Aloha Ducotes

On Saturday, we had a beach day with the ladies to celebrate Lisa's last weekend on the island. Even though I knew they were planning on moving eventually, the news that they were actually moving, floored me. As exciting as it is that they are starting a new chapter in their lives in Houston, it made me realize how much I was going to miss my friend. The day was a nice reminder of how lucky we are that we have lived in paradise and to have formed friendships that we have. After the ladies spent the day together gossiping and sunbathing, the rest of the families came and we turned it into an "Aloha Ducotes" picnic dinner. The sunset was amazing and the kids ran themselves silly.

Again, it was a bittersweet celebration, but I am so grateful for all the memories (and looking forward to all the future trips we'll plan to Texas.

Loving the bath

Mia just loves her bath!

Mia

Mia has been talking up a storm lately. I love listening to her.

She has also been rotating around and is inches from rolling over. Her fine motor skills are getting better too- she is starting to play with her toys. All of her little accomplishments are amazing, but a reminder that she is growing up and I am so not ready for that; I want her to stay my little baby forever.

Newest Seagull Student

We have been on Seagull Preschool's wait list since October and waiting anxiously for a spot for her to open up. Every time we pass it, she would make a comment about her "new school" and how some kids need to stay home so she could go instead. We finally got the call this week and have started the orientation process. The parent has to accompany the child for 2 half days to help with transition. Since I'm a teacher and can't accompany Makaela in the morning, the school is allowing us to do these sessions in the afternoon. Today was our first day of orientation and at first it took Makaela a little while to get used to their routines (story time, line-ups, not running away from the in line, etc) but within the hour, she got it. The teachers were very patient with her and assured me that the new kids pick up on all the routines within the first three days. Today Makaela got to sit in on craft time and she made a bracelet. She was so proud of this bracelet. On the way out of school, I asked her if she liked it and she shouted, "I love it". Here's the picture:

Everything revolves around Dora

I love it when Makaela can make connections, and as she is maturing, the connections and relationships are more relevant...sort of. Yesterday Makaela thought she saw Aunt Katie's car. When I told her it wasn't Aunt Katie's car, she asked "Well, what kind of car does Aunt Katie have?" So I saw, "Aunt Katie has an Explorer". Makaela's response: "Oh, well then how come I never see Dora?" Took me about a minute before I realized what she was talking about.

(for those of you who do not know, the name of the show is "Dora, The Explorer")

Eating cereal!

Mia has a penchant for spitting up and now that she is eating more, I've decided to try her on rice cereal to help settle that little belly. She seems to be enjoying it or at east enjoying making a mess with it.

Makaela-isms Part 3

-When Brooke is scolded, Monica or Melissa will say "Brooke Elizabeth Weida", so the other day, when I was scolding Makaela, I said, "Kaela" and she barked back "No, you say Makaela Torrie Hoffman".

Later when she was upset with me, she said, "Mommy Torrie Hoffman- I no like that!"

-We have been telling Makaela that she is a big girl, especially now that Mia is the baby of the house, so these words came back to bite me. A recent conversation played out like this:

"Mommy, can I drive. Gimme the keys."

"No Makaela, you're still little."

"No Mom, you said I was a big girl, so now I can drive"

...did I say that?

-I guess when I find myself in bad situation, I mutter to myself "I can't believe I did this, I can't believe I did this." The other day I got my keys stuck in the ignition and must have been saying that because when I let Makaela out for babysitting, she hopped up in the driver's seat, fiddled with the keys and muttered, "I can't believe you did this Ma, I can't believe you did this."- yeah, thanks kid.

My little thumb-sucker

A few weeks ago I blogged that I was going to let Mia "cry it out" and learn to self soothe. Well, her idea of self soothing is sucking her thumb. I am happy to report that she is sleeping through the night now: from 7-7:30pm to 5-5:30am. Sometimes at 2 or 3am, I hear her sucking away on her thumb and she eventually just falls asleep. Right now, I can't complain...let's see how I feel when she is 14 and the orthodontist bills start coming in :-)

Here is a picture of Makaela's first thumb sucking experience, but it never became a habit for her.

