Budding Artist

Makaela loves to color, so I was pleased with myself when I spotted an easel at a neighbor's

garage sale. It's pretty beat up, but since it's for a toddler and I have no room for it in the house, it's in perfect condition to be an outside addition. Since it has a chalkboard, we brought out the 3D sidewalk chalk and Makaela had fun scribbling on the easel. Her demeanor is hysterical when she is focusing on her artwork- she gets so serious and acts so mature.

Field Trip Friends

About a month ago, I signed up for Field Trip Friends- a company that organizes field trip for

parents and kids that are based on outdoor activities and the Hawaiian culture. Today, I kept Makaela home from school so we could go on our first "adventure". Makaela was very excited for mommy and Makaela time. We headed out to the windward side to learn about Hawaiian canoes and Hawaiian flora.

This particular flower only has half the petals- it's a Hawaiian legend that two lovers were separated; the woman being banished to the sea, the man to the mountains, so this bush (found

by the ocean) blooms half the petals, while the other bush (found in the mountains) blooms the others. Such a cool story. We also got to paint coconuts and taste coconut water. Apparently it's full of electrolytes and is better than Gatorade or Pedialyte. Who knew?

The kids loved helping Auntie Anne cart the coconuts up the hill and they were so dramatic- I wish I had it on video. They were huffing and puffing and Makaela was going "phew...phew"- really hamming up how hard they were working for her.

On the way home, I got nostalgic for the Windward side since we were right around the corner from Matt and mine first apartment, so Makaela and I headed to eat at the Koa house. She loved hearing stories about mommy and daddy's old apartment, where we ate, the places we went, etc.

Can't believe we used to live right across that bay! Ahh, the memories.

8 Months of Mia

Mia is 8 months old already. I posted last week that her two bottom teeth have popped and now she is chewing on everything...literally. Makaela and I call her our little beaver because if I don't feed her fast enough, she starts chewing on the kitchen table. She has been "borrowing" Makaela's toys and yes, she loves the princesses too. She is also crawling all over the place now making a bit of a mess. When she catches me watching her, she flashes me her huge smile almost as if she is up to no good. It's all good until she crawls under the stool and gets stuck. She hasn't learned to reverse yet :-)

July 4th

We headed to Iroquois Point to hang out with my friend Val and her son Cameron this July 4th. The beach at IP is right across from Pearl Harbor/Hickam, so they have a great view of the

fireworks. It sounded like a much better option than driving far, sitting in traffic, searching for parking and battling crowds. Val's neighbor's organized a massive BBQ (imagine my surprise when I learned that the neighbor's son was a student of mine). Mia was a hit. She was flirting with everyone and bounced around from one auntie's hip to another's.

Makaela was in a miserable mood- she was really missing her daddy, so she spent a majority of

the day either sleeping under the quickshade or sulking. She has been missing her Daddy a lot lately.

She did perk up a bit when she realized that we had visitors swim into the lagoon.

We had to get out of the water until the seals beached and then the marine people came and taped off an area. It was pretty cool.

The fireworks were great and it was true- we had a great view and the ride home was short thankfully (two little ones were up way past their bedtimes and were more than a little cranky).

Diving for Princesses

Makaela has been swimming like a fish and fights me on wearing her swimmie lately. She is really trying to swim independently. The other day, she decided to "dive" for her princesses and we practiced this for over an hour, dropping the princesses on deeper steps until she was finally able to retrieve them from the pool floor.

Fooling Mama

I picked up Mia from her babysitter today and the babysitter apologized for Mia being a bit wet. She said Mia was holding her bottle upside down. I looked at her in amazement, "She holds her own bottle?" Her babysitter said Mia has been holding her own bottle since the first week she started babysitting and ended by saying, "Guess she has her mama fooled into doing things for her huh?" Yes, this little girl definitely does.

New Word

We have been practicing this one for a while and when I was on the phone with Matt he heard her say it. I grabbed the camera and spent the next hour trying to get it on video for him.