Comfort Quilts

A few months back, my friend Amanda told me there was a group of quilters on the island that made "comfort quilts" for children whose parents were deployed. I filled out an application and sent in some pictures and this past week I had a phone call that the quilts were done. When I went to go pick the quilts up, I didn't realize how emotional it would be. Makaela instantly realized that the quilt had pictures of her daddy on it and while she was telling the lady, Susan, about daddy, I ended up being a blubbering mess. Makaela was so excited about the quilts, she made me lay Mia on hers as soon as we got home and for the rest of the day, was pretty much inseparable from the quilt.

Makaela napped with the quilt and watched TV with it.

Who knew a little blanket could go such a long way? Makaela misses her Daddy so much. She internalizes a lot, but it comes out in moments like this and in her questioning. It was so thoughtful that these quilters make these gifts for kids. I am so grateful for all those people who take an extra step to help out military families (and for all my fabulous friends who have been so supportive).

Party at the Jones's House

Today we headed over the Edwin's 9th birthday party and the Jones's put together a really nice party. Makaela couldn't wait and when we finally got there, she enjoyed herself immensely. The kids loved the bouncy house.

I had been contemplating buying Makaela a bike and it seems like she is totally ready for one. She got on Olivia's bike and started riding like a pro.

There were also some fun relays planned for the kids. Makaela didn't understand the concept of the game, but had fun playing regardless.

Makaela loved the cupcakes and Mia partied herself to sleep.

My Mornings

On weekends, I really get to enjoy my daughters and the mornings are fabulous. Makaela usually sneaks into bed with me and I persuade her to lay with me as I try to squeeze out a few extra minutes of sleep. Mia alerts us she is awake by chatting up a storm, so the three of us hang out in bed for a good half hour before heading downstairs. Here is a video of Mia this morning.

And here she is chatting up a storm while I was helping Makaela get dressed.

Makaela has also started making her bed (or in this case, her beds) and this morning, she got frustrated with Leila messing up her hard work. My, I wonder where she gets her temper from.

Mia's Routine

Mia has blossomed into such a pleasant girl- always smiling and is very easy going. She is back to sleeping through the night and now she is a big fan of bedtime. In fact, at 6:30, if we haven't started our bedtime routine, she let's me know we have to get moving. That's when the fussiness kicks in, however, as soon as she hits the bath, she's a happy camper again. She loves clowning around in the bath with her big sister. After bath, she practically puts herself to sleep. I REALLY hope this lasts.

Eggs

Matt always commented on the weird way I eat eggs (a little eggs on the bread, bite and start the process all over again), so I thought I would capture Makaela eating her eggs...guess who she takes after.

Matt turns 34!

Matt turned 34! We only wish we could have spent it with him. It stinks that he is so far away, but I am looking forward to the time when we never have to be apart for birthdays and holidays. We sent him out a box a few weeks ago so his bday cards could make it to him on time. Since he can't get big gifts over there, I decided to make him a Hoffman family calendar. It might seem like a small gift, but it took me weeks to make. I kept going over pictures from our past, reminiscing and getting side-tracked. There were so many great pictures, so many great memories, it was hard to pick which pictures to include. Can't wait for him to get home so we can make even more memories.

Sleepover Party

Tonight Makaela had her friend Olivia sleep over. When I first told the girls they could have the sleepover, they acted like little girls will: squealing and giggling and immediately I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Olivia is 6, so the dynamic with her and Makaela is a bit different than with Makaela's other friends who are younger. Tonight Makaela told me that she doesn't watch Dora anymore because that's for little kids and she is a big kid. I asked Olivia if she watched Dora and she said no too (ummm, the peer influence has begun although this did come in pretty handy during clean-up time :-). The girls played dress up for most of the night and I served as their lady-in-waiting, helping them change into their different princess dresses. (I had to scrub glitter out of hair during bath time) Makaela has a new phrase: "I'm a bala-hina". Considering she was wearing a tutu at the time she said this, I can only assume she meant ballerina. The picture above is of the girls watching none other than...Dora! I guess the girls got a bit tired of being "big girls" the later the night got.