Eating me out of house and home

I know Makaela is a growing girl, but when she packs her lunch- fuhgetaboutit!

Happy Valentine's Day 2011

Valentine's Day was a bit sad this year because Matt wasn't around to help us celebrate it, but Makaela and I tried to get into the spirit. Makaela and I made Matt sugar cookies, used food

coloring markers and wrote/drew little messages on the cookies for him before mailing them off to Iraq. We had loads of fun (or rather I had loads of fun) dressing the girls up in the same shirts and taking pictures.

On Valentine's Day, my co-worker Terry, came in and gave me a cookie she made. She said she

knew I wasn't spending Valentine's with my sweetheart, but hopefully this cookie would cheer me up- it was delish!! Terry is such a wonderful person. Over 8 1/2 years ago, she ran m

y doorbell in Waikele and had made Matt and I a gorgeous wedding cake for our Hawaii wedding. She does find wonderful ways of mixing up sugar and a bit of love.

Some more comparisons

Again, the great thing about having two, is that the clothes have an encore. Here is Makaela at 3 months and the bottom picture is Mia at 3 months in a onsie that says "Ado(red)". Yes, both these girls are definitely adored.

As you can see both girls have the same double chin and no neck :-)

Protective Big Sister

Since Mia has starting falling asleep at 8pm every night, I have been putting her down in the crib in the girls' room, and then I move her when I go to bed. Makaela has taken to Mia sharing the room with her and asks for Mia to sleep with her, but the first night, she woke up all panicked when Mia wasn't in her bed. Yesterday, Mia kept waking because Makaela wasn't going to sleep, so I decided to put Mia back in my room to sleep. Makaela was so upset, it ended in a tantrum, so I told her that if they both went to sleep nicely, Mia could stay in their room. Tonight, Makaela wasn't taking any chances, so she slept in front of Mia's crib so she could make sure Mia stayed in the room.

Great Aspirations

So every parent wants their child to have high aspirations and to be successful, so when Makaela told me this, I was thrilled! Now I just have to start saving up for all the schooling.

What our family does on rainy days...

We gather in front of the TV and watch movies...all of us (well, minus Matt, but if he were home, he'd be sitting with us). What a fabulous family I have!

Superbowl Sunday

The Martins graciously hosted Superbowl Sunday this year, so we all headed out to Maile which will probably be our last get together at the Martins since they just sold their home (yeah for them, sad for us). The kids had an entire room filled with toys to keep them busy while the parents watched the game and chatted. Mia had her first experience with a Bumbo and again, she amazed me with her ability to sit up- such a strong little cookie, but she is 3 months old now.

During half time, the kids got to jump on a neighbors trampoline and a good time was had by all (all except the nervous parents watching).

Obviously Makaela loved it (that daredevil) and cried when I had to carry her off of it because the halftime show was ending.

Daycare fun

I have to say that I have really enjoyed dropping off both girls at the Weida house every morning. It usually happens that when I am running into the house with my two girls, Monica and Brian are running out, so there is a lot of kissing babies, everyone saying byes, the adults giving 5 second updates on their night or previous day and then Monica, Brian and I all run out of the house to head to work...honestly, I feel like I am part of one huge crazy family trying to hustle out of the house on time. It is chaotic and I LOVE IT. It so reminds me of when I was younger and all my siblings and myself were getting ready for school.

It has been great having Melissa watch all four girls because she has been great keeping me updated with pictures. Just when I think my day at work couldn't get any worse, I get a text message photo of either Makaela and Brooke or Mia and Makenzie and it instantly brightens my day. This week Melissa taught the girls how to play Candyland. I plan on buying a game for ourselves so Makaela and I can start up family game night now. How fun!

