The Garcia Ohana

Hup Cake: I have a blog!

2012-01-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

Hup Cake: I have a blog!: I never thought I would be saying this but... Welcome to my new blog :) my sisters both have blogs, and I honestly never thought I would be ...

They are adorable.

2012-01-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of new pictures of Jonny and Sophia I took this morning.

Jonny is obsessed with being a super hero and refused to wear anything other than his spiderman outfit and cape

YES!

2012-01-19T17:41:00.000-08:00

I feel like a new woman. My humongous bandage is off and I can see! This is what my new nose looks like. Not too shabby. (please ignore the fact that I am wearing zero make-up today.. it's jus been one of those days) I think in a couple of months you will not be able to see anything at all. (Or at least I am hoping.) I am just so happy to have all bandages off of my face. To be honest I didn't make it the full week wearing the nose bandage. The day before my appointment Sophia finally managed to yank the whole thing off. Right after she pulled it off, I freaked out. I imagined she pulled the skin graft off along with the bandaids. After running to the mirror and examining it, I realized that all she did was pull off about an inch of gauze and tape. There was a small cotton ball sown onto my nose, and it was unharmed. So, I just taped over the cotton ball and had a great day. I was in such a better mood and very glad she yanked it off. The next day at my appointment I explained what Sophia had done and the nurse was like, "no problem, as long as the cotton ball is still sewn on." Later on during my appointment I could hear the nurses talking in the hall. The nurse was telling the nurse who originally gave me the huge bandage how Sophia pulled it off, and she replied, "It doesn't surprise me, you know how BIG I make my bandages." WHAT? Why did I have to get the overzealous bandaging nurse? It made me want to tape something huge on her nose and tell her to walk around with it for a week.

Anyways, I am really happy with the results. :)

Picnic at the Splash Park

2012-01-15T23:14:00.000-08:00

I am an elephant seal for the week

2012-01-12T17:30:00.000-08:00

So.. this is what I look like...

It is completely awful and I am feeling bad for myself right now. :) I had some skin removed from the inside of my right ear and placed on the tip of my nose. I wasn't prepared to have to wear this huge bandage for a week. I can't take it off or get it wet/damp. Not only is it ugly, it is also in my line of vision, which is making me feel sick and dizzy. Wherever I go, people have to do double takes. I have had people ask if I broke my nose, got a nose job.. etc.. I just say yes to whatever they ask. I don't feel like explaining. :) Anyways, I am done with my rant. I just hope the end result is worth the unpleasantness.

Jonny is a Sunbeam!

2012-01-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

Jonny graduated from nursery and is now in primary! I can't believe that I have a kid old enough to go to primary now! I was kind of anxious for him to go, but he has been doing great! He really likes it. I thought he was going to really be upset that he couldn't go to nursery anymore (he has been really into nursery.) I told him he was going to now be a sunbeam and was too big for nursery now. He thought it was pretty cool that he was 'too big' and on Sunday after sacrament walked right towards the primary room. It helped that one of his best friend's Ofa is in sharing time with him.

I peeked in and took a couple of pictures of him on his first day...

So far there has only been Jonny and Elise in class! He thinks Elise is pretty cool, and calls her "Ewese." She is almost a year older than Jonny, and thinks him and his toy planes are a little lame. lol.

Here is Jonny and Ofa together in sharing time.
Jonny loves to sing, "Jesus want me for a sunbeam." He know all of the words and sounds really cute when he sings it. I tried to get him to sing it for me.. and this is all I could get. It is still pretty funny though.

New Years

2012-01-06T15:57:00.000-08:00

We had a great New Years. The only thing we did different this year as compared to previous years is hang out at Ko Olina. We hardly ever go to the west side of the island, and have only been to Ko Olina a couple of times in the ten years we have lived here. Well, on New Years weekend we went there two times! They were having a big New Years Eve firework show, and Oly really wanted to check it out. I knew we wouldn't make it to midnight with Jonny and Sophia, but went anyways. They opened a new Disney resort up next to the hotels and it is amazing. We really want to go back and stay for a weekend. The kids made it until about seven o'clock and started to get grouchy. He headed home and ended up lighting fireworks with our good friends the Ramos'. Here is a picture of Jonny and Illiana playing with fireworks.

Oly and I tried to stay awake until midnight, but he couldn't make it and fell asleep at 11:45. Pretty lame right? lol. I was in bed reading my nook, thinking it would be a quiet way to start the new year. Boy was I wrong. At midnight there was sooo much noise, I felt like I was in the middle of a war zone! Personal fireworks were banned last year, so I really wasn't expecting it. Needless to say, Oly woke up in a fright. We opened our windows and had our own firework show right from the comfort of our room. Who needs Ko Olina?

We have a tradition to go out to breakfast on New Year's day. Since New Years day was on Sunday this year, we went out on Monday. We hit up Denny's, and actually had a GREAT time. I think our kids are finally at good ages to take to restaurants. Jonny actually sits in his seat, and Sophia chows down on anything in eyesight. (She LOVES to eat.)

Since we were already close to Ko Olina, we decided to go back there again and swim. It is the perfect beach for babies and toddlers.

A hole on my nose

2012-01-03T17:40:00.000-08:00

I had the basil skin cancer removed from my nose this morning. It went really well and there was only a small amount. I am supposed to wear a bandaid on my nose for a week and then I have to go back in to have skin graft put on... When I first left the dr.'s office my nose was bandaged up pretty well. Oly took me to my appointment and wanted to walk around the mall afterwards. I was kind of embarrassed, but agreed. I thought that maybe people wouldn't notice because the bandages were skin colored.. As I was walking around the mall with my family, I noticed that Sophia kept on laughing. It took me a little while until I realized she was laughing at me! lol! She kept looking at me a cracking up and reaching up to try and grab my bandaids! Here is what I look like now with only one bandaid on..

Christmas!

2011-12-27T16:02:00.000-08:00

We were in Hawaii this year for Christmas. This is the second time we have stayed for the holidays, and it always feels weird to me to be celebrating Christmas in shorts and sunshine. Regardless of the balmy weather, we still managed to have a great time. On Christmas Eve, we ate dinner, watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas, drank hot chocolate and sang a couple of christmas songs. It even rained outside, so it felt a little more Christmasy.

Here is a picture of our tree...

I love this little Ornament my Grandma Hatch gave me a couple of years ago.

On Christmas Morning, Jonny woke everyone up at six am, which is the usual time he wakes everyone up. He woke up, ran to the living room and yelled, "the big presents are here!" It was really fun watching how excited he was this year. He got a lot of fun presents and has been busy playing with them ever since. Sophia was also pretty cute. She really got excited when she saw stuffed animals and gave them all a big hug.

One of Jonny's stocking stuffers was silly string. He had a lot of fun having a silly string fight with Oly.

Oly got me an new iPhone for christmas. He has been trying to unlock it for about two days now :) I got Oly an gift certificate to go sky diving and some Converse shoes that match Jonny's.

We had a really good time and hope every year is as great.

Family Pictures

2011-12-18T17:49:00.000-08:00

I realized that we have hardly any pictures of the four of us together, so I asked one of my friends if she would do a photo shoot for us. I think she did an awesome job. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Haleiwa Christmas Parade

2011-12-14T15:33:00.000-08:00

Oly drove the tractor for Monsanto in the Haleiwa christmas parade. Oly has now driven the tractor twice in the Haleiwa parade, and this time he got to bring Jonny with him. Jonny was SUPER excited. He absolutely loves christmas lights and tractors, so putting the two together was pretty cool for him. Oly said that Jonny was pretty fun for about the first five minutes, and then kept on trying to drive the tractor. Here are a couple of pictures from the parade. (and yes, Oly's shirt does say Juan's Deer.)

Do we look like our babies?

2011-12-04T17:20:00.001-08:00

While I was visiting my parents last month, I looked through my baby book and found some pictures of myself when I was about Sophia and Jonny's age. Do you think my kids look like me? Or do you think they look more like Oly??

The holidays are here!

2011-12-02T10:51:00.000-08:00

I love this time of year, and I am so excited that Jonny is getting old enough to be appreciate it too!

This year, for Thanksgiving we celebrated it by ourselves. We have always been lucky enough to be invited somewhere for dinner, so I figured that I was overdue to cook our own this year. I was pretty nervous that I was going to mess up the turkey. So, I called my dad for turkey cooking instructions, and it turned out delicious! We really enjoyed just staying home, cooking and relaxing with the kids. It was perfect. We went for a walk to the beach around sunset and ran into some friends there. They invited us over to their place for pie and games, which was a great way to end the day.

Last night we went to Whitmore Village to pick out a Christmas tree. It is so much fun to get a fresh tree. Jonny was absolutely thrilled the whole time. Here are some pictures of us picking our tree out..

When we got home, we decorated our tree, while listening to Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate. I will have to post some pictures later of our awesome tree.

Our travels

2011-11-30T18:56:00.000-08:00

I have neglected my blog this month. In my defense we have been traveling and when we weren't traveling we were all sick. Now that things have gotten back to normal, I am going to attempt to recap this last month.

We had such a great time on our trip. It was really, really LAST minute! Probably the most last minute trip I have ever taken. I literally bought our tickets in the morning and left that same night. Oly has to travel to San Diego for the Navy and had left the same morning, unaware that the rest of us were going to be following him out there. lol. He wasn't completely shocked when I told him we were flying over, because we had been looking for airfare for quite some time. He gets his hotel and rental car paid for through the Navy, so the only expense for us is the travel for Jonny and me. I found a really good deal to LA and acted fast and bought the tickets. From LA, I rented a rental car and drove to San Diego. And yes, I did this all alone with my two kids. Lets just say I saw very tired and happy when I finally made it to San Diego. (by the way, if you are reading this Lindsey Graves, I stopped in Irvine to get a breakfast sandwich at Carl's JR and thought of you!)

We only stayed in San Diego for four days, but had so much fun. We met up with my old BYUH roommate. It was really nice to see her and meet her kids. We also loved exploring Balboa park. There is so much to see, we are definitely going to have to go back again.