Calling my Daddy

We were on a walk to the park when I looked down and noticed that my little bug had a rattle phone in her hand and it looked like she was on the phone. When I told Makaela she said, "Mia must be calling Daddy".

Makaela-isms Part 4

Thought I would give an update on some of the hilarious things Makaela has been saying:

- Makaela:"Mom, when will Mia get high?"

Me: "Um- WHAT?"

Makaela: "Like when will she get high like you and me?"

Me: "Oh, you mean tall?"

Makaela: 'Yes- tall, high"

Me: "Oh, thank God that is what you meant"

-While reading her bedtime story, I was whispering so I didn't wake up Mia and Makaela turns to me and says, "Mom, I think you left some spit on the book". Guess I need to say it, not spray it.

-"Mia is going to be my best friend today"

Me: "What about tomorrow?"

Makaela; "We'll see" (OK Ms. Finicky)

-As she is packing up to go to church she grabs her toy microphone. When I told her to put it back because we needed to be quiet in church, she said, "Well how am I going to sing then?" (too true)

- When Mia cries, I use a sing "It's okay, it's alright" to soothe her down. The other day, we were dogsitting for Frasier and he started to whine. I heard her singing, "It's okay, it's alright". When he didn't stop, she sang it again. When he still didn't stop, she yelled, "I said it's okay, it's alright- are you not listening to me? sheez!"

Pool Day at Ko'olina

The girls and I headed over to Katie's new pool in Ko'olina. It has a fabulous kiddie section of the pool which is a sand pool, so we got the beach effect while being at the pool. It was Mia's first time in the pool and she really enjoyed herself. Makaela enjoyed jumping in the pool with Abby and playing with Jackson. It was a great afternoon- the kids entertained themselves and the moms got to catch up.

St. Patty's Day

Things have certainly changed for me in terms of how I celebrate my St. Patty's Day, but

nevertheless, we all got dressed up in our greenery to celebrate. We headed downtown to Aloha Tower to have a dinner at Gordon Biersh with the Martins and the Buelows and see everyone all decked out at the block party. Of course, I would have never taken the girls to the block party, but we did get to see some crazy get-ups. Makaela noticed one woman wearing a headband with jiggly shamrocks on them and said, a bit too loudly, "Mom, that lady looks like a cock-a-roach". I told her that cockroaches don't have shamrocks on their antennae. The dinner was comical- three moms, a grandma and 6 kids, 3 years old and under. Yes, things have changed considerably-I noticed that in the pictures, I have throw up down my shirt and this year, it's not mine :-)

On the way out of Gordon Biersh, we stopped to watch a clogging performance and Makaela was in awe. She clapped when it was over and said she wanted to do that. The next night at bedtime she started jumping around and stamping her feet against the floor. When I asked her to do "gentle feet" she said she couldn't- she was dancing like the ladies we saw at the restaurant. I guess I will have to sign her up for tap one of these days.

Eating Prunes

I started Mia on eating prunes because she doesn't go to the bathroom too often. I was ready for a bit of a fight as she got used to the food taste, but she didn't mind at all. Looks like she is as good an eater as her big sis!

Makaela's First Field Trip

I was very pleased to hear that Makaela's first field trip was March 17th, because I was home from school and able to go on the field trip with her. Her class went to the Wahiawa Botanical Gardens. It was also her first time riding on a bus, so it seemed that she was more excited to do that than visit the actual gardens. I was hoping to see her interact more with her friends but she wanted to be my "partner" instead of taking a classmate partner. It seemed that all the kids who had parents on the trip did the same though. I did find out that her friend Krissy's brother used to be one of my students and that there is a boy Kainalu who has a little crush on her. He blew her a kiss and she phewed him away and turned her head. We got to do leave rubbings, made coffee filter butterflies, went on a nature walk and smelled a cinnamon tree, looked at cacao plants (she was interested to hear that the plant made chocolate), and felt some rooster tail plants. The highlight was running around in the field as we waited for the bus though- toddlers will be toddlers.