Bedtime Antics

My girls really seem to have the tag teaming thing down pat. This week I started the "cry it out" stage with Mia so I could get her back on a Babywise schedule and it was tough. On Monday night, it took 45 minutes of her crying before she passed out exhausted. The crying out stage is also difficult when there is a toddler in the house because Makaela kept yelling down to me, "Mia needs you", as if I didn't know that. During this time, there were a few respites when she would doze off but within 5 minutes, she would wake and start crying all over again with a vengeance- almost as if she would wake and cry even louder to show me that she had not thrown in the towel just yet. Tues- took us 25 minutes, by Wednesday it was 5 and then Thursday and tonight, after feeding her at 8:30, I set her down and she went to bed immediately. The hope was to get her body adjusted to an 8:30 bedtime because that would give me some quiet time to get lunches prepped, bags packed and the house cleaned before I turn in. However, this did not go as smoothly as I had hoped.

Just as Mia got better with bedtime, Makaela got worse. Makaela has always gone to bed fairly well (napping is a totally different story), but since she has gotten a new night light, she has been sleeping on the floor in her room. I come to find out that there's a whole bunch of toys and books stashed under her bed, so while she is supposed to be sleeping, she has been up playing and the reason why she loves the night light is because it allows her to see all her toys (and it inadvertantly keeps her awake). Since she is up, she gets restless and bored in her room, so she has also started leaving her room (something she never did; even if she had to go to the bathroom, she would yell for me). She would come to the stairs and yell for me, asking for medicine, a band aid, water, or the famous "but I need you". So, like every exhausted mom, I tried coaxing, bribery and finally resorted to taking away privileges. I have scolded every night. Tonight, she had to sleep in her bed again (I took away the right to sleep on the floor) so she made a little bed on the floor for her stuffed rabbit and laid him down right next to her night light. As she is tucking her rabbit in, I hear her say, "Now, you lay here and don't get up- do you understand me? Alright!" As she walks away she turns around again to say, "If you get up, no carrots for you, do you understand me? You hear me? OK!"

You know that saying, "Women eventually turn into their mothers"? Well, I think Makaela has mastered that really early on. Poor girl...and here I thought she wasn't paying attention to me...perhaps she was paying too much attention.

Orders are in

We got the news Thursday morning that will dictate many upcoming decisions for us. Matt agreed to take Jacksonville Florida as his next duty station. We were mentally preparing ourselves for either Whidbey Island WA, Fallon NV or Lamoore CA. Whidbey Island was the top runner out of the three (because the other two were unfathomable), but it was difficult to accept the weather and complete change of lifestyle. When Jacksonville came available, we were both pretty shocked. We didn't even know it was an option. We decided to accept it because we were worried if we didn't, the Navy may put us in a place like Lamoore or Fallon. I was able to do about 20 mins of research on school systems before we had to make the decision, but Jacksonville seems to have some decent school districts and has 5 high schools that placed in the top 100 high schools in the country. We are definitely moving to one of those 5 areas: most like Manadarin, but Fleming Island is a close second and a brand new school complex has opened in Oakleaf. It looks like we can also get a very large 4 bedroom home from $210-250K-an enormous difference than Hawaii's home prices. It also seems like there are teaching jobs (was able to find at least 4 openings that would fit my certifications and it is in the middle of the school year too). I am still a bit in shock and everytime I think about leaving my friends and also having to take Makaela away from hers, I get all choked up. Of course I knew this was bound to happen, but the realization of it is difficult. At least, my family will be together again and that is something to look forward to.

A Jacksonville beach

Jacksonville's skyline

New Activities

This particular afternoon, Mia was a bit fussy. She didn't want to lay down in her swing and she didn't want to be held like a baby; she wanted to sit on my lap. I had to do some cleaning around the kitchen, so I thought "What the heck? I'll try the exersaucer" thinking that I was totally ridiculous and she was entirely too young for it...well, she proved me wrong. She loved it. Sitting in it took some effort though and she was exhausted after 20 minutes leading to a very long night of sleep!