We are still alive

We are still alive here in Hawaii. We have had a fun, busy and HOT summer. One of the most exciting news was finding out we are expecting a boy in November. This is "how" we told Haans what we are having. And to say he is excited is an understatement. I guess the girlie hormones having been draining to his all boy childhood. (He has 4 brothers and no sisters) :-) When I sent this picture to my family to tell them, my daddy teasingly said, "Are the blue balloons significant?" Sure love my dad's humor!!

Since this blog is a journal for me, and like typical journal fashion, I am usually good for a couple months and then I fall off the journal wagon for a couple months, I'd like to catch up for a little bit, so enjoy if you so dare!

This is from Easter! The girls LOVED dying eggs.

 I love these dresses! I don't usually match my girls, but when I do, I just love it!

 My handsome hubby sporting his facial hair! 

Curly was able to take ballet lessons for a few months from a great friend!. Curly LOVED it and their performance was at a Nursing Home which was just perfect for this group!

 The day of the performance!

 Of course we had to dress up Loo Who too!

To be continued.......

Birthdays

So I have some catching up to do. Haans' birthday was at the end of February and he wanted a Cherry Vanilla Cake. So I did a little research for a recipe and found one. It turned out good, but the funny thing is that he than had a very manly PINK cake. The girls loved the color and Haans at least loved the flavor!

 The girls were so excited to watch daddy open his present!

Curly and Loo Who's birthday's are both in March. And Curly especally has been counting down the days till her birthday. She and Loo Who would even get into yelling matches about whose birthday it was. "My birthday!" "No my birthday!" Thankfully we only had to endure that for 9 days till they both had their birthdays.

Curly got to celebrate her birthday for a couple of days. Her birthday was on a Tuesday, so Monday night for Family Night we celebrated her birthday since Haans had school on her birthday. Then Tuesday at pre-school, they celebrated her birthday again (another girl in her group has the same birthday) and then on Wednesday we went to the park with friends to celebrate her birthday yet again!

Curly was so excited for this little party at the park. She had asked me if her friends were going to sing to her. I am glad she felt so loved!

 Happy 4th birthday little Miss!

Loo Who got to celebrate her 2nd birthday over a few days as well. One day we went to the beach with some friends and had homemade Oreo cookies. Sadly those pictures didn't turn out! Here she is enjoying some of her presents from her grandparents.

 We then celebrated it again with daddy when he didn't have class.

 She LOVES Tinkerbell and has wanted a tutu since Curly started her ballet class!

Now we are done with celebrations for a LONG time. We have one celebration or another from December to March and then we are done for the rest of the year! Kind of funny huh? Happy birthday sweet family!

Visiting Friends

 The day I got home back from California, our GREAT friends the Boettichers came to visit Hawaii and stayed with us at Hotel Endecott! We had so much fun having them here (hopefully they did) :-) Haans and I realized after the fact, we were glad they brought their little boy because we have kids. So when we had to deal with temper tantrums or waking up in the night, they completely understood! We sure love them and are so glad they came to visit us, ok well maybe it was to celebrate their anniversary, but we will just say they came to Hawaii because they couldn't live without seeing us any longer! :-)

We did a lot of the the tourist things which is always fun because sometimes Haans and I just wait to do some of them because we live here and we will do it another day, but with friends visiting we cross things off our list.

Pregnant Debra found an easy hike (so says the tour book) at Manoa Falls so off we went. Curly is into these crazy faces right now!

 Daddy found her a walking stick! Super cute!

 It was so lush and green. But sadly that means LOTS of mosquito bites even though we sprayed ourselves. Darn sugar blood of mine! My bites turn into big ol' itchy welts.

Lots of fun things to explore!

There were cool bamboo forests along the way!

We have concluded that whomever decided that Manoa Falls was an easy hike didn't bring along 3 toddlers. The Boettichers and us ended up caring our 1 year olds for the last half mile because there were a lot of boulders/big rocks and mud steps to climb. 

 But we succeeded and enjoyed this beauty!

 Curly was being a nice big helper (sometimes a little too protective) of her friend!

 We also went to the North Shore to watch the big waves! They did not disappoint!

Remember Curly is into these crazy face pictures right now, so Debra went along!

 Got a good one!

Since he knew he couldn't go swimming in these waters, I guess he did the next best thing - put sand in every single place so mommy would have lots of fun cleaning him off!

We enjoyed the beauty of the LDS temple! Well shushing screaming toddlers and chasing them down so they didn't fall in the reflecting pool was not quite the calm, relaxing environment we thought, but luckily the temple grounds are family-centered and so very understanding!

 These two were born 2 weeks apart, and since we are such good friends, we have already decided they are betrothed!

We hit up the Polynesian Cultural Center and enjoyed their luau, dinner and show.

Here is Silly Curly at it again!

  

Well Loo Who isn't quite enjoying it!

 Another day, we went whale watching on this big ship. 

 Poor Haans had to be the responsible one and work so he missed out. Luckily all three kids were free because we had three paying adults, but in retrospect I don't think I'd take the girls again. When all you see of a MASSIVE animal is some water spouting, for my 2 little toddlers that can get boring pretty quickly! If you look closely you can see the water spray from the whale!

 And for me, the mommy, I got to follow/chase them all over the ship! At least it was a BEAUTIFUL day and I love being on boats! It was also fun watching tourists who have never been whale watching get so excited! I have been fortunate to have been whale watching many times before, and I still get excited! I was even the one to spot the first whale and got to yell out "whale!"

 And this was our sad good-bye! We sure love you Boettichers! Thank you for coming to visit us, we have missed you tons! Can't wait to see pictures of your new little one in a few months!