My parents were awesome and bought our tickets to fly over to see them in Utah. I stayed for a week and a half there and had So much fun. The time flew by way to fast, like usual. My sisters and extended family met Sophia for the first time and fell in love with her. Jonny loved being the center of attention, and was only a little jealous that he had to share the spotlight with his sister. Here are some of the picture I took from our trip...

Visiting my grandma and grandpa Hatch.

We got to see a small snow storm! So fun!

Jonny made a snowman with grandpa. (and kicked it over of course)

My grandma and grandpa Weaver took us all out to eat at Crown Burger. So delicious!

Sophia loved grandpa Don.

Jonny inherited a spiderman costume while we were there and wanted to wear it everyday. He was pretty excited when he discovered his Aunt Morgan also had one.

Watch out.

Me, my sister and mom went to the Bountiful temple one day. It was sooo fun. Thanks dad for watching both kids! And yes, I also agree you should open "Bart's Daycare."

We had a craft night and made these cute stocking holders.

Morgan and my kiddos.

And now San Diego..

I took the kids to Balboa park one afternoon, while Oly was in class. There is so much to see and do there. We loved it.

Jonny wanted to push Sophia's stroller around. He is pretty good at it. He only rammed a couple of people that day.

My friend Alex and her two cute kids!

Balboa park at sunset.

So pretty.

Our Halloween Happenings

2011-11-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

We had a great Halloween this year. I dressed up as Little Bo peep and Sophia was my little sheep. Oly dressed as a jail bird and Jonny was a Sheriff. So we kind of coordinated with one another.

Here is Oly's pumpkin he carved. He whipped out his power tools and really took his time. I think it turned out awesome.

Here are a couple pics of our cute kids with the pumpkin.

It looked pretty cool glowing in the dark.

Here a couple of pictures of us at the playgroup Halloween party. It was held at my friend Lala's house. We all had a great time.

Lala had her baby Waimea about the same time I had Sophia. Aren't they so cute together?

On actual Halloween night we went trick or treating in our neighborhood. This is the first year we went trick or treating with our kids. Jonny LOVED it. He really scored with the candy, because people would spot Sophia in the stroller and give him double to "share" with his little sister. Yeah right.

I thought it was kind of odd that everyone here had little tables set up in front of their houses with candy on them. I wanted Jonny to have the experience of knocking on doors. After talking with my dad, I realized the reason most people have to knock on doors is because it is cold outside and the people want to wait in their houses to hand out candy....

Here is a picture of us in candy finding action.

I asked someone to take a picture of all of us together. It took her about three tries before she figured out how to click the shutter. The kids got tired of waiting.. hence this pic...

Across the street from my house is a Baptist church, and every year they have a Halloween bash open to the public. This is the first year we decided to go, and let me tell you we have been missing out! It was pretty much the coolest thing I have ever done on Halloween. Everything was free! They had free kids rides, face painting, lots of food, a band playing, games and a huge tent full of free toys, books and clothes. I got some clothes for the kids, Jonny picked out some super hero action figure toys and I got Sophia a activity center.

Skin cancer and Staph infection...oh my

2011-10-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

The title basically sums up what I have been thinking about this week. Tuesday, I took Jonny to the doctor because I thought he had some warts on the bottoms of his feet. (The little guy loves to run around bare foot.) His pediatrician took a look at them and informed me that they were not warts. She told me that they were cuts on his feet that were very swollen. (Yeah, I felt a little stupid) She also told me that he had staph infection, and that she would have to drain his scabs. She said that it would be very painful for Jonny, and that I would have to help her hold him down. While she went to get her supplies, my phone rang and I noticed that it was my dermatologist calling me. Last week, he had taken a biopsy of a piece of skin on my nose. I answered the phone assuming he was going to tell me he got the results back and they looked wonderful. Well, he starts off telling me that the results showed that I have basal cell skin cancer and that it looks like they didn't remove all of it. At this point, I am thinking, WHAT? Then he goes on to tell me that he recommends that I talk to a specialist, because it could just be the tip of the iceberg that they took off. (Wonderful visual isn't it.) As he is talking to me about my options, the Jonny's doctor walks back in the room with her scalpel and bandages. So, I have to end my conversation with my doctor, in order to hold poor Jonny while he got his feet cut open. Needless to say, it was a crazy ten minutes.

I was freaking out about the cancer, until I learned a little bit more about it. It is not very serious and is the most common type of skin cancer. Everything is going to be ok, and I feel pretty confident that the cancer is very small. It is still shocking to think that I have any type of cancer. I always thought that I had "good" skin, and wasn't worried about getting skin cancer. From now on I am going to really be slopping on the sunscreen and wearing hats!

Jonny is antibiotics and he is doing a lot better. I now know what staph infection looks like, and hopefully will be able to detect it faster next time. :)

Ramblings

2011-10-24T15:15:00.000-07:00

So this post is going to random, and not about any particular thing. My kids are both asleep and I feel like writing.

First thing that comes to my mind is that I need to get Jonny and Oly Halloween costumes. I bought Jonny a really cute cowboy costume online and chose parcel post for the shipping. Come to find out parcel post means that it comes across the ocean by boat. So, his costume could get here anywhere from two to six weeks from now. Not cool. I am going to be little bo peep and Sophia is going to be a sheep. I thought it would be fun if Oly and Jonny coordinated together. Any ideas?

I also ordered Sophia's costume online and it got here weeks ago. I thought it was going to be a lot cuter than it is. A little baby lamb costume hasa lot of cute potential. While browsing on Etsy the other day, I found an adorable lamb/beanie crochet pattern. I bought it. When am I going to get it through my head that I cannot crochet? I need some serious help. lol. The lack of crochet talent combined with lack of time = a ball of unfinished yarn as of today.

So.. Sophia is crawling! Well, kind of. She gets onto her hands and knees and moves her hands forward. When she tried to move her knees, she usually falls onto her stomach. Nonetheless, she is moving forwards, just at a slow pace. She looks so cute moving around the room. She is already getting into everything! I need to re-baby proof my house again. Here is a cute picture of Sophie scooting around the carpet.

Hawaii and the wild chickens

2011-10-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

When people picture Hawaii, they probably think about the green mountains, or maybe the clear, blue water of the Pacific Ocean.. but there thing that is in abundance here that probably never crosses their minds and that is all of the CHICKENS! Hawaii is full of feral chickens. For the most part, they don't bother me. In the past I have even enjoyed looking at them. I especially thought it was fun to see all of the little baby chicks following their mother around. Well, that has all changed for me. I spend a considerable amount of my days now plotting how I am going to kill them. Yes, this does sound crazy. BUT there are two roosters that have been making my life not as fun. They like to come to my window at two times of the day. Early morning (I am talking five am) and when my kids are taking naps. Honestly, they seem to sense that my kids are asleep and feel it is their duty to wake them up. I grew up thinking that roosters only crowed when the sun came up. Boy, was I was mistaken. They crow all day long!

Oly and my neighbors probably think I am quite the show, because as soon as I hear them, I stop whatever I am doing and try to chase them away. One of my friends, said she has a way to catch them, so I am going to give it a try. She also told me that as soon as I get rid of them, more will come in their place. If that is the case, I just hope they are not so annoying as these two. So, wish me luck. I am going chicken hunting.

Six month Sophia

2011-10-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

Sophia has hit the six month mark, and has been such a good baby so far. I know I have said it before but I am so in love with this baby. She is so much fun to have around. At six months Sophia is a very happy baby. She is just waiting for someone to make eye contact with her so she can give them a gummy smile. She is squish and bouncy. When you hold her she loves to stand in your lap and bounce her knees, it is pretty cute. She thinks Jonny and our cat are the funniest/coolest things in the world and squeals with joy whenever she see either of them. She also is starting to get really excited when her daddy gets home from work. She gets her little legs and arms pumping and wants him to hold her. She is now sitting on her own and on the verge of crawling. She has gotten to her knees and elbows, and I think it will only be a matter of weeks before she figures it all out. She is about 16 pounds and 26 inches long, which is pretty average for her age.

Anyways, I love this little girl and am so happy she is mine. :)

A colorful toddler and a sitting baby

2011-10-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

I took this picture today of Sophia. She is getting prettier everyday.

And today she sat unassisted for the first time! She is growing up so fast!

The other day, I let Jonny paint outside while I made dinner. After a couple of minutes I went to check on him and found him covered in paint. I guess he got tired of the paper and thought it was much more fun to paint on himself.

Oly decided to join in on the fun...

This last picture is of Jonny and his freshly painted red toenails. He really wanted them done and I thought it wouldn't hurt to have them painted.... then he begged me to paint his fingernails also. So... I did, and Oly asked me not to ever again.

What we do around here

2011-09-20T16:10:00.000-07:00

This is a caterpillar Jonny made. I think he turned out pretty cool. The only thing I would do different next time is use the cardboard milk carton holders, otherwise the paint chips off.

The other day, I was nursing Sophia and Jonny was in the other room asking me to make him a circle out of his train tracks for him. By the time I got around to making it for him, he had made one himself. He was pretty proud of himself. It is a lot harder than it looks, especially when you have a limited number of track pieces.

I found Jonny like this yesterday. He thought I was taking his picture because he looked so awesome.

He decided to take a picture back. Maybe he will be a photographer one day? I hope so.

Vampire Diaries Party

2011-09-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

Last night, I had some friends over and we watched the Vampire Diaries season three premiere. It was awesome. Oly is in San Diego doing some training for the Navy, so it was just us girls, Pizza, doughnuts and hot vampires. lol.

I tried to be clever with the food. Here is drink:

Cranberry juice.. kind of looks like blood.

And powdered doughnuts dribbled with strawberry sauce. Yummy. :)

A typical night at our house

2011-09-13T00:06:00.000-07:00

I took these random pictures, in the middle of our night routine. We usually start putting the kids to bed around seven. We try to feed both of them, give them baths, read stories, say prayers and put them in bed at around 8pm. Tonight was a success. Both kids are fed, bathed and asleep on time. Hooray!