Rolling Over!

With Matt being gone, I have been trying to videotape any footage I can of the girls, but when dealing with two little ones on my own, the last thing I think about is the camera. However, yesterday, I happened to have the camera handy at the right moment. Mia has been coming so close to rolling over, it was just a matter of time until she did it and after 20 minutes of me videoing her, it finally happened. In the second video you can actually hear Makaela telling me it was time to put my camera away, but the persistence paid off.

Tsunami 2011

Last night I had received a bunch of texts warning me about a tsunami watch. Since I live in a bubble, at first I didn't think too much of these texts. Every time we have a tsunami watch, it ends up being nothing to worry about (thankfully). This time I was just going to head to bed but I tuned into a newscast and saw the damage in Japan. The Buelows invited us up, so I gathered the girls and Bailey and headed up there around midnight. Makaela-even though she was woken from a deep sleep- was very excited to be going to Gavin's. Even though the parents had a sleepless night, the kids were up at 6am ready to get the party started. Steph pointed out this was the 3rd time I headed to her house for a tsunami warning and last year, the kids were just as excited. We were very grateful the tsunami didn't cause any damage and but we were all ready to return home for some naptime :-)

Power Outage in Ewa

Thursday night we had a tremendous storm- the winds and rain were so powerful, that it actually woke me up three times during the night (of course this is the night Mia decided to sleep peacefully during the entire night and I couldn't). Oddly, at 6am, I received from my vice

principal saying that school was closed since Ewa didn't have any power. I found this odd because at 6am, I did have power. I was happy for a day off though because I thought I would be able to work on my paper. I dropped Makaela off at school, but they didn't have power. I felt like a terrible mom, but when I got home, I realized that we had lost power as well, so I'm sure she was having more fun at school than she would have had at home. So, my grand scheme of

working on my paper didn't pan out so well. Driving around Ewa was treacherous with all the traffic lights out, so I thought I would just stay home, but with the electricity out, we couldn't cook anything, so I started looking for a place to feed and bathe the kids and store some of my...well, Mia's food. Luckily the Martins took us in for the evening. We headed out to eat at Just Tacos and it was quite a scene- 3 adults and 4 kids (all under the age of 4).

Then it was back to the Martin's for some playtime, bath time and adult de-stressing time. Makaela was in heaven because she got to spend the night at "Abby's and Zack's".

The following morning, Matt got up and made us banana pancakes and served them on their

lanai- for a crazy weekend, it was a pretty peaceful morning out there.

After breakfast we headed out for a stroll along the lagoons and Mia had her hand held by a boy for the first time (ahhh).

We headed home after our walk because it had started to rain and because we had heard that parts of Ewa had power again. However, once we got home, we realized that we still didn't have power. So we hopped back into the car and headed to a movie with the Weidas. The movie was Rango, which really wasn't a kids' movie, even though it was an animation. Makaela got bored with it 1/2 through, but Mia was in heaven. The girl watched the entire movie. After the movie, in another last ditch effort to avoid going home with two little ones and no electricity, we headed to a park. Probably not the best idea considering it had been raining for the past week. Makaela was soooo dirty. We headed home to bathe early while we still had daylight and then hopped into bed to play about 5 games of Chutes and Ladders and read many many books. Just when I was about to throw in the towel and head to the Weida's for the night, our electricity came on. I was so happy about it, I let Makaela stay up late to watch a movie.

Mia is 4 months old!

The day of the power outage Mia turned four months old. She is growing so fast and is such a joy. She has been sleeping through the night (although now that I write this, it will all change) and is interacting with us much more. She loves to watch TV with her big sister and gets all amped up when the dogs start wrestling around her (her arms start pumping like she wants to join in). At her 4 month well baby check-up, she weighed 14.4 lbs and was 23 1/2 inches long. Her thighs have more rolls than a bakery :-) She definitely doesn't poop a lot (once a week at most) which gives her some trying moments, but otherwise she is all smiles. At 6:30, she lets me know she is ready for bath and bed, so she is yet another Hoffman lady who knows what she wants.

What a great big sister