No Gold for the US Hockey Team, but Gold for the Hoffmans

Today we had a few friends over to watch the US/Canada gold medal hockey game. We ended up cooking a brunch (from all the defrosted food left over from the tsunami warning), and cheering on team USA. It was such a close game, and with only seconds left to the game, USA came back to tie up the score. Unfortunately, in overtime, they lost and while Team USA didn't see gold, everyone in the Hoffman house was covered in it...gold glitter that is. Makaela is going through a princess stage and she has a gorgeous puffy pink princess skirt from the Disney store. Boy- did that skirt make a lasting impression. What we failed to notice was that it rains gold glitter...seriously, our entire house is covered in gold glitter now. Mopping has proved only to spread it around further. It was so embedded in Makaela's head that I literally gave up during bathtime. Oh well, it's just a good reminder of how much fun Makaela had dancing around in that skirt.

Doing the dishes in her princess skirt

Climbing the "mountain" in our backyard in her pretty pink skirt

Tsunami Saturday

We were woken at 4am by a phone call from Matt's work telling us to prepare for a tsunami. At first, Matt thought someone was messing with him, but when we turned on the TV, we found out that yes, Hawaii was in fact preparing for a tsunami.

How does one prepare for a tsunami? Well, first we texted everyone we knew and found friends up in Makakilo to take us in (thanks again Buelows and the MacDonalds for offering). Then Matt headed to work...on Ford Island...an island with only 1 bridge, wedged between the ocean and the loch...sometimes the Navy is not the brightest. Alone, I started wondering what to do next so I grabbed the many photo albums we have and brought them all upstairs to our bedroom (higher ground right?) Realized on my 11th trip up the stairs that I really need to convert everything to disc. Great exercise, but not something I need to do when an impending tsunami is upon us. Finally got around to packing clothes, grabbed some food out of the freezer, threw every nonperishable I could find into bags, got flashlights, batteries, water, my UH dissertation stuff and a case of beer. All set, now just need to wake up the little one. I thought waking Makaela would be tough, but she got up and when I told her who we were going to see, she said "oh, I want to party"- atta girl!

The party consisted of 10 adults, 4 toddlers under the age of 3, 4 rambunctious dogs and lots of great food. While the kids played, the adults were glued to the oh-so-captivating news cast of Hilo Bay, waiting, and waiting, and waiting (well you get the picture) for something to happen. The weatherman was hysterical and should probably get a job in a soap opera or a Lifetime movie- everything was so dramatic. Oh well, they need their ratings regardless of how anti-climatic the tsunami was.

When we were in the clear, we packed up and headed home for a 4 hour nap. We were exhausted from the stress, but learned a few lessons:

1- Need to convert our old photos to digital versions

2-Bringing research articles to a tsumani party is a waste of time

3-I'm pretty good at packing for natural disasters (still amazed that I had water and batteries)

4-In times of crisis, one 2 cans of SPAM per person are allowed

5-Hawaii is really good at following crisis directions- overall a great job by the state

and

6-It's great to have such good friends to wait out in impending disaster with.

2nd haircut

Kaela doesn't have that much hair, but unfortunately, she inherited my hair- wacky curls that go wherever they want to. In the morning, I try what I can to smooth them down and capture them in a clips, but she rips any ponytail or clip I put in her hair out only hours after. So, today, I picked her up from daycare and her hair was more wild than ever. I got her home and Matt looks at me and says, "We need to do something about this", almost like it was a medical condition of some sort. So, we all hopped in the car and headed to Fantastic Sams. We had no time to head to the kiddie salon- she needed serious help and fast. Luckily, she was really well behaved (we were prepared for water works). The stylist gave her a small trim (remember, she doesn't have that much hair to start with), and layered the back of her hair to give her curls someplace to go.

Daycare Graduation

Today was Makaela's last day at the daycare she has been going to for 2 1/2 years. It was a bittersweet day. On one hand, we are excited to get Makaela into preschool and interacting with more kids her own age, but on the other hand, Leanda (her daycare provider) has been so good to Makaela, it's hard to leave. As we were driving away, Makaela said, "I want auntie". Especially in the past few months, Makaela has been learning so much at Leanda's, the growth has been amazing. Makaela has learned how to draw straight lines (which take some practice with little toddler hands), learned how to hold scizzors and cut strips of paper, knows all her shapes, colors, numbers up to 20 (although she does love the #39- she can't count that high, but just likes the number, especially when used to get something "I want dirty-nine cookies mama") and has started writing her M's. I can't believe she is ready for preschool. I am in awe of how fast she is growing and even as I celebrate her writing an M, I know that the years will fly by before I find myself celebrating her first research paper grade.

Bed buddy

Bailey has gotten into a routine every morning. After we wake up, I find him outside Makaela's room, waiting to wake her up. He seems to get a lot of joy in doing that. This morning, I didn't find him outside her room, but when I peeked in, I found that he was actually up in bed with her and was gently rubbing up against her to wake her up. Usually she is terrible to wake up (lots of groaning, rolling around, diving back into the pillow- just like Mom), but this morning she woke up with a smile on her face and I heard her say, "Morning Bailey...love you, mwa" and planted a big one on his nose. When she looked over and saw me, she said, "Bailey silly". It was such a great moment. She was pleasant all morning. Guess she woke up on the right side of the bed and Bailey has a new morning chore.

Tonight when I put her to bed, Bailey was right next to her again and stayed there with her for a good 15 minutes or so. Who needs teddy bears when you have a fluffy white dog?

Daddy- Fix it!

Today Makaela and I were trying to get to daycare and work when I realized that my car wouldn't start. The battery has been getting weaker so I figured it was that. Immediately Makaela was going, "Waz wrong mama? Waz wrong?" I told her the car wouldn't start and that we were going to have to go wake up Matt. Makaela walks in the house, stamps upstair in a huff and says very nonchalantly, "Dada, car bro-ten. You come fix...NOW". Don't know where she got the idea Matt was a mechanic, but basically she gave him his "honey do" list today.

earrings

Makaela lost one of earring this past weekend. Her Aunt Debbie bought them for her when she first got her ears pierced at 3 months. She was a bit upset about the missing earring and talked about it all day. I told her that I would let her borrow a pair of my earrings. She was so excited to dig through my jewelry box. We picked out a pair and for the remainder of the night, I kept catching Makaela staring at herself in the mirror and each time I asked her what she was up to, she told me, "pity fincess earrings". Crazy that I'm not a jewelry person, but I get a daughter who is all about the bling :-)

Makaela the first day she got her ears pierced. Mom and Dad went out for a night in Vegas and the grandmas got her all dolled up.

An old video I found

Here is a video from Christmas time that I finally downloaded from my phone. She was getting down in my mom's kitchen... so cute.

Hot tub time

Today we wanted to get some sun and beach time, but were too lazy to actually pack up and drive to the beach. We opted to hop into the hot tub...all of us. This was Makaela's first time in the hot tub. Don't ask us why we haven't thought of this earlier, but she had a great time. She went nuts over the bubbles. After the hot tub, she wanted to be just like Dad.

our little UH warrior

I was scheduled to host girls' night so Matt agreed to take care of makaela while I shopped and prepped the food. I was concerned that Makaela would get bored at the UH baseball game Matt was taking her too, but she loved it. Appearantly, she didn't want to leave even after the game was over and UH lost :-(

We love our Auntie Tanya

way to make an exit

We had a very lazy morning today, but Makaela surely livened it up. Matt and I were laying in bed chatting when Makaela flings open our door (which was only half closed to begin with), yells "Fine!", and slams the door behind her. Matt looked over at me and said "What was that all about?" Makaela must have heard him because she erupted into a fit of giggles from behind the door. So what does she do? Flings the door open again, yells "Fine", slams the door shut again, but this time the door wasn't even shut before she started cracking up. This went on for a good 15 minutes, each time perfecting her grand dramatic exit from the room. Oh, our little actress...

our concerned Kaela

Lately Makaela has been very in tune with people's facial expressions and emotions. She is constantly asking, "whas wrong?" It usually pops up in the car when I am frustrated with other drivers. Anyway, every once and a while Matt asks me to walk on his back to help crack it. Today, Kaela walked in on me standing on Matt's back and immediately got concerned. When I explained that daddy's back hurt and mama was helping to make it feel better, she took me by the hand, helped me off Matt's back and said, "Kaela do". So, Kaela got on Matt's back and then, Leila got in on the action, licking matt's face.

Happy Valentine's Day

Today was a great day. First Matt let me sleep in a bit, which was so nice. We bought our Kokua Festival tix (can't wait) and then headed to spend the day in the sun. We went to Pokai Bay where Matt and Makaela built sand castles and Makaela and I collected rocks to decorate the castles with. The Martins showed up with Abby and Jackson so Kaela had some playmates. Matt had to go to work, so we packed up and headed home. Once Matt had gone, Kaela and I started getting ready to go on some errands when Mel walked in and announced she was babysitting. Matt walked in behind her and told me that he had lied (tsk tsk) about work and that we were celebrating Valentine's Day alone. He had a beach picnic set up so we could watch the sunset and then had tickets to go watch Avatar (which I loved). It was such a great night and the surprise was awesome.

Beach Clean-up

Today we headed to Makaha Beach to help with a beach clean-up. It was part of a radio station promo that would allow you to purchase concert tickets before they went on sale. Makaela did this when she was four months old and now, two years later, she is was able to help out too. Problem was there were so many homeless people, we didn't know what to haul out for trash and what to leave. There were so many little puppies running around, I wanted to gather a few of them up and take them home. Kaela did too.

Helping Aunt Katie pick up trash.

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.