk away from my children in the van. Very sweet. It is only $9.98 on Amazon. Buy it!!! :)

We have entered Parker's birth month. Makes me soooooo sad. I don't want my baby to turn one. I know, I know...it has to happen. I am using this perfect moment to research and read up on photography. I have found a lighting and backdrop kit that I am going to order next week. I have some awesome ideas for Parker's 1st birthday pictures. And if they don't turn out...we will just have to take him somewhere.

Parker has been so funny lately. He personality AND temper have really sprouted. He LOVES to climb and will not stay off the couch. scares me!!! Just when I think this house is baby proofed, he learns a new trick. He just pushes he train, or anything else over to the couch and climbs right on. He also loves to just take off in a full run and bounce off the couch. He will laugh and laugh at himself. Momma is finally in his vocabulary...he just chooses to not say it often.

The social part of me is starting to go crazy. Without working it has been harder for me to meet new friends. I really miss all my friends and girls' nights. BUT, we have our first library and park play date later today. It is with one of the boys that takes Karate with Blake and Hunter.  Hopefully it goes well and we can start meeting up more often.

I have rambled a lot today so I will close for now. Last exciting news though...first visitors are due in 21 days!!! Linda, aka Maw maw, and Kenzie are coming on the 24th. The boys and I are so excited!

Here are a few recent pics: