Our Family Valentine's Day

Matt is supposed to work on Valentine's Day, so we decided to celebrate a day early family style. We dressed up and headed out to a hibachi grill- I love watching the cooks chop up everything and put on the show and thought Makaela would enjoy it too. She loved the fire part of it, but was really taken by the chopsticks. At one point, she put her teddy bar on her plate and started poking him. When we asked her watch she was doing, she said his foot was "boten" (broken). Maybe she is gearing up to be a doctor.

The Zoo with Jackson

Today was a furlough Friday and we had headed off to enjoy the zoo. Jackson came along with us. Kaela had loads of fun pointing out the animals to him. I was a bit concerned taking two toddlers to the zoo, but they were so well behaved, it was almost too easy. They loved the gorillas, running around the playground, watching the koi and the tigers were active and wrestling each other- so fun. Jackson passed out before we even left the zoo and they both slept the entire ride home. Running around at the playground.

Kaela pretending to sleep to look like Jackson.

playing in the tide pools

We headed to the beach this morning and Makaela learned all about the tide pools. We watched the fish swim round and round, watched crabs scurry and "pet" the moss growing on the sides of the rocks. Her favorite activity was skipping the rocks across the pools. It took me forever to pull her away from them. Lucky we live in a place where ecology lessons can occur everyday.

Gung hay fat choy

Today we went down to Chinatown to celebrate Chinese New Years with Kristen and Chris. There was a parade with lots of lion dances, food stands that smelled awesome, martial arts shows and some Chinese dancing. Makaela was working on a 20 minute nap all day, so I opted to take the stroller, which didn't prove to be too convenient in a crowd that large. Makaela got to watch the lion dancing and feed dollar bills to the dragons. At first she was a little spooked, but caught on very quickly. She also loved the drums and she and Kristen were the only people dancing to the drums in the crowd. After dancing came the face painting. Then uncle Chris showed her how to throw the poppers which she proceeded to throw into a crowd of people- thanks Chris :-) She also go to climb into a Honolulu Fire truck and proceeded to cry her eyes out when we took her out of it (maybe following in Uncle Mike's footsteps).

Tired and sulking by the end of the night.

our little climber

Today was Matt's command family picnic and they had plenty of activities. I was supposed to be working on my UH work, but this seemed more fun. They had a jousting pad which Makaela ran around, throwing herself into the sides, sumo wrestling, a dunk tank and a rock wall. I decided to climb the rock wall and when I was done, Makaela met me at the bottom and said, "Kaela's turn". We thought we would amuse her by just dressing her up, but then she marched over to the wall with no fear. The guys running the wall actually let us put her on it and she enjoyed every minute grunting and trying to climb up (with our assistance of course).

Preschools

Today we took the day off to take Makaela to some local preschools. We want her in a more social setting and want her to focus more on letters and school readiness skills. We saw three of them today. One totally blew us out of the water, but the price was exhorbant. When she turns three the price becomes afforable, but until her third bday, we would be broke. Another we went to we watched as a little girl played "make-up" with the stuff in the garbage can and no one noticed...don't think we are going there. The third place was a Christian preschool that we were very impressed by, found it to be safe and the kids looked like they were having a great time. Plus, it is very affordable. Only downside is it is a small drive (wow, I'm spoiled) in the opposite direction of my job, but oh well. She will hopefully begin when we return from our many trips.

the girls

Kaela has been asking for her "friends" a lot lately. She has become a social butterfly (then again, when was she not), but during the weekdays, it's not always possible to have playdates. As her play gets more creative, the dogs have had to act as stand-ins for other toddlers. Leila is so patient with Kaela. Here is a picture of "dress up" hour.