The first picture is of Oly trying to watch GBTV (Glenn Beck Television.) He is a new Glenn Beck fan. He tried to watch an episode, while feeding Sophia some baby oatmeal.

Here she is sitting in her new high chair loving her food. We are trying to fill her little belly up before she goes down for the night, in hopes that she will not wake up. So far.. she has been doing pretty good!

Here is my little guy playing in the tub. He loves the bath tub. The only thing he dreads is getting his hair washed.

It's my choice

2011-08-31T23:42:00.000-07:00

I have had quite a few people recently suggest that I put my kids in daycare and pursue a career. After they give me this advice I am always a little shocked at first, and then say something like, "I have a five month old!' Then they usually go on to tell me that daycare accepts babies that are even younger. I wonder if people think the idea that I could work has never occurred to me . Maybe they think they are suggesting a possibility that I might have not realized until that very moment. I don't know. I always have to explain that I know I could work, if I wanted to. I have a college degree and could make pretty good money. We would be better off financially and there is an part of me that thinks it sounds exciting getting out and talking to people over the age of three... but it is my CHOICE to stay home with my kids. The extra money is not worth it to me. I am never going to have this time with my babies ever again, and that is something to me that is worth more than money.

I am not mad at people for suggesting that I go out and find a job, but I hate how people don't recognize how wonderful it is to be a stay-at-home mother. I know that people have to do what works best for their family, and sometimes that means both parents have to work. I don't look down on them, and would never tell anyone they should quit their job and stay home with their kids.... So I guess that is part of the reason I am alarmed when they tell me to get a job.

My mom was a stay-at-home mother and I loved having her there for me as a child. I always wanted to be able to follow her example, and be at home with my kids. I don't want someone else raising my children for me, because no matter how fond they are of my babies, they will never care for them the way that I do, or invest as much into them. I remember when I was pregnant with Jonny, I was volunteering at a daycare with an Autistic boy, whom I taught. In one of the class rooms there was the cutest two-year-old little girl who at nap time always ran to her backpack to grab a picture of her mother, so she could stare at her as she fell asleep. I remember thinking to myself, that I wanted it to be my real face my baby fell asleep looking at, and not a piece of paper.

Anyways, I hope this post doesn't make anyone feel bad, I just wanted to share how I felt. I am choosing to be a stay-at-home mommy and am proud of it. :)

And just because every post is better with pictures, here are a couple of my cute kids.

Jonny's third birthday

2011-08-29T16:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday, my little guy turned three years old. I can't believe I have a three year old, or as Jonny says, "a tree year old." For his birthday, we invited some of his favorite friends to a Thomas the Train themed birthday party at the Schofield Splash Park.

Here are some of the party decorations.

Here are some of our friends that came. I think the adults and kids all had a good time.

Here is a picture of Jonny's face when everyone was singing "Happy Birthday" to him. He loved us singing to him and all day kept saying, "Happy, Happy birthday to Jonny."

Here he is finally getting to eat his train cake. He was really looking forward to his cake.

Here are some pictures of the kids running wild through the water.

I made a Thomas the Train Pinata. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started. It took me forever to finish! Jonny was dying to hit it with his bat the whole time. He even snuck a couple of practice hits in before the party. You can see by the look on his face, he throughly enjoyed finally getting to beat it up.

We played a pin the tail on the donkey game. It became pretty obvious that after the second child pinned the tail exactly on the donkey that they were all going to cheat. So we just passed out the tails without blindfolds and let the kids stick them where they wanted. I didn't know how much Jonny would love the blindfold though. He wore it for the rest of his party. Hilarious. Don't you love the middle picture? And yes, that is cake all over his face.

I thought these next two pictures were cute.

Jonny had so much fun, I am glad that he has such fun friends that make him smile.

Rollie Pollie

2011-08-29T15:15:00.001-07:00

Sophia has mastered rolling over. When I put her on the floor, she is now able to roll from one side of the room to the other. I love to watch her as she rolls her way towards an desired object. (which is usually one of Jonny's toys, much to his dismay.) I kind of miss being able to put her in one spot and know she will still be there ten minutes later. Oh well, I guess from now onward she will be everywhere.

Isn't she the cutest thing. I LOVE this baby.

The other big news is that Jonny turned three this past weekend! I can't believe he is getting so big. We had a lot of fun celebrating his big day, I will be posting pictures soon.

2011-08-21T22:35:00.000-07:00

I just discovered Pinterest.com and Love it. If you haven't checked out the sight, I would highly recommend it.

Happy birthday Morgan!

2011-08-19T14:57:00.000-07:00

It is my little sisters birthday today... Well I guess she is not so little anymore. She is 25. It feels like just the other day she was pulling stunts like this..

I love this picture! She was pretending to be a man and we were recreating an elimidate show. I wonder if her husband would care if we dress up again next time I am in town...

Anyways, I love you sis! Hope you have a great day!!!

Way cooler than sidewalk chalk

2011-08-17T17:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I made sidewalk paint for Jonny. He had so much fun getting out the paint brush and painting designs on the cement.

To make the paint, all you need to do it mix equal parts water and cornstarch with a couple drops of food coloring. It is very simple, and the colors turn out nice and bright when it dries. Oh, and don't worry it washes right off.

Little boys at play

2011-08-08T16:27:00.000-07:00

This is Jonny with his best friend/neighbor Ofa. I still can't believe Jonny is old enough to have friends that he plays outside with in the neighborhood! I wanted to document this stage in his life, soI took some pictures the other night of these two little guys playing. These two are about as boy as you can get. They are both very energetic and TOUGH! Their favorite pastime consists of playing in dirt, shooting things with their "guns," riding their bikes and running with their trucks. Here they are sneaking up on their imaginary foe ready to shoot...

This next picture looks kind of alarming. Especially when you see the car on its way driving down the road. In this picture they are pretending to "die." I really don't think they have any idea what it really means to die. Don't worry we talked about appropriate places one should die, which did not include the road! :)

Our morning adventures

2011-08-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

Jonny has quite the imagination. He is starting to really come up with some extravagant story lines. I love listening to him play, and hearing all of the funny things he comes up with.

Lately, he has been OBSESSED with his trains. He loves to make different track designs and push his little trains along. It is the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up and the last thing he wants to do before he goes to sleep. If I added up all of the hours he spends with his trains, I am sure it would be more than a full time job! He has recently stated to make his train track designs on the sidewalk. I took this picture of him today hard at work.

He has discovered the show "Wonder Pets," and is really into it. If you haven't seen the show, it is basically about a pet turtle, duck and Guinea pig who go around saving different animals in trouble. In order to find these distressed animals, they make a "fly boat" to take them where they need to go. After hearing a cat meowing outside, Jonny decided it was in trouble and made a "fly boat." Here is a picture of his boat... (notice the vase behind the changing pad.. I guess that is the exhaust pipe)

We also made a tent in our living room out of blankets. Jonny and his two friends lightening mcqueen and Mator hung out in it for quite awhile.

I have fond memories of making tents in my backyard growing up with my cousin Michelle. Our tents were pretty big, and we would usually spend the night in them after they were finished. We used several blankets, all of my backyard chairs and a lot of clothes pins to make them. I don't think we had any clothes pins at our house and would borrow all of them from my neighbor, Avis Paskey. I wonder if that annoyed her, and if my mom had any idea we knocked on her door about twenty times in a row asking for more... and more....hmmm...

The conversation

2011-07-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Since I have to breastfeed about every three hours, sometimes I am put in situations where I have to strap Jonny down in his car seat and nurse Sophia in the car. Since it takes awhile to feed her, I usually will give Jonny my Iphone to play with. Jonny is really good with electronics. He had the Iphone totally figured out and knows how to call specific people. He usually likes to call Oly or my dad when he is in the mood to talk to someone. They both like it when he calls, so it hasn't been much of a problem. Well today while I was feeding Sophie, he told me he was going to call grandpa. I could hear the phone ringing (he selects the speaker phone option when he talks) and to my surprise a woman who's voice I didn't recognize answered. Then I listened to this conversation take place...

Jonny: "Hi."

woman: "Hello... Is your mom there?"

Jonny: "Yeah. I went to the temple today."

woman: "ummm... are you ok?" (obviously, she didn't understand Jonny language)

Jonny: "I went into a bush and pooped."

woman: "huh?"

Jonny: "Yeah, I pooped in my pants."

woman: "Is your mom there?"

Jonny: "Ok. well, bye-bye."

Then he hung up.

After I was done nursing, I snatched my phone to see who in the world he called. It was a random acquaintance, who I haven't talked to in forever! I hope she thought it was funny, and not annoying. :) It sure was entertaining to listen to.

If you get a call like this from my son, I am apologizing in advance.

Oly's birthday and Bayfest

2011-07-18T16:57:00.000-07:00

This last week we had a lot of fun. Wednesday was Oly's 31st birthday. We didn't do anything to extravagant on his birthday, because we knew we were going to Bayfest over the weekend. He requested for me to make carmel nut brownies for his birthday instead of a cake, and they turned out DELICIOUS.

I gave him a new stereo system for the computer for his present, which he had been eying for years . I went shopping for it on Monday, so he would have something for him to open on his birthday (Wednesday.) I took Jonny with me to pick it out, and he was pretty excited to pick out daddy's birthday 'toy' with me. After wrapping it, I hid it under the bed so Oly wouldn't know we got him something. Well, apparently Jonny saw me stash it under there because right when Oly got home from work he exclaimed "Happy Birthday Daddy, you got a toy!" He then ran into our room and pulled out the present from under the bed. So needless to say, Oly opened his present on Monday. :)

We rented a little Cabana on the Marine Base which is located in Kaneohe. Every year they had a celebration called Bayfest, which is open to the public. There is usually a carnival, fireworks and concerts. We decided we wanted to go this year, but didn't want to have to drive all the way over there and back in the same day. So, we decided to stay the weekend in one of the cabana's and have a mini-vacation.

The view from the beach located right next to our cabana was gorgeous. I love the Koolau moutain range. The actual water wasn't that great for swimming, but the sand and view were really excellent.

They had tanks and airplanes parked around bayfest. They were open for anyone to climb in and explore, much to Jonny and Oly's delight. We spent a lot of time looking at them.

Here is Jonny trying on the Navy diver's face mask.

We all got on the Ferris Wheel together. I will admit Jonny and I were a little scared.

Jonny LOVED the carnival rides and wanted to go on all of them over and over. I am glad he had so much fun, I am not glad that each ride costed about four dollars.

Here are the cabana's we stayed at.

Here is a picture of the inside. Not the four season's but it had an AC!

Sophia's new trick

2011-07-13T18:56:00.000-07:00

She is in love with her feet.

Hostess Cupcakes

2011-07-09T17:44:00.001-07:00

Our ward party is tonight and I made these DELICIOUS hostess cupcakes..

There is going to be a dessert competition, and I thought it would be fun to enter these. My grandma use to make them occasionally while I was growing up and I remember thinking they were some of the most heavenly things I had ever eaten.

I am a sucker for anything that has cream filling. And chocolate, of course.

Here is my cute grandma (middle.) While my cupcakes turned out pretty good, they still not quite as good as I remember hers being.

Here is the recipe, if you want to try these babies out. Warning: You will want to eat several.

Hostess Cupcakes

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:

- 2 cups sugar

- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

- 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa

- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 2 eggs

- 1 cup milk

- 1/2 cup vegetable oil

- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

- 1 cup boiling water

French Vanilla Filling:

5 tablespoons flour

5 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 cup milk

1/2 cup margarine

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

For the frosting:

- 1/4 cup heavy cream

- 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

- 1 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

- powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be really thin). Fill cups about 3/4 full with batter to get bigger cupcakes.

3. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. (Makes 24 cupcakes.)

4. While waiting for cupcakes to cool, mix together in a small saucepan, 5 tablespoons flour, 5 tablespoons sugar and milk and cook, stirring constantly until thick. COOL. Pour into a small electric mixer bowl and add margarine, shortening, 3/4 cup sugar, vanilla and salt. Beat on high speed for five minutes. spoon into pastry bag. Reserve 1/2 cup of the filling to use for piping the swirls on top of the cupcakes at the end.

5. Once cupcakes are cool, prepare a piping bag with a Using a No.18 tip. Push the tip from the top into the center of the cupcake and squeeze filling into middle of cupcakes.

6. After cupcakes are filled, begin working on the frosting. In a small saucepan, heat cream over medium heat until steaming, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat, add the chocolate and let stand for 5 minutes. Add the butter and powdered sugar and stir until smooth.

7. Prepare another piping bag with a small tip. Fill with the reserved 1/2 cup of cream filling. Pipe swirls across the top of the cupcakes.

9. Enjoy!

Single mom's I salute you

2011-07-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

Oly has been going to San Diego for training for the Navy. He is only gone for five days at a time, so it really is not that long at all. After the first day, I think.. this isn't so bad. I am on top of this. The second day rolls around, I think.... Ok, a break would be nice. Third day comes, I think..... Ahhhh... when is this going to end? I am currently on the the third day, and let me tell you it has been a hard to day. :) I have been dealing with throw up, poop explosions and tantrums all day. I don't know how single mom's do it. It is one tough job.

Our fourth of July

2011-07-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

I realize now I uploaded these pictures in the wrong order, but I am feeling too lazy to redo everything. So, sorry if this post seems a little backwards.

We had a really great fourth of July, and I have been wanting to post some of our pictures from the holiday.

We went to turtle bay to watch the fireworks. I took the above pictures of the fireworks. I love the picture of Oly holding the kids during the show. I had my camera set on a slower shutter speed, so unfortunately it is a little blurry. I love the looks on their faces and how Jonny is comforting Sophia. (She LOVED the fireworks, by the way.)

We had a little pre-firework show together with confetti poppers and pop-its. The fun fireworks are now illegal.

Who can understand boys? These two were having fun throwing pop-its at each other.

BFF's

We tried to be patriotic and dress in red, white and blue this year. We TRIED to take some pictures together, but Jonny was NOT in the mood. Here are a couple of pictures from our attempts to make him participate...

If you want a laugh, look at his pained. pretend smile.

We ate at Kua 'Aina for dinner and they put these cute little flags on our sandwiches. Jonny kept his to fly out the window as we drove to the fireworks. Pretty awesome. Kind of reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite.

During the day, we went across the street from our house to the beach. We just got a wagon, so we were able to pack everything in it and drag it there in style. Long gone are the days when all we needed at the beach was a towel and a swimming suit. With two kids, it feels like we need to pack half of our house in order to have a good time.

Hilarious

2011-06-29T15:20:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I was cooking dinner and letting Jonny watch one of his favorite cartoons "Kipper." His show got over just as I was about done cooking, and he went into his room. I figured he was going to play with his trains, but, instead, he reappeared dressed like this....

I took one look at him and laughed! He looked so funny. He was pretty serious, though, about his costume and told me he needed to go outside right then to ride his bike. I let him go outside, and he started to peddle around looking for things to rescue.

I ran inside to grab my camera, because this was just too awesome not to capture.

This all happened just as Oly was getting home from work. So, he was welcomed home by our little super hero.

I was wondering where he got this sudden inspiration, and decided to look at the cartoon he just watched. "Kipper" is on netflicks and one episode has about ten mini shows combined. After looking through a couple of them, I came across this...

I must say, I am impressed that Jonny observed him so closely and found items in his room to match. It also reminded me how much television affects little kids!

Jonny's first horse ride

2011-06-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

One of our favorite places to go on walks is at the boy scout trail in Pupukea. Next to the trail, there is a gorgeous open field with horses, trees and a cool barn. I have often wondered who owned the place, and never imagined we would ever be riding horses there. Well, I was surprised to learn that one of the girls in my ward rents a stable in the cool barn and invited some of us for pony rides! Jonny was sooo excited and had such a great time.

Can you see him here in kid heaven? There was even a adorable little golden retriever puppy hanging around.

Here is the beautiful field we always admire. The kids loved all of the free space to run!

Here are a couple of pictures of Jonny riding "Bucket." He was a little nervous at first but after about five seconds was totally comfortable. At the end of his ride he didn't want to get off! I had to entice him with the puppy before he agreed to dismount!

My Burf Day

2011-06-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

I am one year older, as of the 16th of this month. I really liked this birthday for one reason... I am not YET 30. I have one more year to live it up before I hit the dreaded 3-0. lol.

Even though I lost the extra year cushion, I had a really great birthday.

After looking through my gifts I have decided that this is my favorite new present....

Oly took me to the Hale Kulani for dinner and it was excellent. The hotel restaurant is located right on Waikiki beach. They have pretty good food, hula dancers and live music. Here is a picture of me and Sophia enjoying our outing. My friend graciously offered to watch Jonny for us, so we were actually able to talk to each other and relax. Sophia is such an angel, I feel like I can take this baby anywhere.

I have such an amazing family. They remembered my birthday, and actually send me presents in the mail. Not only did they send me awesome stuff, they even sent them on time! I always forget to send things until a few days before, and consequently am a late gift-giver. (sorry guys.)

My darling sister Morgan gave me this adorable shirt and sassy slippers... aka sandals. :)

Isn't this purse such a fun color? My stylish mom picked it out.

She sent this cute necklace to match the purse. I love it. The best part is that my mom made it! She is seriously so talented. She is an lampwork bead artist, which means she melts shards of glass over a torch and hand-makes her own beads. I have attempted to make some beads with her, and let me tell you, it is extremely HARD. It takes years of practice, and she is amazing. If you want to check her website it is here.

Here are some more bead earrings she made me...

to match this cute and extremely comfortable dress...

Oh and my other lil sister Chelsea send me the matching shoes. How did she know I needed a new pair of black shoes???

My cousin Michelle send these fun necklaces. I love wearing them. It kind of makes me feel like I am wearing some kind of antique. Jonny also like it when I wear the necklace with the letter B on it. He tells me "Look mom, Big B!" (He is in the process of learning his letters.)

Both of my grandma's sent me money, which I appreciated and am sure I will spend very soon! Thank you all so much!

Oh, and Oly is going to buy me a new bike so I can go on bike rides with Jonny! He just learned how to use the peddles and really wants me to ride with him. (His tricycle is just not cutting it for me.)

Oly's ancestors

2011-06-12T00:23:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of pictures we have on our computer of some of Oly's ancestors. Aren't they interesting portraits?

I think he looks a lot like the last picture. What do you think?

Playing with "Foe-Fee"

2011-06-07T19:19:00.000-07:00

Jonny can't wait until he and Sophie can start to play together, and is already trying to play. I took the following pictures of one his attempts to interact with her...

He put both of his watches (he thinks they are some kind of guns) on her wrists and gave her one of his favorite cars, "The King." He tried to put the car in her hand, and when she started to do some erratic movements he got pretty excited. :)

Next, he lined his cars up by her so they could "watch" her.

I think she likes playing with him also! Funny kids. :)

Great day

2011-05-31T16:03:00.000-07:00

Today has started out great for the following reasons...

1. Woke up after a full uninterrupted nights sleep.

2. Talked to my best friend/cousin. (ok only for a second but it was still nice)

3. Took pictures for a friends website

4. found out one of my images was selected on MCP actions blog.. here

5. ate pizza

6. kids are taking their naps at the same time

7. The kitchen chairs I wanted to buy are still available

8. Oly will be home in a couple of hours

How is your day so far???

Two and a half months already?

2011-05-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry that every post is about my kids, it seems I am a bit obsessed. Sophia is over two months old already and changing so much! She is the sweetest baby, I feel like I could just hold her and kiss her little bald head all day. She is starting to smile a lot now and makes little baby coos. She is starting to figure out her hands. Yesterday she reached for a little ball next to her changing table. She made a couple of swipes for it and after a couple of tries grabbed it. She is also doing the hands together praying thing, and pulling her pacifier out of her mouth. It is funny I completely forgot about this stage with Jonny, until she started to do these things. My favorite change she has made, which I hope I don't jinx by writing this, is she is now sleeping through the night! She wants to go down with Jonny at about seven and wakes up the next morning at around six or severn, wants to eat and falls back asleep until about eight. It is completely wonderful, I feel like a new woman. lol.

Spiderman

2011-05-26T17:32:00.000-07:00

After watching one show, he has turned into "spiderman" and tries to climb everything!

Some fun pictures of Jonny

2011-05-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

I took some fun pictures of Jonny today. I know I am biased, but I think he is such a handsome little guy :)

I posted my other favorite picture of him on my photography website here.

New Movie Buddy

2011-05-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

Jonny asks me every morning, "watch a wowie (movie) with fofie (Sophie)?" He likes me to prop her up on a pillow next to him, and hold her hand while watching cartoons. It is pretty adorable. Jonny's latest cartoon favorite is Carebears. I use to watch Carebears and remember it being a pretty cool show. I don't know if my memory is wrong, or if the new animated shows are different, but the show almost hurts my ears to hear! It will be a happy day when he stops requesting to watch them. lol. Anyways, they still look cute, even while watching Carebears.

Google searches

2011-05-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Google searches scare me. I remember when I was pregnant, I would search online for possible explanations for the aches and pains that I was experiencing. I would end up reading about the worst case scenario for each ache. Well, now I am scaring myself thinking about possible things that could happen to my baby.

I am imagining the poor thing wearing one of theses...

and one of these...

These fears are not totally unjustified. Sophia has to go in tomorrow for a hip x-ray. She has a extra fat roll on one thigh and it is a possible sign of hip dysplacia. She also is getting a flat left sided head. She loves putting her head towards the left, and no matter how many times I place it to the right, she always flips it back. Poor baby. I hope I am just freaking out for no reason. I don't want my baby to look like she has been in a car accident!

A special day with my little man

2011-05-14T00:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I decided not to do laundry, clean etc and just concentrate on having a great time with this little guy...

He is getting so big, and I need to enjoy him while he still thinks the coolest people to hang out with are mommy and daddy.

He is such a sweet little guy. In the morning I left Sophia propped up against the couch pillow, and this is how I found the two of them..

Jonny had gotten a blanket for the two of them to share, sat next to her and was holding her hand. When I was pregnant I was worried that Jonny would be jealous and be really rough with Sophia. It turns out the only real thing I have to worry about is him smothering her with kisses, and trying to take care of her himself... (etc, putting cereal in her mouth.)

After getting ready for the day, we went to the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island. Jonny was in heaven looking at all of the planes. We got there pretty early and there was hardly anyone around. So Jonny had a lot of room to run from one exhibit to the next.

Just look at his face, he was really excited.

We were able to go inside of one of the planes and spent quite awhile in it. Jonny was pretending to fly me and Sophia around. (and keep us safe from the monsters that apparently live in the back of the plane.)

Jonny fell asleep on the way home from the museum. I wanted to take a picture of his cute little curls.

After he woke up, we went to the beach and spent the rest of the evening "swimming," hunting for crabs and making sand castles.

Ahh... it was a nice day.

My new Jewelry Armoire

2011-05-05T01:23:00.001-07:00

I have been looking for something to put my jewelry in for years and when I spotted this baby, a couple of weeks ago, I knew I had to buy it.

I loved all of the different compartments it had for necklaces, rings, bracelets and earrings. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it had a couple of scratches on its beautiful cherry wood finish. (I bought it at a used furniture store in Wahiawa.) Despite it's flaws, I decided to buy it anyways. One reason I got it was because I had secretly been wanting to remake a piece of furniture using a technique called glazing. When my mom came out a few weeks ago, she introduced me to a blog called allthingsthrifty.com that goes into depth about glazing. After reading about glazing on the blog, I thought it would be a piece of cake to do. I soon found out that it wasn't. It took me hours, several cans of spray paint and a lot of sanding, before I felt like it looked decent. I am happy with the end result though. Here is a close up of what glazing does to the details in the furniture.

Oly's parents came to see us!

2011-05-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

Oly's mom and dad came out to see us and meet Sophia. They stayed for about a week and a half and left last Friday. We had such a great time with them, and really miss their company and HELP. They helped us clean, take care of our children and cooked us delicious food. We also got to do a lot of fun things, we normally are not motivated enough or too poor to do. I love it when people come to visit, because it helps us get out and enjoy Hawaii.

On our first day here, we took them to Waimea falls and beach. Here is a picture of Oly's mom and dad at the top of the falls.

Here we are walking back from the falls, getting ready to cool off in the ocean.

Oly's parents took us on a Sunset dinner cruise one night. We all had such a great time. Here are some pictures we took from the night...

The only way we can keep Jonny in one place is with one thing.. the Ipad. Thank goodness for technology.

Oly also volunteered to dance Hula for everyone during dinner. Here are a couple of pictures of his performance.

Ok.. it was more like he GOT volunteered to dance. Not the case with his mom, though. She was a willing participant. Here is a picture of them both :)

I forgot to bring my camera with us on our other outings. :( Some other things we did while they were here were: the PCC, eating out in Waikiki, Taste of Waialua, Temple visitors center/Laie, Buddhist temple and circle island tour. We really had a good time.

Easter Weekend

2011-04-26T15:12:00.001-07:00

We had a great Easter Weekend. Oly's parents are visiting us, and we are having a great time. We have been really busy showing them around the island, and later I will post more pictures of their visit. Since they were in town over Easter, we decided to have Sophia blessed. Oly did a great job, and it was a beautiful blessing. Here is a picture of all of us after the blessing.

Here is a picture of Sophia and me. I am really don't like pictures of myself, post-pregnancy, but Sophia looks really cute.

I really like this picture of Oly and Sophia.

This picture is Jonny, checking out his Easter basket. He got a lot of art supplies this year. He has turned into quite the little artist.

Oly and Sophia weren't too excited about Easter baskets and this is how they spent most of their morning.

We made these eggs.. I think they are the most creative eggs I have every seen. (tThey came in a kit, so we can't really take credit for them.) We took them to a friends house for an Easter egg hunt. Jonny thought it was really fun running around the yard and finding the eggs this year.

Greener on the other side

2011-04-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

Does anybody else look at others and feel like they lead a much more glamourous lifestyle? The other day Oly and I went shopping at Malama market for milk (we go through it SUPER fast with Jonny) and as we walked around we both started to feel this way. Here we were in our 10 year old car, with two crying kids making a last minute dash to the store for milk. While other people were rolling in with their new shiny cars, looking like they had just left the beach and buying stuff to go have a good time with their friends. They looked a lot less stressed and much more carefree than the two of us who were dealing with our two year old who was freaking out because we weren't buying him cake.

I know in this post I sound ungrateful for all of my blessings. I am not. I really love being a mother/wife and I wouldn't change anything about my life... I just sometimes have these thoughts sometimes.. does anyone else?

My son the photographer

2011-04-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

Today I had a little bit of time on my hands. I took Jonny to the burger king playground to burn off some energy. Why the burger king playground???... the answer to that question is because it is a enclosed environment. Oly has been working nights for the Navy, and I didn't want to worry about chasing Jonny with Sophia. I had nothing better to do, so I decided to go through the images on my i-phone. I was quite amused at what I found...

Jonny has really been into taking pictures lately and figured out how to take them with my camera. I went through hundreds of images that he took and deleted most of them. A couple of them were pretty funny, so I decided to save them. Here are some of my favorites...

I remember him trying to take this picture of Sophia. I am pretty impressed that he actually got her in the picture frame!

This one is my favorite. This is the view from Jonny's car seat looking towards the dashboard. I love how his foot is in the picture.

Most of the images were of my legs and feet. I guess that is what is at his eye level. :)

More Pictures of Sophia

2011-04-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

I have more pictures of Sophia posted on my other website, if you want to take a look

http://hiddenrosephotography.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/sophia-renee-garcia/

Last minute photo shoot and Sophie's first bath

2011-04-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

Oly has been working long hours at Pearl harbor these last couple of weeks, and one evening I was getting pretty house bound and decided I needed to get out and do something. I decided to drag my two little ones to a old Hawaiian church by my house to take some pictures. I think they turned out pretty cute. Jonny was not in the mood to have his picture taken, but went along with it when I promised him we could go play at the park afterwards.

This last picture is of Sophie's first bath. She really enjoyed the water and was happy through the whole experience. She didn't even cry when Jonny decided she needed her eyes washed with

soap!

My parents latest visit

2011-04-05T17:54:00.000-07:00

My parents came to Hawaii to help me out and meet Sophie. They left exactly a week ago from today, and I am really missing their company. It is nice to be able to talk to adults and have some extra hands around during the day :) My mom came out a couple of weeks before my dad and really helped us out. She watched Jonny while I was in the hospital and help out afterwards. My dad came out for about a week and Jonny loved having grandpa to play with. Every time he now hears a airplane he thinks it is grandpa's plane on its way to visit.

Here are some pictures from their trip.

In this picture we are on a hike. I know, some people will think it is crazy that I went hiking less than two weeks after delivering, but I was feeling pretty good and the hike was not too strenuous. My mom was pretty scared on the hike.. maybe it could of been all of the danger do not proceed signs we saw along the way??? :)

Here we are at the Honolulu zoo.

My dad at the zoo.

My dad sporting my new stroller at the zoo.

We miss you guys, come back soon!

A busy week

2011-03-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

I am trying to adjust to having two little ones to take care of. I feel like there are not enough hours in the day. My dad flew in on Monday and Jonny is loving playing with Grandma and Grandpa. I think he thinks their rental is their new house, and they have moved to Hawaii for good.

Sophie is such a good baby, she is a great nurser and loves to sleep. She has been sleeping in four hour blocks at night. Jonny has not been jealous of her so far, and loves to kiss her and rub her head. Every time he rubs her head he informs he that he hair is brown. lol.

Oly has been really busy lately, he is working at Pearl Harbor for the Navy and hasn't had a day off. I am glad I my parents are here for the extra help and company :)

Here is a picture my mom took of me and Sophie with her phone.

Sophia Renee Garcia

2011-03-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

I am now the proud mother of two. :) Sophia was born Monday morning at 8:16, weighing nine pounds and fourteen ounces. (yes, I know she is one big little girl.) I am totally in love with her and so happy she is part of our family.

My mom came out last week to help me out and I am SOOO glad she is here. She has been a life saver. I can't believe how much has happened in the week that she has been here. We have had Tsunami scares, false labor scares and the actual birth all in one week.

I was scheduled to be induced Monday at five am, but went into labor Sunday night at about one am anyways. I tried to ignore the contractions, thinking that it was more false labor pains but was unable to withstand the pain at about three am. We went to the hospital and by the time we were admitted into a room I was already dilated to 6 cm and having really strong contractions. They had to do some blood work and wait for the results before they could give me an epidural, and by the time the epidural started to work I was already dilated to 8 cm. My doctor broke my water bag, and told me she would check on me again. Right as she walked out of the room, the nurse noticed the babies heart rate had dropped, and casually told us she was going to call the doctor back. She pushed a red button on the wall and all of a sudden about fifteen doctors and nurses came rushing in and put oxygen mask on me. My doctor checked me and the babies head was right there so she had me start pushing. I pushed for three minutes and Sophia was born. She had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, and because it was such a fast delivery had some bruising on her face. Despite the bruises, she still looked beautiful though. Here are some pictures from the hospital.

Tomorrow is the big day!!!

2011-03-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

After having contractions on and off for the last week and a half, I am scheduled to be induced tomorrow morning at five a.m. I am really excited and nervous at the same time. I hope everything goes well and labor is fast :) I will post pics soon!

One frustrated mama

2011-03-05T15:30:00.001-08:00

I don't know what is going on with my body. I always thought that you would definitely know when your body went into labor. You would have consistent contractions, drive to the hospital, dilate and have your little bundle of joy. Well, things are not working out according to plan with this baby.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up feeling really sick with an upset stomach. I laid around and started to have these period cramps. (I know this is my second child, but I never went into labor with Jonny, so I didn't know how to recognize what exactly was going on.) I started to time the cramps and when they got to be about five minutes apart, I called Oly to take me to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at around noon, and I was dilated to a two when we got there. They kept on having me walk the halls to get my contractions more intense. By the time it was around eight I was having very intense contractions every two minutes, but I hadn't progress past 3.5 centimeters and you have to be at a four before they will admit you. Since I live about a hour from the hospital, they decided they wanted to monitor me over night and gave me morphine for the pain. (which I found out I am allergic too.. not fun at all.) In addition to the morphine making me itch all over, hallucinate and throw up, it also stopped my contractions so they were about ten minutes apart. The next day we were discharged, and Oly stayed home from work to take care of me. I was really exhausted and still having side effects from the Morphine. So yesterday, I woke up and kept on having occasional contractions throughout the day but nothing to consistent. We decided to get a baby sitter and try to go out and get our minds off of the delivery. We went to see a movie and were having a good time. While I was watching the movie, I started to get contractions, but they were not too intense. I tried to ignore them, and we stayed for the whole show. After the movie was over, I had very intense contractions every two minutes for about a hour. We called our friends who live in Mililani to see if we could drop off Jonny, on our way to the hospital. They said yes, and as we arrived at their house my contractions started to lessen in their intensity. We decided to spend the night at their house, because it is closer to the hospital just in case I needed to go. I had painful contractions all night about 5-10 minutes apart, but decided to not go in. (I do not want to go through the same thing again unless it is REAL labor) I am now at home, contracting about once every fifteen minutes, unless I walk... If I walk my contractions get more intense and closer together. Grrr... This whole thing is really frustrating. Has anything like this every happened to anyone else?

I need some inspiration

2011-02-24T23:04:00.000-08:00

I got this cute Vinyl lettering off of etsy.com and want to put it in my kids room. It is 12" tall and 43" wide. I got it with the idea that I would also blow up some pictures of them both and put the pictures on each side of the lettering.

After receiving the vinyl letters in the mail, I realized that they wouldn't look so great on the wall. We have lines that run up and down our walls, and the letter will look weird if they will even stick. So I have been trying to think of something that I can stick the Vinyl letters onto and then mount it on the wall. Any ideas???

Shots taken around the house

2011-02-23T21:40:00.000-08:00

These are Oly's work shoes. He always puts them on the water heater right when he gets home from work. Looks classy right? lol

This is the view I see a million times a day, looking out the living room window.

My cool new necklace

2011-02-18T14:18:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year, my cousin Michelle gave me a gift certificate to the website www.allorahandmade.com. After debating what I should buy, I decided on the mini modern pearl statement necklace. My necklace came in the mail the other day and I love it! I am now tempted to buy one of her cute flower headbands for little girls.

I posted a picture of this bee on my photography website, http://hiddenrosephotography.wordpress.com/, but I thought I would put some more pictures on this site also. (Mainly for Michelle) lol. I used this bee as the theme for Open You Heart in the 52 week photo project I am doing. I just got some new macro lenses and found this dying bee next to my front door, and I thought what a great bug to test them out on. I am scared to death of bees, especially this kind. They are called Carpenter Bees and are HUGE! When I first started to take some shots of it, I was kind of nervous, but then realized it was not in any condition to attack. After making sure it was going fly at me, I started to relax, got a little close to it and realized that it was actually kind of cute!

Happy Valentines Day!

2011-02-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines Day! We don't really go all out for Valentines Day, but we usually do something small. This year Oly gave me a Flower Lei to wear to church yesterday. It was go beautiful and smelt so delicious. People's first reaction to seeing my beautiful lei.. was "you NEED to cut that." I guess if you are pregnant you are supposed to cut your lei and just wear it over your shoulders with two loose ends hanging down each arm. My friend told me if you wear a circle lei, it means you hope the baby's umbilical cord will get stuck around its neck. So I cut my lei and got many comments from people about how glad they were to see me with my lei cut. lol.

I gave Oly some new cologne, well actually a little collection of different colognes. I figured he was bound to like at least one of the smells if he has a selection. (I swear he has a nose like a canine.)

In our ward we have a playgroup for little toddlers and this month I volunteered to schedule and plan the activities. For this weeks get together, we had a Valentines Day Picnic across the street at the beach park. The first picture is of some cupcakes I made for it. I made WAY to many, though. I think we will now be eating cupcakes for the next week.. not that I am complaining.

By the way, can you tell the images look different/warped? I got a new lens called the lensbaby, that creates images with a sweet spot. I am really liking liking it so far.

I made the cut!

2011-02-13T22:08:00.000-08:00

Have you guys ever visited the Pioneer Woman's Website? If not you should definitely check it out. She has a lot of cool giveaways, contests, recipes and photography tips. She often has photography contests on her site, and I have entered quite a few.. and this time she picked on of my pictures! I am pretty excited. The theme of this contest was "Love," in honor of Valentines day. I entered a picture I took last year of my sister and her husband. If you want to check it out, it is the black and white photo under the name BrePics.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/photography/

A Mysterious Package

2011-02-10T22:37:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I received this package in the mail. I have no idea who sent it, and it is driving me crazy! I called all people who I think might have sent it, but they were just as surprised as I am. The postage is from a Francis M Price, and it came from Oak Brooke, Illinois. It also says that it was shipped though eBay, so I think he is just a random seller.

Shipping for this package must have cost an arm and leg! It was nine pounds, and the box is pretty huge. It is packed full of different things, like stationary, pens, Christmas socks, photo albums, mini books, lotion etc..

If you have sent me this package, please let me know! :) It was nice to get something unexpected in the mail.

Jonnys BFF

2011-02-09T21:52:00.000-08:00

Jonny loves his puppy.

My other blog

2011-02-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

I thought I would put a link to my photography blog, just in case anyone wanted to check it out.

http://hiddenrosephotography.wordpress.com/

Little spiders in my clothes pins

2011-01-31T23:08:00.000-08:00

Can you see the web? It seriously freaks me out to hang up laundry.

Our cruise

2011-01-29T12:13:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year, my parents paid for all of us to go on a Caribbean cruise. We left January 9th out of New Orleans and returned the following Sunday. I was really nervous getting on the cruise, because they have a rule that if you are over 24 weeks pregnant you can't board the ship, and if you are pregnant at all you had to have a note from your doctor stating your due date and if you are fit to travel. At the time our ship left New Orleans, I was 30 weeks pregnant. To disguise my big belly, I wore Oly's big grey sweatshirt and kept my hand in my pockets while boarding. I was so nervous, but I guess the crew thought I was fat and not pregnant. Once onboard, nobody really questioned me and I slowly relaxed and stopped worrying about getting kicked off.

We had such a great time with my family. We spent most of our time onboard eating. We really ate a ton on this cruise! It was kind of comical, we would have 'second dinner,' and then later that night order room service while we hung out watching movies and playing games. At the end of the cruise I though I probably put on at least ten pounds, being pregnant and all, but to my surprise I had only gained one! So I continued to not watch what I ate for the rest of my trip in Utah! lol.

The first port we stopped at was Costa Maya, Mexico. We went to see some Mayan ruins, swam in the pool and shopped. It was a great day. We ordered some food from a little bar next to the pool and ate our lunch while still sitting in the pool. (I hope that makes sense...)

Our next stop was Belize City, Belize. We had to take a little boat from our ship to the port. Here are some pictures of everyone on the little boat, excited for the day :)

Once we arrived at Belize, we took a tubbing tour through some underground caves. It was really exciting and everyone had a lot of fun. Jonny was really good on the tour and fell asleep in Oly's lap as we floated down the river.

Our next stop was the island of Roatan, Honduras. Our first stop on the island was at a resort, which was kind of disappointing. When you live next to some of the prettiest beaches in the world, it is hard to be impressed with other places. My sister Morgan and I did have quite the experience at the beach though. We got a twenty dollar massage from some local girls, and it was hilarious. They had us lay on a gross stained foam mat, and all of these guys came to watch as they massaged us! They referred to me as the fat one, lol. I felt like yelling "I am PREGNANT, not fat." oh well. After the beach resort, we went zip lining... well everyone went zip lining except for Jonny and I. (no pregnant people allowed on the zip line...grr) Oly had a lot of fun, and has some cool videos. While everyone zip lined, Jonny and I played with the cute little spider monkeys. We were both in heaven. It helped fulfill my childhood desire to be a monkey trainer. lol.

Our last stop was at Cozumel. We were all kind of disappointed at this stop. The weather was bad, and we signed up for a crappy tour. We still managed to have a good time shopping and ate an every interesting restaurant.

Aloha 'oe

2011-01-04T23:52:00.000-08:00

Aloha! We are off to visit my family on the mainland tomorrow. We are taking the overnight flight to Salt Lake. We are all really excited to see everyone! After staying in Utah for a couple of days, we are all heading to New Orleans to take off on a week long Caribbean cruise. Yay! I am planning on relaxing and eating. Let's just hope I don't double my pregnancy weight. Lol. In a couple of weeks we'll post some pics from our trip.

New Years

2011-01-02T21:25:00.001-08:00

This year for New Years we went to Bellows beach. Bellows is a campground/beach park that is owned by the Air Force. It is located on the east side of the island by Waimanalo. It is a really beautiful area and the base has a lot of fun activities. Oly and I have been wanting to camp at Bellows for over a year, and didn't think about going to there for New Years until the last minute. I thought that for sure the place would be packed, but to my delight they had two camper cabins open. Some friends had invited us to their house for New Years, but everyone decided that it sounded more fun to go to Bellows for the night.

Here is a picture of the camper cabins they have a Bellows. We had a really good time. Jonny was in heaven. He kept on telling us how much fun he was having. He especially loved lighting fireworks. He is such a little pyro already.

The next morning we all relaxed at the beach. It was such a gorgeous day.

We want to go back again for a longer, more planned out trip. Maybe, we can make it out there before the baby is born...

Our 2010 Christmas

2010-12-27T23:56:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas this year. It was our first christmas with just the three of us. In the past, we have always either spend Christmas in Utah with my family, or in Texas with Oly's. Even though we missed seeing our families this year, it was nice just to spend it together at home.

For Christmas Eve we were invited to our friends Daniel and Jacquelyn Skaff's house. We ate delicious food, played games, chased crazy kids, sang christmas songs and watched movies.

Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve. Jonny loves playing in the Skaff's backyard. It is nice because he can run free and I can relax. I am really hoping one day I will have a backyard for him to play in!

There last couple of pictures are from Christmas morning. Jonny got a train table, which he LOVES. Oly and him have spend hours together pushing his trains around the tracks. :)

Christmas is coming... soon!

2010-12-20T23:55:00.000-08:00

I can't believe Christmas is this week. This year has really flown by! I decided this year that I wanted to attempt to make sugar cookies. My friend Lala, who is a sugar cookie expert, was kind enough to helped me make them. We spent one day baking sugar cookies at my house (I had no idea so much effort went into making these cookies) and the next day we made more cookies at her house. This is a picture of my final product. Don't laugh, for me this is good. I am challenged when it comes to frosting!

The last picture is of our little Christmas tree. I am not sure what they are called, but everyone here calls them the "Hawaiian christmas tree." It kind of reminds me of a tree you would find inside a Dr. Suess book. By the way, Jonny is totally in love with our tree.

2010 Christmas card

2010-12-19T23:44:00.000-08:00

This is the Christmas card that I designed for our family this year. I was having issues printing it, and ended up using one of Costco's christmas card templates out of lack of time. The Costco cards turned out pretty good and were a really good deal. This is the first Christmas we have stayed in Hawaii. In the past, we have either visited my family or Oly's. It is really weird for me to have it be 80 degrees and Christmas at the same time. I am just hoping on Christmas Eve it will at least rain.

I Heart Pedicures

2010-12-18T22:34:00.000-08:00

Today I got a pedicure. It was pure heaven. I went to a place called 'Exotic Nails' in Wahiawa, and they spent about two hours on my feet! By the end of my Pedicure, I was about ready to fall asleep in my chair. lol. I am definitely going to make a return trip some time in the future.

New baby things I am weirdly excited about

2010-12-12T23:38:00.001-08:00

Disclaimer: You might find this post kind of boring.. especially if you are not in the kid part of life yet. :)

I have been thinking about baby items that I would like to have for when I have the second baby. I have spent probably way too much time researching exactly what I wanted to get... but I have come up with some baby items that I think are going to be pretty awesome.

This first picture is the Beco Gemini. I have a feeling baby #2 will be in the carrier a lot more than Jonny was. I think when I go anywhere, I will need some free hands to grab my crazy toddler. I really liked the Ergo, but decided on the Beco, because it has the option for the baby to face you and away. (Jonny didn't like to face me.)

Yay! I finally have bought a nice diaper bag. I am so excited. This is the Ju Ju Be Be BFF in Lotus Lullaby. It has a lot of cool compartments and other features. I have went two years without owning a diaper bag. I have just shoved everything into a big purse. As a result, all of my stuff has been mushed together and I have had many spills. I started to think about the amount of packing I am going to have to be doing with two little ones, and decided it was high time I got a little more organized. Isn't it such a cute pattern?

Ok, and now for the last thing on my list... which I think I am going to wait awhile to buy. A double stroller. I have been pretty spoilt with my Quinny Zapp single stroller. It is very small, turns easy and folds down tiny. In the past, every time I pushed around a double stroller, it felt long and heavy. I was kind of disappointed, until I have found this double stroller..

The Phil and Teds. I like it because it is not a large as the other double strollers out there and can be used as a single stroller or double. The only draw back with this stroller is its price. It is a pretty expensive stroller, and it is hard to spend so much on a stroller..

The other stroller I am considering is

The sit and stand. It has a little bench on in the back, where a toddler can sit or stand while the baby rides in the front. The only draw back with this stroller is that it is not as good of quality as the Phil and Teds (as the price reflects) and I am a little worried Jonny will escape the seat..

If you have a double stroller you have loved, please let me know :)

Beautiful Sunset across the street

2010-12-06T16:01:00.001-08:00

Last night, we went across the street to Alii Beach Park to take our Christmas pictures. We were in luck, it was a beautiful sunset and the tide was extremely low.

I am starting to really pop out now. I am 25 weeks, and starting to feel it. lol.

A toddler and his poop

2010-12-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

Yes.. I am writing this post because I am disgusted. Jonny has been doing great going on the potty... well going pee on the potty. He refuses to poop in the toilet. He fights he idea, and will wait until he is by himself (usually when I think he is taking his nap) to go. Gross! I have been reading online and it seems like a lot of little boys have the problem about not wanting to go number two in the potty. Any advise?

Thanksgiving weekend

2010-11-29T18:50:00.000-08:00

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We ate great food, hung out with fun friends and relaxed. For Thanksgiving we ate with our friends Kaleesha and Michael Ramos. We spend most of the day there eating, playing games and watching movies. In this picture it looks like Jonny is about ready to eat his meal, but he wouldn't eat one bite. He just wanted to run around and play with Illianna (their daughter.) I swear he lives on air.

By the way, I didn't take this picture. Our friend Dave borrowd my camera to take most of the pictures that day... He seems to like to do that every year lol.

On Saturday we took Jonny to this Box Car Racing track. It was pretty fun, and Jonny had a blast!

We also went out on Friday night and saw the movie, "Unstoppable." It was a pretty good movie, if you are looking for something to go and see.

Adventures of the week

2010-11-24T23:06:00.001-08:00

The last time I went to the Honolulu zoo, I bought an annual pass. I hadn't taken Jonny to the zoo for quite awhile, but thought it would be a good investment. It turned out that Jonny was on cloud nine looking at all of the "nano's" aka animals. He has been wanting to go back ever since, so last Tuesday we went back. I thought that going on a Tuesday seemed like a good day, not to crowded etc.. Boy, was I wrong. It seemed it was every preschool on the island's field trip to the zoo day. Jonny thought it was awesome having so many little friends everywhere. The only problem was he kept trying to ditch me and join different preschool groups. Here are a couple of pictures I took from that day.

It is so much fun taking him to the zoo, he gets SO excited and makes all of the animal noises the whole time.

In the picture on the left, he is checking out the mating tortoises. These guys are mating every time we go! I am surprised there isn't fifty million turtles running around the place. Now Jonny thinks turtles make this low grunting mating noise. lol.

The muffler on our Jeep broke. Not a problem, since I am married to the most handy man in the world. It looks like Jonny is following in his dad's footsteps. He wanted to grab his little plastic tools and help him out. So cute.

The other day we flew a kite at this amazing field, located on Schofield Base. It was so beautiful, there were even parrots in the trees. I have never seen wild parrots in Hawaii before, I thought it was pretty cool.

Are you fun?

2010-11-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

If you are wondering, just come and talk to Jonny. Recently, he has started calling people (usually kids) he doesn't know "Fun." For instance, today, I took him to the playground, and he spotted some kids that he wanted to play with. He went running up to one of the little boys, and exclaimed, "Hi, Fun!" It is pretty funny.

Jonny and his cars

2010-11-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

Jonny loves his cars. In particular, he loves Lightening McQueen. Everywhere we go Lightening goes with us. I took him to the Wahiawa Botanical Gardens, and as you can see from the pictures, Lightening really enjoyed driving around the place.

Dad's picture

2010-11-16T11:38:00.000-08:00

My dad sent me this picture, and I thought I would put it on my blog. He really really likes it. lol

Two years ago

2010-11-14T21:57:00.000-08:00

I love looking through old pictures. I can't believe how much my little guy has changed!

Princess Nala

2010-11-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

We have had our cat Nala for four and a half years now. While this might not seem to long to some pet owners, for me it is pretty significant. Growing up, the life expectancy for most of my cats was about one year. They would either mysteriously disappear, get ran over by a car or stolen from a neighbor. (No kidding, about the stealing part.) I feel kind of bad sometimes for our cat, because prior to Jonny she was the queen of the house/yard. Now she has been definitely pushed down to number two. Jonny and the cat have a love/hate relationship. Well all love from Jonny's point of view, and love/hate from hers. While she doesn't enjoy being sat on, kicked etc.. she keeps coming back for more. She will tolerate his abuse for a good five minutes, before she decide that she has had enough. Also, whenever she hears Jonny crying she runs to his side to comfort him. It is really cute, except when he is supposed to be in time out.

She is pretty smart though, she waits until he goes to bed for the night to ask to come inside to hang out.

Undies

2010-11-07T16:21:00.000-08:00

Jonny loves his new Thomas the Train undies. Now if he can only figure out how to not pee in them.. hmm...

Halloween Weekend

2010-11-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

Since Halloween happened to be on Sunday this year, it seemed to give everyone the excuse to celebrate all weekend long. We went to a total of three Halloween parties all on different days. It was a lot of fun, but as a result we all ate way too much candy. lol. I tried to keep Jonny's candy intake low, and actually gave his Halloween candy away. He doesn't need to eat any more sugar, he already has more than enough energy!

Jonny and I dressed up as Pirates, and Oly decided to be different and dress like a HAZMAT guy. He said he has already done the pirate theme way too many times.

Here Jonny is trick or treating at our ward trunk or treat. He had such a good time collecting his candy. The only problem was he didn't want to put it in his bag, he wanted to eat it right away, wrapper and all.

I had to add a picture of Oly's pumpkin he carved. I think it turned out awesome. Apparently, someone else did too and made off with it at our ward party. lol.

Hawaii Children's Discovery Center

2010-10-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

The other day, Jonny and I went to the Hawaii Children's Discovery Center. I have been wanting to take him for awhile and we weren't disappointed. Jonny had such a good time running to all of the different exhibits. The place was pretty big, and I only took a picture of a couple of the rooms. Jonny was not in the mood to stay in one place for too long.

They had such a fun library, and the chair was humongous!

In part of the museum, there were houses from different parts of the world. In this picture we are in Portugal, and Jonny is cooking up some fish in the oven.

Jonny really loves trains, and spent a lot of time at this train table.

Here he is hard at work fixing a car. Guess he has watched Oly one to many times. :)

There were quite a few little kitchens throughout the place. I never realized how closely he watches me make food. He had the microwave down.

Oh... and as a funny side note, on the way home from the center he discovered his love for the song "I gotta a feeling," by the Black Eyed Peas. He now demands to listen to it over and over again and smiles the whole time the song is plays.

We are having a GIRL!

2010-10-21T15:35:00.000-07:00

I had my ultrasound yesterday and Oly and I were both surprised to find out we are going be expecting a girl! We were both feeling like this next baby was going to be another boy. I had this idea that Garcia men were only capable of producing male offspring. lol. Oly has all brothers and every grandchild so far has been male. I am really excited to be having a girl, and can finally buy some cute girl clothes for myself, instead of for all of my friends kids :)

Jonny came with us to the ultrasound to see the baby. He kept on pointing to the screen and saying "baby," and thought it was really funny that I had goop all over my stomach. :) When the technician told him he was going to be having a baby sister, his response was "EW." I think he was talking about the gel on my stomach, but it was really funny anyways.

Here is a 3D picture of her. It is really hard for me to tell what she looks like from the pics. In this image she is facing sideways and has her hand fisted up next to her face.

Here is the shot confirming she has no male parts.

Her little footprints. I am already feeling her kicks...

Cirque du Soleil Alegria

2010-10-17T23:51:00.001-07:00

This weekend Oly and I went to Cirque Alegria, which is a traveling acrobatic/contortionist/musical show. When the show came to Hawaii in 2007 we went to it for our one year anniversary. We enjoyed the show so much, that when we heard they were returning this year we decided to go again. It is a really good show and the performers are absolutely amazing. If you get the chance to go to one of their shows, I would definitely recommend it!

Pupukea Trail

2010-10-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

I lived in a neighborhood called Pupukea for about two years, and never took advantage of living so close to an awesome trail. Now that I am living 20 minutes away, it figures that I am now driving there to go on walks. The trail is located at the very top of the neighborhood, next to a boy scout camp. It is nice because it is breezy, shaded and pretty level the whole way, or at least as long as Jonny can walk. It is a perfect trail to take little toddlers on who need to run around before they take their nap. We often meet up with our friends there, and this time I finally managed to remember my camera.

Here is a picture of Jonny, Halalei and Lala looking at the airplane passing by.

Hanalei walking along the trail. She is usually trying to keep up with Jonny.

Aren't they precious? They think they are pretty cool because they are on a little hill next to the trail.

I had to take a picture of the cat that lives at the beginning of the trail. It is the coolest cat, just take a look at it's feet. It has an extra toe! It likes to follow us and sneak crackers from the kids snack cups.

I really enjoy this little trail. It feels like it belongs on some mountain in the mainland. While walking on it, it kind of feels like we are taking a mini vacation! :)

Jumping off of rainbow bridge

2010-09-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

Monday morning I dragged myself out of bed, put on my cold swimming suit to.. jump off of the bridge. I jumped with my neighbor/friend Riley, who I also happened to teach in young women's. She was home from college for the summer and this was her last day before she flew back to Seattle. I think we gave everyone on there way to work something to stare at. lol. I like this picture because you can see Jonny chilling on the hood of our jeep watching me. He thought it was hilarious to see us jump.

Anyways, it was really a lot of fun to jump. Anyone want to go with me again? :)

Father Son time

2010-09-18T15:03:00.000-07:00

So Breanne went out to exercise this morning and I thought that it would be a perfect time to do a little father-son bonding, so I showed Jonny what monster trucks are for. Looks like the lesson went well! =)

I like dirt

2010-09-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

Jonny has discovered a new love for dirt. He can spot a pile of dirt a half a mile away. He loves to put his hands in the dirt and then run them all over his sweaty face.

Ultrasound

2010-09-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

Oly and Jonny got to come with me to my doctor's appointment the other day, and we got to see the baby. In this picture the baby's back is facing us, and the head is on the right side. We could see the baby's little hand and feet moving around. My doctor remarked about how active the baby is already. I am still holding on the the hope that this baby is a little bit more mellow.. I love how active Jonny is, I just cant run in two directions at the same time.

Jonny's Second Birthday

2010-08-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Jonny turned two last Thursday! My little baby is growing up. I guess I should not even really call him a baby anymore. He definitely looks and acts like a crazy toddler. I took him to his second year check up and he is 36 inches tall and weighs 30 pounds! The doctor said he is about a year ahead of his peers in height. He is one tall two year old :)

He had such a great birthday. On Thursday, just Jonny and I went to the water park. Jonny had the time of his life, he squealed with joy the whole time and probably went down the water slides about 200 times. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time we left. That night we had a little celebration with our family, and Jonny LOVED blowing out the candles on his cupcake. He kept on asking for us to light them again and again. He also loved opening presents, of course. It was a lot more fun this year to see his reaction when he opened his gifts.

Friday, we got together with some of his friends at Burger King for a party. Jonny loves the playground at Burger King, and I like it because it is enclosed. Enclosed equals less stress for me. lol. Here is a little video we made... enjoy.

Disappointment

2010-08-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it when you read a book series, wait a year for the final book to be released, only to be disappointed by the ending? Well that just happened to me. grrr.. Can anyone guess what series I am talking about?

Venting

2010-08-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

I am in a pretty bad mood, and decided to vent to my blog. So, if you do not want to read about my petty little frustrations, you are warned... stop reading now. lol.

The source of my anger happens to be sitting about ten feet in front of my drinking a beer and watching afternoon soap operas. My neighbor, who is only separated from me by a thin wall about a 1/8 of an inch think. I kid you not. I can hear this man fart, talk on the phone, snore, sit on the couch.. you name it. When I first moved in about two years ago, living this close to him drove me absolutely CRAZY. Oly told me I needed to learn to tune him out, and I think most of the time, I am now able to do that. Let me give you a little history about my neighbor. He is about fifty years old, lives off the system, collects unemployment as long as he can, and drinks a crazy amount of beer daily. (You should see the empty cans.) So, since I am a stay at home mother, and he is a stay at home loser, we get to hear each others lives, which for me is extremely unpleasant. Anyways, I think Oly and I have been really good neighbors to him. He has a son who is about 15, who has recently taken up the habit of drumming. Like I said before, our walls are extremely thin and it feels like he is drumming in my living room. Not only is his music loud, he is not a very good musician to top it off. We haven't complained about his drumming to our landlords, and try to get out of the house when he practices. Also, my neighbor has some very interesting drunk friends who stay at his place, and let me tell you they can be quite loud and annoying to listen too. Once again, I haven't complained about his little parties... Ok now we are getting the the reason I am upset... Lately he has started to pound on the wall that separates our places when he thinks we are too loud. Every time he has pounded on the wall have been instances that have involved Jonny. For instance, one time he was crying about something and he started to pound on the wall. (and let me tell you these pounds are super loud. I am surprised his fist has not came through the wall by now.) He started to pound on the wall yesterday and yell obscenities at us at around five o'clock. Of course, Oly had just left the house. He never does it when he is home. The reason he was so upset is because Jonny was driving his toy car on the wall. I didn't realize that it was making enough noise to bother him. After he started to pound on the wall, I got pretty upset and went outside to confront him. I was about to speak my mind, when I saw he was drunk, and realized it wouldn't really be a good idea to reason with him. Anyways, what are your suggestions? I really want him to move out, but I don't think that is really going to happen. I have been looking for a new place for us to move to, but it seems like everything is too expensive for our budget. grrr. I think I am going to explain the situation to our landlord, and hopefully we can get moved into another unit. I am sick of his harassment.