Tahri and Kehau

Leila

2012-02-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

Since I didn't post anything of Leila here is a picture overload of her. ha! Well I've wanted to post this for awhile but never really had the time. But in about November Leila got a haircut from her dad. Oh I was sooo mad. I've been waiting forever to get her hair long enough so I could put it in ponytails and start to do some cute things with it, and her dad goes and cuts it. I mean seriously who cuts a girls hair for the first time without consulting with the mom? Apparently her dad! I was so depressed and didn't talk to Tahri for like 3 days!!! Plus she went from being my cute little girl to being such a big girl. I was so sad. :(

So here is one of the last photos taken before the butcher got to her. So cute right? I love how her curls flip up right above her ears and how her bangs are straight and lay pretty flat on her head.
And then chop chop! Doesn't she look like a boy here? I was so sad that her curls were gone and that she went from looking so cute to looking like a toddler boy.

Here are some recent pictures of her, her curls are definitely back but she looks like a poodle. The curls start like right at the tip of her head now and it is too short to pull back and well she just looks so funky now. I blame Tahri! And she forever has boogers!!
Here is a better shot of the poodle head! Oh my poor girl! Good thing she has such a cute face because that hair? Well not so cute, but had the butcher not got to her I think it wouldn't be so bad.

Big Kids

2012-02-02T20:13:00.001-08:00

So today Tale went to preschool for the first time. Now for those that know Tale know he doesn't go anywhere without his mommy, I mean I can't even get him to stay in nursery and he is like the oldest one in there. There are only a few people that he will stay with without crying, my mom and his uncle Jared. But today he was such a big boy and he went to preschool.

(I love his smile in this picture)

This is his cousin Quinn, she has been going for about 6 months now and is about 3 months older than Tale. She loves it and we thought we would see if Tale would go and stay if he was at least with his cousin. Tale was very hesitant to go but after I let him pick out his outfit, pack a spiderman toy in his backpack and promised him a nice big treat when he got home he finally agreed. So off he went with his Aunty Lanayia and Quinn, and I was sooo surprised to have her come home without him. Apparently he did really good for the first hour and after that the teacher had to find ways to entertain him because he was ready to go. But I'm so proud of him for what he did today. I really hope it gets better and he loves it as much as his cousin. Mommy sure loves her couple of hours. :) Leila was so cute, she wanted to go so bad, she even dressed herself and brushed her teeth and tried to get in the picture. Can you see her behind Quinn? She was so mad when we told her she couldn't go. Another milestone today was Tylana started holding her own bottle. Now I'm not sure if that is a big deal or not for a 4 month old because my other kids never took a bottle but I was pretty impressed!
Oh they are growing up too fast and not fast enough. hahahaha............I just love them!

Imari and Brianne Wedding

2012-01-26T20:11:00.000-08:00

This past weekend Tahri's brother Imari got married! He married the girl next door (literally) Brianne. What a beautiful day! She looked amazing, I wish I had a good picture of her dress, it was beautiful. The Molifua boys
The Molifua girls
How cute are these boys? These are just a few of the nephews.
Family photos are so hard!
This is like the only one I had of her dress. I loved it! They had such a beautiful reception too. They tented the inside of the church gym and had lights and jewels all over. I love weddings because you get to see so many family members and just have a blast together! Congratulations you two!

Tale turned 3!

2012-01-19T21:16:00.000-08:00

Wow, my boy is three! He is getting so big and so bossy! :) He has a cousin (Irie) that is 10 hours younger then him and this year they got to celebrate their birthdays together. We celebrated with the family a little early because this weekend Imari is getting married and there was just too much going on to celebrate on their actual birthday.

My mom sent them some cute aloha shirts to wear for their party and they sure were cute in them. Kira (Irie's mom) made them each their own spiderman cake. Tale loves it when people sign happy birthday to him and he was so excited to have a spiderman cake. I just love this face. After he blew out the candles he thought he could just dive right into his cake but I took it away and this was the face I got. ha!
They got lots of presents from their cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents.
Leila was so happy to get some of Tale's cake.
After our small party it was time for dance practice. The kids are doing a number for Uncle Imari's wedding. Leila was so cute trying to learn the dance.
Here she is again, trying to learn the boy's haka. I was so surprised my little Tale got out there and took his shirt off and was dancing along. He was so cute! Leila was trying to take her shirt off but instead got her pants off. ha!
For Tale's actual birthday the 19th, we took him to Red Robin.

Here he is getting his cake and all the waiters are singing to him. He was in heaven, he pretty much ate this whole thing by himself, and quick too. I was helping Leila with her shake and when I went to get some cake it was like all gone!!!
Ty got a taste of the milkshake. ha! She liked it. :)
What can I say about my Tale boi. He loves to cuddle with his mommy and with Tylana. He still loves Spiderman and wants to watch it all the time. Still very picky with what he eats and only really likes a hand full of things. He is very opinionated, is getting very good at talking and he understands sooo much. I seriously can't believe some of the things he understands! He also has a very good memory, he hardly ever lets us forget something. He has a good sense of direction. Like one time I took him out for some one on one time with me, and we stopped to get donuts and then to the park. We drove into the shopping center like a week after that and he was like we going to get donuts? I couldn't believe he remembered where it was. He tries to negotiate everything! He is such a sweet little boy, I just love him to pieces and just wish that I could devote more time to him. He can be so patient with me and is so forgiving of all my shortcomings.

Happy Birthday my dear boy! We love you so much.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-26T18:12:00.000-08:00

I'm such a lagger I wasnt able to pull off family photos for cards this year, but we were thinking of all of you. :) Happy Holidays everyone. Hope it was a great one!

Motivation Tips

2011-11-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

Okay so you know how I asked about how to stay motivated in my last post? Well I have a few tips, tips I'm sure you all know and do.

1. Get some new workout clothes. Has anyone ever been to a sears outlet? Well I went in there the other day and they had a sale going on. All women's apparel for $5, no matter what it was. So I found some really cute workout pants and a couple of tank tops. 2 workout pants and 3 tank tops for just under $20! The tank tops were only $2. So I was excited to get dressed and where my new outfits to the gym.

2. Download some new music. I have these 3 favorite songs that I get really pumped to. So I play them while I'm driving to the gym, and I get all excited, then my last like 6 - 8 mins on either the treadmill or stepper when I'm like ready to call it quits I play them and totally hypes me back up to go the distance and not only go the distance but go hard.

So still no weight loss boo! But still getting up in the morning to go get my sweat on. :) If anyone has more tips please share. Because I'm sure I'll need to figure out something else to motivate me next week. Especially if i'm still at the same weight!

6 years.........

2011-11-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Of eternal bliss. :) Tahri and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary on veterans day. Man we really are the Holiday family. Tahri's born on Christmas, me on valentine's day, Tale on presidents day, Leila (well she is special ha!), and Tylana on 9/11. Not really a holiday but a memorable day for sure.

Our little family that we have created in our 6 years of marriage. I love them all so much! Thanks uncle Jared for babysitting so we could have a peaceful dinner.

Baby Fat

2011-11-10T23:46:00.000-08:00

It's never coming off. This third time around it seems so much harder. Maybe it's not breastfeeding this time around??? Who knows but I just spent like 2 weeks in the gym and I gained 2 pounds. Whats that about? So I ended up eating this all by myself. Seriously I did, well with the exception of two, one for Leila and one for Tale. I'm pathetic but it was oh so good. Well there probably goes another 2 pounds. :)How can I stay motivated to keep going to the gym when I get that outcome? I have like 20 pounds to drop. Any suggestions? (besides stay away from the brownies? hahaha)

Blessing Day

2011-11-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

Today we blessed our Tylana girl. It was a perfect day! We got an extra hour of sleep, got to church 10 mins early (miracle!!), had our family and friends there, and of course the wonderful spirit was present. Thanks to everyone that participated and came out. I totally forgot about getting Tylana a blessing dress, so we went out on Saturday and pretty much picked out the first white dress that we could find in her size. I wasn't a fan of it, but I was desperate and it was on sale and in price range. But she made it pretty :) Aunty Sili made her a cute little Lei with a gold bow and it totally made the outfit. I wish I had a better picture of it but here is one. Here she is with Tahri's beautiful grandma.

Tahri gave a beautiful blessing and Tylana was good throughout the whole blessing and meeting. Tale wanted to go up and be in the circle too with everyone, but I bribed him with gummy bears. what a mom! :)

Potty Trained!

2011-11-02T20:20:00.001-07:00

Okay so my Tale-boi is potty trained. And the best part? I didn't do anything! He trained himself. Just one day he started taking his diaper off and going to the bathroom. And has been doing that ever since. It has been about a month now and no accidents. Well except for one time Chanel's water was spilled by Leila and he thought it would be funny to pee in the water. But other than that, none. He is even sleeping without a diaper at night time. I was sooo dreading the potty training but he made it sooo easy on me!

And the other best part is that Leila is copying him and I bet she will be potty trained in the next few months too. Hopefully Tale trains her for me. ha!

Good Job Son!

I just thought this picture was so cute and funny. We were taking so many pictures and he was tired of saying cheese so he made this face. ha!

Tylana

2011-10-31T22:30:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would post some pictures of my Tylana. She is growing so fast. I think she is going to be tall, she already is getting too tall for her 3 month old onesies and sleepers. In these pictures she is about 6 1/2 weeks. She is also my first baby to lose hair so it will be interesting to see how it grows back. She is still a little angel. She is totally starting to smile and react to you talking to her, it is sooo precious. I wish I could just talk and cuddle her all day. She is taking a pacifier too, which has been really nice. She loves to suck on it while I just rock her. She also falls asleep when I do that, but those naps only usually last for about 45 mins then she wants to eat. You can totally see her balding here but I think she is still cute.

This picture was from Halloween she was drunk off her milk. haha!

Oct Gigi Visit

2011-10-31T22:29:00.000-07:00

My mom came to visit us and we loved having her here. She was such a huge help. I didn't take many pictures because it seemed like we both always had a kid in our arms. ha! For just about the whole week she was here, Tylana slept with her and I got a ton of rest. It was a blissful week. :)

I did manage to take some pictures of our trip to Sea Life Park. The kids had a blast! Leila was fascinated with everything and was running from one exhibit to the next.

I miss my mom sooo much! But i'm so excited to see her and my dad again in December.

Boo!

2011-10-31T21:52:00.000-07:00

Halloween this year was fun and exhausting. I really need to plan better! But the kids were so cute. Tale of course was spiderman. I bought him this suit awhile ago because I thought he would love to dress up as him but he wore the heck out of it. I then took him to get a costume and of course he picked the spiderman one AGAIN, but I convinced him he needed to find something else. So guess what he picks next? Venom! Venom is a black spiderman. They didn't have one in his size so he picked another one. Green Lantern, but of course they didn't have it. So then he picked Iron Man. We got home and he tried it on, but he didn't like the padded muscles and wouldn't wear it and only wanted to wear his old spiderman outfit. So I took back the Iron Man and just let him wear spiderman. But that thing has holes in it, and is threading everywhere but that is what he wanted to be. Best $10 I ever spent. :)Leila had 2 costumes. I already had a princess dress for her but it was really big and she wanted this one so bad, so I just got it for her. She was so cute in it.
We first went to the outlets in Carlsbad and they had a ton of fun. At first Leila just wanted to eat every candy she got, but then she got the hang of it. It was sooo cute hearing her say dankyou after every store.

After that we went home and got some rest. Then got ready for round 2. I ended up putting her in the princess dress for our night time trick or treat. And Tylana got a cute bow from my brother so we got her a cute onesie to match. Princess Ariel.
They were just so cute going door to door. My friend told me about a spot up the block from us that is always busy and has good candy. The kids loved it because so many houses were decorated and there were tons of other kids there with cool costumes. They didn't want to leave.
We had to go and see my brother and the twins. They were lady bugs!!! They were so cute.
I don't know what we are going to do with all our candy. We also got candy to hand out but no one came after we got home. :( So we have lots. AHHHHHHHHHHH I don't want to throw it out but I don't want to eat it all either. This baby weight is never going to come off, especially with more holidays coming up. ERRRRRRR

Slacker!

2011-10-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

I've been horrible at updating my blog, I don't know what my deal is, but I need to step it up. I mean I don't even carry a camera with me anymore, and when I do I don't even take pictures. I use to have my camera on me all the time, I'd even have a back up camera just in case. AHHH, i'm really missing out on a lot of memorable things. :(

Life with 3 kids. I think it has been a little easier than I expected, but that's probable due to a few factors. I mean don't get me wrong it's not easy or anything but I was expecting much worse. What has helped is that Tahri was working from home, Tylana was a really good sleeper AND she takes a bottle. I think the hardest part was the first week. Just trying to do too much but not able to because um you just had a baby! But it is hard not to when you have 2 other little ones that demand so much from you. Tylana was a good little sleeper, she would sleep for like 4 to 5 hours at a time so I could leave her home with Tahri most of the time. Breastfeeding would take forever and it was such a pain, because for the first time it was sore and I had two other kids climbing all over me while trying to breastfeed and burp her. The bottle was so much faster, AND Tahri could often help with feeding duties.

Almost 6 weeks later and things are starting to get a little hectic. Because I was so sore I'm not really breastfeeding anymore, once maybe twice a day. With my other 2 breastfeeding was really easy and I never know what people were talking about when they would say they were really sore from breastfeeding. BUT now I do and man does it hurt! Hence not really breastfeeding anymore. I feel really bad about it but it seriously is WAAYY to painful to do. Poor Tylana :( Anyone have any suggestions on how to heal? I don't see how it can be done!

I've felt guilty a lot with my third baby. Guilty about my time, guilty for my Leila girl, guilty about spreading the love, guilty for being so impatient. Oh I can go one. Man it is tough being a mom sometimes. Your heart just hurts sometimes.

I love my little family so much and just wish that I could be so much better than I am. Okay I'm rambling. Tomorrow I'm going to take my camera with me. :)

Haircut

2011-09-21T15:41:00.001-07:00

Tahri found this really cute kids hair place the other day when he was doing something, I can't remember. Tale's hair was getting out of control, so is Leila's so we took them there. It was so cute, they had little cars to sit in for the kids. Tale was so excited to see the car's car, he ran to it. Then she put the cape on and he freaked out. So we tried him on daddy's lap in front of the game center they had. He still wasn't on board with getting his hair cut even when he tried playing the game.
Then daddy said okay well we will go get a spiderman video after this if your a good boy and don't cry. And that did it, he didn't cry anymore, he sat still and listened to the lady.
And here he is with his sucker after his cut. Ahhh so handsome! (We took him to the store to get the spiderman movie because as soon as the cape came off, he said okay spiderman movie dad. So we took him to the movie section of Walmart and told him to go look for it. He couldn't find it so we told him they must be all out. He was bummed but said okay. We got away with that one. :)
Poor Leila, it cost a lot more then I thought so she didn't get to cut her hair, but she was happy just playing in the jeep the whole time.

Obsessions

2011-09-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

My Tale-boi is still Obsessed with Spiderman! Right now he loves spiderman tattoos. His dad put one on his chest and the other on his arm. He didn't want to wear a shirt for like a week. Instead he would hold his shirt down everywhere he went so that people could see his tattoo on his chest. (This wasn't the best picture but I love how Leila is in the background smiling like she got in the photo)
So with one hand he would pull his shirt down so you could see the one on his chest and with the other hand he would hold his sleeve up so you could see the one on his arm. It was soo funny, he like did that for a week. Everywhere we went, to the store, to the park, playing with friends. I thought he was sooo cute.
Leila loves shoes right now. She has to be wearing a pair all the time! Here she is in mommy's running shoes. I'm glad someone is getting some use out of them. hahahaha...........

It's a GIRL

2011-09-17T12:21:00.001-07:00

We welcomed our baby girl on September 11 at 9:00am. She came out perfect. Delivery was good and we are all adjusting to life with our new angel. We named her Tylana Roxanne Davyne. It took us forever to come up with a name because Tahri was convinced it was going to be a boy and I pretty much stopped looking for baby girl names. So while in the hospital me, Tahri, my brothers and my sister in law Julie all decided that we weren't going to sleep until we came up with a name. And in the end we all decided on Tylana. Her middle names are her two grandmas. She was my biggest baby yet, she weighed 7 lbs 14 ounces, and was 21 inches long.A few of our visitors, uncle Josh, aunty Julie and uncle Jared. These guys were life savers!!! My mom wasn't able to come out for the birth this time, so my brothers really stepped in and helped. Uncle Jared stayed with the kids at night so Tahri could be at the hospital with me, and took them over to uncle josh's house to play with their cousins and all the toys aunty Julie bought to keep them entertained. Thanks you guys!!!!!

Baby sister came to visit, how cute is my Leila girl? She treats her little sister like a little doll, but she just doesn't know her own strength, she can be a little rough.

Big brother on the other hand is so gentle and so loving. He just loves his baby sister so much. Always wants to hold her and feed her. He will even lift his shirt up when she cries to try to feed her. It is the cutest thing!!! When she keeps crying, he says mommy lift up shirt and feed baby. ha! The things they pick up on.

First night home from the hospital. Can I just say that this little girl is just an angel. She was such a good sleeper at the hospital I was worried that was all going to change when we got home, but so far she has been the best sleeper out of all my kids!

My 3 little keikis..........Oh how I love them so much............

A close up of Tylana. My friend just gave me a bag full of new born stuff, so finally she can dress out of yellow. :) Poor girl had like nothing to wear, now she has something new to wear everyday. Thanks Lauren for all the clothes!!!

32 weeks

2011-07-25T16:30:00.001-07:00

My mom bought the kids these really cute outfits awhile ago and while I was in Hawaii I found one that fit me, so I bought it and thought it would be cute to take some family photos with them. But they didn't like that idea too much, we couldn't get one with all 3 of us, so it turned into maternity pictures for me. :)

Here I am at 32 weeks, oh my how time has flown by. I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore but not quite sure if i'm ready to be a mother of 3!!! Yikes that scares me a bit. But I can't wait to meet my little one.

Hawaii Fun........

2011-07-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

We have been having so much fun in Hawaii! My parents have been soooo great! I didn't even take pictures of half the things we have been doing but I still have a lot of them.

We went to Sea Life Park

Ate saimen
Went to the Polynesian Culture Center. My cousin Eden dances in the night show and she was GREAT! We got to see her after the show.
The girls.......Sei, me and Kay
Leila and I in a traditional hale.
Visiting the island of Samoa............
We visited one of my good friends Lei, her son is one month older then Tale.

Went to the beach several times...........

The kids love being outside! Good thing the island breeze was sooo nice because I didn't mind being out there either.
Tale loved to do yard work.

We did so much while we were here. We will be going back to California soon, we will sure miss it here!! :(

San Diego

2011-07-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

Okay back to our trip. We finally made it to California!!! Yahoo! What a trip! At least now we can say that we drove across the country. :)

When we got to California we were able to spend some time with my parents and my brothers. My parents flew up from Hawaii and we had a blast!

We ate a lot, laughed a lot and just enjoyed all being together.
In all the years that I lived in San Diego I never went to the San Diego fair which I guess is one of the biggest there is. We took the kids there and they had a blast. There was a petting zoo there and Leila was fearless she walked right up to all the animals and wanted to touch them. She even tried feeding them.
Tale on the other hand just wanted to admire them from afar, but he had so much fun on the rides. Of course he didn't want to go on any of them by himself and just about all of them pregnant women couldn't ride so Tahri took him. He wanted to go on this one sooo bad, I was surprised. He really liked it.
Poor Leila had to watch from the sidelines.

I was able to go on this one because it was so low key, Tale still loves his trains. More pool time!
Tale loved getting thrown in the air by his uncle. I was so surprised.

More Birthday

2011-07-10T01:40:00.000-07:00

So this post is out of order too, but I wanted to put it up before it got too outdated. So we did another celebration for Leila's birthday on the 4th. we went to the beach with some of our cousins and it was soo nice. One of my cousins got to the beach early to save us a spot and put up tents and all kinds of other stuff to make it really comfortable for us, and then my other cousin brought steaks and mussels and made the best bbq I've had in a long time.

The beach we went to was perfect! The water was warm, it was shallow enough for the kids to play in and really calm.

My mom created a hello kitty theme for her birthday. It was so cute.
Leila loved everyone singing to her.The kids loved the cupcake and the rest of us love the chantilly haupia cake.
Final celebration! She loved her cupcake.

Next Stop

2011-07-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Las Vegas! While we were in Idaho we ran into some car trouble, just what we needed!!! So we were there a little longer then planned but we didn't mind. :) Our next stop was to Las Vegas before we finally ended our destination in California. The drive was long but not to bad. We stayed at a wonderful resort a timeshare Tahri's mom owns. We decided to spend the morning hanging at the pool and letting the kids get tired before our drive.

Tale liked the pool but it was a little too cold for him.
He loved laying on the cement because it was really warm. It was about 100 degrees there and Tahri took him to the hot tub and he didn't want to get out of it. This boy loves his hot water!
Leila liked the water for a little bit, but then she started getting tired, but we tried to keep her up as long as possible so that she would sleep in the car.

She had a lot of fun sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in and walking around the pool talking to everyone.
They knocked out as soon as we put them in their chairs. It was nice for about an hour and a half.

Idaho

2011-07-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

This post is a little out of order but oh well. We stopped in Idaho for about a week. We had so much fun visiting our family there. Tale loved having his cousins around to play with and we loved watching him interact with them. We also loved that the two older girls loved to watch our kids because we left them with them A LOT :)

Leila was fearless she hopped right on the horse with Quinn.

Tale got to help his dad mow the lawn, he had fun riding around in the mower.
We all went to the zoo one day, they semi enjoyed it. Either that or us parents were like ready to go ha!
Tale was afraid of the horses once they got close to him, so it took him awhile to get up on it, and he didn't last very long.
Tale also got to go riding on the motorcycle with his daddy, he loved that!

Me and my sisters watching the kids play at the zoo. Oh I miss them so much!Cute Leila girl.
All the Wally Molifua grandkids
It was so fun hanging out with everyone, we miss them so much already. It was so nice to go out to dinner alone, go to the movies, play tennis and always have babysitters. :) It was hard for us to leave.

A whole year!

2011-07-01T02:13:00.000-07:00

Today my baby girl turned 1. I can hardly believe it! What a joy she is in our live and I feel sooo blessed to be her mom and witness her journey through life. I love seeing her grow and learn but at the same time I just want her to forever be my little girl.

We have celebrated quite a bit with her. Since Tahri wasn't going to be with us on her actual birthday we celebrated in California before we left with a pool party. Her first cake, she didn't really dive right into it like I thought she would.
The week of her birthday we started off by going to Seal Life park in Hawaii. She loved seeing all the fishes and wanted so bad to jump in the water with them.
They had this little play area that her and her brother loved running around in.
She LOVES birds right now, she wants to go outside to look for them first thing every morning. The next activity for her birthday week was going to the zoo. A flock of birds came right up to her and she just wanted to grab all of them.
We saw lots of birds and lots of other animals, but her favorite was the birds and this playground. She loved running around with all the other kids and following her brother around.
She loves sunglasses right now too, so her gigi bought her an outfit with matching glasses. This is her on her actual birthday. We started off by going to get her picture taken, then we went to a dinosaur exhibit at the mall where they had a train ride to see the exhibit, and then to Farrell's, this really cool ice-cream place where she got a sundae. Her second birthday treat. It was really cute when they sang to her she just smiled and clapped and tried to grab her ice-cream. And it was so cute to hear her brother sing too, he kept saying Happy You Leila Happy You. It was soo cute! I totally forgot my camera. ERRRRRRRRRRRR! But I took some with my mom's phone, but don't know how to transfer it. errr!
Then that night some of her cousins came over for another round of cake and ice-cream. She got a teddy bear and some really cute clothes, here she is walking around with her teddy bear. She couldn't stop kissing it and hugging it.
She dove right into this cake! Maybe she likes chocolate best. :)
And finally she couldn't handle anymore celebrating, she knocked out with her teddy after gigi cleaned her up of course. :)

Leila, you are such a beautiful, healthy, happy little girl and I can't believe you are mine! I wish I could explain what i'm feeling right now but I just don't have the words. My heart is just full of love and joy and I want to go and wake you up to give you kisses and see your beautiful smile. I really can't believe that it was a year ago that we welcomed you into our lives. It feels like you have been with us forever and have always been apart of our family. I hope you enjoyed your first year, and enjoy many more to come. I can't imagine my world without you. You are sooo precious to us, we love you so much. Happy 1st birthday my sweet girl!!!!

The Drive

2011-06-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

After all the celebrating it was time to get down to business. We had to pack up and get ready for our road trip across the country. It was great to have Tahri's mom and brothers around to help with the move and with the kids. I was really dreading the drive, I HATE long car trips and I sooo wasn't looking forward to it with a 2 year old, a 10 month old and a dog. It took us about 3 nights to get to Idaho which was our first stop. The kids did pretty good, I was surprised that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Lots of juice and treats and hand holding really helped. :) We didn't figure out until day 3 that Tale would be really content watching a movie on the laptop. DA! So next time we for sure will be getting him his own DVD player.

Tahri did ALL the driving and we had a lot of stops to let the kids and dog out to run around.

First big stop right before leaving New York, can't remember the town, but we found a little park area and the kids were sooo excited to get out and run around.

We made it to Cleveland and spend the night in a motel right off the freeway. Tahri had an interview in Toledo which is where our really good friends were moving to, so we drove over to their house to hang out while Tahri did his interview. We were so excited to see them again but also really bummed to have to say goodbye again.
We hung out for quite awhile that day, but took off in the afternoon, we didn't drive very far that day because we were both pretty tired and the kids did not want to be in their chairs.

So we drove for about 5 or 6 hours and found a hotel to crash at. The next day was our biggest day we traveled for about 12 hours that day. One of our longer stops for the kids. They loved being out and stretching their legs.
We lost Chanel's leash somewhere so we had to use a plug as one. ha! Here is Leila showing the new leash and eating strawberries. She loves them!!!!!
Our forth day of travel was pretty long too, it was close to 10 or 11 hours. Here was our last stop before getting into Idaho Falls, this little town was really cute, I can't remember what it was though. ha! Thats me though no sense of direction.

So here Tahri is helping some kid with his fishing pole, I went to the other side of the pond to take pictures of the kids and thought for sure Tahri had his eye on the kids too, especially with Leila looking like she is heading straight for the water, but I thought wrong.
She went in...........I didn't get a picture of her going in because I was like ah Tahri she is getting closer are you going to get her? Okay I better run over there. But here she is after her spill, smiling and running around.
I changed her clothes but she was NOT ready to go back into her chair so more playing..........

More Graduation

2011-06-24T16:24:00.001-07:00

Most of the Cornell Real Estate Kids.

Buddies

Girls

Tale waiting to congratulate his daddy

Graduation

2011-06-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

Graduation day was HOT and humid, oh my it was brutal, especially being nearly 6 months pregnant. But the real estate school put on a small reception after the big one and it was nice to be in an open area where the kids could be free and have some food. Tahri and the program Director.
The graduating class of 2011

You did it babe!!!
My graduate! I'm so proud of you babe, you worked so hard and did a great job! I can't wait to see what the next chapter of our lives will be.

More celebrating

2011-06-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

Tahri's mom and two younger brothers came in to town for graduation. We went to Taughnnock (spelling) Falls.The boys went and hiked Buttermilk Falls.

We went to a Real Estate bbq and the kids loved running all over the place.At the same park Norah had her 2nd birthday party and we got to ride on the carousal. They had a lot of fun on it.
We made it to the waterfall!!! Leila missed it. She was knocked out.
Leila fell asleep during the hike to the waterfall. I wasn't sure she was going to like it in there but she was pretty comfortable. I think she looks like me in this picture.

Week before Graduation

2011-06-21T16:34:00.001-07:00

I'm so behind on my blog! Lots of updates on the way. To start off, Tahri completed all of his finals and projects a week before graduation and we celebrated as soon as he was done. Tahri took the kids for a walk on campus. My Tale boi loved it. Then we had a little bbq with some friends. Tale LOVES this baby girl. How cute are these little Cornell kids??
Family photo. Tahri didn't get the memo to wear red. The women behind the graduates. :)The graduates. We are so proud of you guys.............I seriously can't believe it has been 2 years already. Time flew by.

Getting sad.........

2011-05-19T16:24:00.000-07:00

So our time here in Ithaca is quickly coming to an end and I'm getting sad. This could be one of our last science center visits with our friends, we are already missing a couple of people. :(

10 months

2011-05-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

My beautiful Leila turned 10 months about a week ago, I didn't even realize it. I couldn't believe another month passed by. She is such a big girl now. She is so aware of so many things! She likes to fight over toys with her brother, drink his juice because it isn't as watered down as hers, throws a fit when we tell her no, loves to climb up EVERYTHING, play in the cupboards, put the dog food in the water bowl, take lids off and put them back on, pull her bows out of her hair, she loves slides, throwing things and giving sasa's (spankings). She picks up on things so quickly!!! One of her favorite things to do is take all the shoes out of the basket, sometimes she will put them back in, but its just not as fun. You can see all the shoes emptied out in this picture.

AND she is totally walking now. She started just before she turned 10 months and she is getting so good at it now. Her problem is that she just wants to go so fast so she falls a lot. But it was like one day she was taking a couple of steps and then like a day later she was walking across the room. She loves to walk and pick things up and bring them to me. I just can't believe how grown she is now.
And I had to post a picture of my Tale boi. He is the most loving boy and also the roughest boy I know. He still loves his batman and spiderman, he loves bus rides, walks, looking for worms, hanging with his dad and cuddling with his mom. He loves his sister most of the time. :)I just love these two kids of mine so much, but they sure keep me busy!!!!

EAster II cont.........

2011-04-24T16:43:00.000-07:00

He also did an Easter egg hunt with his buddy Tucker. How cute are they!!! He is going to miss his buddy so much at the end of the semester. :(

Easter II

2011-04-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

We got EGGED! It was so fun, some bunnies left plastic filled eggs around our front lawn and Tale was sooo excited to find all the eggs. He made me hide them a few times, this is what started off the egg hunting for him. We did see the little bunnies hopping away, and I'm glad we did. I always feel bad when I can't say thank you to someone that does something so nice for us. I wish I got some pictures of it, but it really put Tale in the Easter spirit.

The day before Easter Sunday the Easter bunny visited us and dropped off a few things. Gigi and Grandma Molifua also send somethings and Tale was so excited to see them when he woke up from his nap.

Tale is really into spider-man and batman right now. I tried to just get him PJ's to wear at night but now he wants to wear it out and all day long, so here he is showing off his spider-man shirt.

But the easter bunny got him a batman shirt and of course he had to wear it. So we will have to get him some more super hero shirts for him to wear out.

Then the kids went searching for eggs, Leila found one and was perfectly happy with the one she found, it was filled with skittles. Tale found all the eggs and went to town on them!!! He totally got egg hunting, it was so fun to watch him look for them and get so excited when he found them. He still carries his eggs around with him everywhere!

The kids looked so cute today for church, they had matching polynesian outfits but I didn't get a picture of it, errrrrrrrr........ Happy Easter everyone!!!

Easter 1

2011-04-14T14:27:00.001-07:00

We had never decorated eggs before so it was a treat to get together with some friends that knew what they were doing. Tale loved putting eggs into the cups filled with different colors. I didn't get a picture of the finished product but it was so fun to decorate them and see how they turned out after we took them out of the cups. Thanks guys for showing us how to do this, we will be doing this next easter. :)

We also dipped rice krispie eggs in chocolate and decorated them with sprinkles and m&ms. Leila loved these eggs. :)

shoes phase begins............

2011-04-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Tale loves to play with all the different shoes in our house. He also really likes to line things up, shoes, toys, baby food, just about everything. It is so cute.
He loves to walk around with mommy and daddy's shoes.

9 months

2011-04-10T08:37:00.000-07:00

She is almost 1 oh my! Leila definitely trimmed down a lot in the last couple of months. She is so active, she is already taking a couple of steps so she will be walking in no time. She has a ton of bruises on her face too, mostly from falling either on her own or from her brother who is ALWAYS pushing her down. Poor girl! She is going to be tough! She went from being in the 90th percentile in weight to 25th. The doctor was a little worried about it, but not me, I told him she eats ALL the time!!!! She just tries so hard to keep up with her brother so she is always on the move. She weighs in at 17.6 lbs and is 28 inches long. She is in the 75th for her height. She loves to clap, dance, laugh and walk around with her little walker toy. She loves to feed me her cereal, she doesn't like the juice I make for her because it is mostly water, she is always trying to take her brothers juice. She is doing so good sleeping through a good part of the night, about 9 hours, she can climb up and down the couch and down the bed, she is even starting to help clean up. You are so precious Leila, we love you so much!

Baby Shower

2011-04-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

Our good friend Lindsey is expecting a baby girl this summer. Since we won't be around when she has her little girl, we thought we would throw her a baby shower. We surprised her with it though. She was surprised!

Here is a picture of her coming over to do an easter egg hunt, but instead we all yelled surprise!
Opening some gifts.

Tale boi trying to blow up another balloon.
The kids always like to climb the stairs when they come over. Even though I put up a gate they still got through it. Thanks Hillary for watching them while they played!!! Good luck with everything Lindsey, you will have to post pictures of your precious little one when she gets here!!

Cup

2011-04-07T11:22:00.001-07:00

She is such a better baby when she has her cup of treats. This design is brilliant! It is a cup with a lid that kids can stick there hand in and pull out the treat. Leila loves it!!! Picture overload because I thought they were so cute.

Here she is searching for the right piece.

Big mouth.
Funny face.
Happy girl!!!!

New Clothes

2011-04-07T11:18:00.001-07:00

So I don't think I officially announced it on here but we are expecting baby #3 in September!!!! Man was it a surprise to us. :) We we are so excited and also sooo scared at the same time, at least I am, 3 kids under 3 oh my!!! :) Well my good friend Julie gave me a whole bunch of her maternity clothes. I am like so excited to wear them, I didn't get much maternity clothes with my other babies because I never really wanted to spend the money on it, and was always irritated that I never had anything to wear but still not enough to buy clothes. But this time around i'll have lots to choose from. Thanks Julie!!!

Indoor Play

2011-03-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Today we decided to try out a different play area. I saw an advertisement for an indoor play area at the Ithaca Youth Bureau and thought we would check it out. We were on of the first to get there and Tale didn't know where to start. There were toys all over the place! And there were slides, bikes, cars, balls, wagons, and lots of stuff to entertain kids Tale's age with. Both my kids really liked the kitchen.

We played a little with the see-saw too. Tale liked being up in the air but kept trying to push it down. He didn't quite get that being high meant being lighter.

Leila was pretty chill, she was getting a little tired after playing with the balls and the kitchen set, so she enjoyed just cruising along in the wagon.

It was a pretty fun place, especially when there is snow all over the ground and cold outside. Oh how we can't wait for spring.

Warm weather

2011-03-20T18:18:00.000-07:00

The first day of Tahri's spring break and St. Patrick's day was beautiful! It felt so good to finally get outside and not be completely bundled up. We decided to go to the park but the playground was pretty flooded so we ended up feeding the ducks for a little bit.

I think Leila looks like her daddy in this picture.
So because that playground was flooded we went in search of another one. We found one and the kids had a blast! Leila loved the swing! How cute is that little girl. Then we all wanted to get on the swing.
It was tough to get Tale to leave. He was having a blast, but basketball was coming on soon (March madness and of course Tahri is all into it), so we had to bribe him with a treat. He is really into that right now and ask for one all the time.

Little helper

2011-03-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

Tale use to be so afraid of the vacuum but now he loves to vacuum! I love it! I'm so excited that he is getting into the helping stage!!! He also loves to throw things away in the trash, load the dishwasher, put the shoes in the shoe box, and when something spills he runs to the kitchen for a rag and wipes it up, he gets the dust pan out and holds it while I sweep up and loves to empty it, and he even picks up the dirty clothes and puts it in the hamper. He is such a good helper! Of course it is only on his terms when he wants to. :) But I love the days when it is. :)And Leila is starting to carry her sippy cup like her brother. It is so cute. She is even starting to tilt it back by herself.

Spaghetti

2011-03-09T07:52:00.000-08:00

Leila's first time eating spaghetti, she couldn't get enough!! She loves to eat food she can feed herself. It was so nice being able to eat my own food without having to share or hold her. :)

8 months

2011-03-06T14:15:00.000-08:00

My beautiful Leila turned 8 months a couple of days ago. She is just growing up before my eyes! As I posted earlier she is climbing the stairs, and that is one of her favorite things to do! Tale loves playing on the stairs too, so we spend quite a lot of time there. She is also learning how to climb off the bed and couch feet first so hopefully we can start on coming down the stairs soon too. I feel like she is going to start walking soon because she is starting to crawl on her feet and hands and she can move from one object to the other without any assistance.

She still wakes up once a night, I would let her cry through it but I feel bad for my neighbors, good thing she goes back to sleep pretty quickly. She LOVES to eat, I swear she is never full, and she is eating a lot of big people food. Waffles, french fries, potatoes, rice, eggs and many of Tales snacks! She actually eats more than he does! She doesn't have a ton of interest in baby food, unless there is no other food around. And she gets really mad if we don't share our food with her. She is going to be my good eater! She smiles all the time, she likes to sing when others do, and she loves her mama! :)

She has 2 teeth on the bottom you can kind of see it in this picture.

I had to post this about Tale. I took Chanel out for a potty break real quick this afternoon and Tale really wanted to come. I told him it was cold outside and I would be really quick. Of course he cried, so I told him you can't come outside you don't have on your shoes, or your jacket or pants and it is really cold out there. I'll be really quick you can watch me from the window. Of course he cried but I just went anyways. I came back in and he had his boots on (correct feet) and his jacket! I was sooo amazed, he has never put them on all by himself before. He forgot his pants but still quite an accomplishment! I thought he was sooo cute, I had to take him outside.

Steps and Drawers

2011-03-01T05:50:00.000-08:00

Every morning Tahri gets up with Leila so that I can have a few more minutes of sleep. And almost every morning she crawls to the foot of the steps and starts making noises to call me. It is sooo cute. But she never really climbed up the stairs. Well a couple of days ago I went upstairs for a few minutes to do something and left the kids downstairs playing. Well Tale came upstairs and I could hear Leila like she was right there. I went to the stairs and saw her half way up them! I just about died! I couldn't believe she was climbing the stairs for one but unsupervised! Oh if she fell, I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself! But she had the biggest smile on her face and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take pictures and sit there while she went up the stairs. She did it several times and had a blast! Especially trying to keep up with her brother.
Everytime I tried to get a picture of her she would turn to smile. :) And after every step she would turn around to see if I was watching her and just give me the biggest smile. And so it begins, my time on the stairs again. I remember when Tale started climbing the stairs thats all we would do for hours it seemed, sit and climb the stairs!
Later that night while we were hanging out in the room I found her doing this! Opening the drawers and pulling everything out! And so this phase begins now, emptying out the drawers!
I'm not doing anything mom! :) Don't judge the drawers, this was round 2 of pulling everything out. ha!

V/B-Day

2011-02-15T10:45:00.000-08:00

I'm lucky enough to celebrate my birthday on the same day everyone else celebrates being in love. :) My husband did awesome! He started off with getting me my breakfast favorites, donuts, pancakes, eggs, sausage and hashbrowns. Of course I had to share with my babies, Leila is becoming quite the eater. I'm not sure if her little tummy is ready for all these foods but she demands it. So she had some pancakes, donuts and eggs! Tale my picky eater, just ate a donut and the hasbrowns.

Then for brunch we met up with some friends and exchanged some valentines. Tale had soo much fun and ate way too much candy this day. I found him several times under the tale sneaking chocolate, hiding in the corner with gummy hearts, and taking everyones treats. Oh this boy, I wonder where he gets his sweet tooth from??? :) My friend Julie has a friend that makes these really pretty bows, she got one for me for my birthday for Leila. I LOVE it!!! Leila looked sooo cute in it.

She has so much hair I'm not sure how to put them in her hair. But I love this picture because they have like the same expression. :)Tahri had class until about 7:30 this night so we ordered some Thai food and ate in. Tale couldn't wait to see his dad so he stayed up with us practically the whole night. But because he had so much candy he didn't eat any of the food, but when the birthday cake came out who know who was right there ready for a piece. I tried to wait to have my cake until he went to bed but he just wouldn't go. So I figured okay this day was a bad day eating wise for him, might as well finish it off with just a little more. Tomorrow no more sugar for him. Bad mom!

I hardly lifted a finger all day, and that really was the best gift of all! Tahri got up early with the kids and made sure I got to relax when he was home. Thanks babe for such a wonderful birthday/valentines day!

Bouncy Bouncy

2011-02-11T05:02:00.001-08:00

There is a cool bouncy play place I guess you call it at our mall. I've always wanted to take Tale there and finally we went in. He had a blast!

He loved going to all the different slides and playing with his buddy Tucker. Mommy even joined in, but he wanted to go by himself. Eh! :)Then I took Leila in and she loved bouncy around with me. :)

We had so much fun, and when we got home, Tale put himself down for a nap. I am definitely taking him back there. :)

7 months

2011-02-11T04:53:00.000-08:00

Leila is 7 months already! She is just a joy and it is so fun watching her interact with her brother and pick up on so many things. She crawls all over the place now, wants to eat EVERYTHING! Not so much her baby food but whatever we are eating. She throws some serious attitude when we don't give her whats on our plate. She got her first tooth, loves to talk, and doesn't really like strangers.
She loves to play with all of her brothers toys, and he is having a bit of a hard time sharing with her, but she is pretty tough, she is starting to hold on to things more and starting to pull back now. She LOVES her treats, especially her mum mum's and the gerber treats. I swear she is never full!!!! She is going to be my good eater.

Tale turns 2!!!!

2011-01-29T17:38:00.000-08:00

My little man turned 2 this month! Oh my how time is going and I'm just loving every minute I get to witness him experience life. Tale LOVES trains especially Thomas the train, so for his birthday we gave him a Thomas the train party. It wasn't anything big, just a few of his friends. My mom sent a ton of stuff for the party which made it awesome. I'm really annoyed with myself because I wish I would have taken a ton more pictures, but with trying to organize things and Leila it was hard to take pictures. So these aren't the best. Anyways.......

Tale did a great job as a little host. He handed out little goodie bags to his friends. Shared his balloons with them, and even handed out some fruit snacks which usually he would keep all to himself because they are his favorite. Here are his friends that came.

Ellie is so cute, everytime she sees a camera she stops and smiles or gives a pose. :)
Graham lounging in the chair, he was so cute, his smile was so big. We played a couple of games to see who got to pull the pinata strings first. One of the games was a puzzle, Tucker tried to tackle it all by himself. He is such a smart little boy.

Ellie was the winner of the games, she completed all of them the fastest and got to go first in the pinata line. In the end, they all got pulled the strings together and finally got all the candy out. It was cute, Tale went right to work gathering all his candy and putting it in his bag. The other kids were searching for the favorites and wanting to eat it at that moment. So Tale had a full bag. ha!

Then we sang happy birthday, but didn't get a picture of it. ER! Tale had a huge smile on his face when everyone was singing and couldn't wait to blow the candle out. Then we opened presents. Tale got some really cool stuff.

Tale loved his cake!!! I caught him getting thirds and fourths! :)

We had his party a little after his birthday but had a small celebration for him on his actual birthday. Here he is on his actual birthday opening some presents from his dad.

And for breakfast he had his favorite, chocolate chip pancakes made by his daddy.Tale-boi is definitely coming into his own person. He loves to copy a lot of things that we do and we love watching him learn and explore. He loves to help out around the house, everytime anyone gets a ouchie he rushes over to kiss it better. He is so sweet to his sister, always trying to make her laugh or make her happy. He loves to draw, loves to boss Chanel around, loves to watch his movies and play with his trains, and always wants all of us together. Tale-boi we love you so much, Happy Birthday my handsome boy. I hope 2's aren't as terrible as I've heard they can be! :)

Fun in the Snow

2011-01-15T10:22:00.000-08:00

It snowed for almost 3 days straight here and we were so excited to go out and play in the snow. It was such a nice day, the sun was out the wind was not blowing so it was not too cold.

We just went right outside our apartment to a little hill by the playground and did some sledding. Tale loved it!!! This time he kept his gloves and beanie on.
He had a ton of fun walking through the snow and throwing snowballs at his dad and Chanel.

My two boys, so handsome!

Leila was having fun too, we put her in the swing and she was loving it. I just love when she sticks her tongue out, I think it is sooo cute. She stayed in there for a bit, then I took her out and swung with her on the bigger swing and she went right to sleep.

Leila has also been a little needy, everytime she sees me she wants me to pick her up. There was a lot I needed to do this day so I put a couple tangerine slices in the net and she was happy for quite awhile. :) I thought she was so cute chewing on it.

6 months

2011-01-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

Leila turned 6 months about a week ago. ha! But I was waiting for her Dr.'s appointment so I could post her measurements so that is my excuse. :) So baby girl weighs in at 16 lbs 15 oz, 26.5 inches and her head 17 cm. She checked out good on everything!!! She got 3 shots, poor girl. She was sooo good as long as I was holding her. But everytime I set her down she would scream her high pitch scream. The nurses were so surprised at her scream and then she would just stop and smile as soon as I picked her up. Leila is starting to crawl, she isn't very good, she gets up on all fours then takes a couple of step? is that what you would call it, then falls down and does her army crawl cause it is faster and easier for her. But she will be crawling in no time.

She can sit by herself and is starting to sit up by herself too. Oh she is getting big so fast. I love listening to her talk, she loves to talk and laugh. She is definitely showing her personality a lot these days. She still thinks her brother is hilarious, but she is starting to stand her ground a little more with him now. Like when he tries to take a toy from her she will try to hold on and pull it towards her, then when he takes it away from her she "yells" at him. Or if he tries to climb on me when she is sitting on me or eating she tries to push him away. They are going to be good friends though I can tell. Tale is still the best big brother, just yesterday I was in the kitchen making lunch and Leila was in the living room on the floor, well she started crying and Tale ran over to her. He was patting her back and kissing the back of her head. Then he went to the toy chest and starting getting his favorite toys to give to her. When that didn't work he offered her his P and J sandwich. She was still crying so he patted her back again and said so sweetly, shhhhh. Then he ran over got his blanket to give to her and then got his juice, she finally started to calm down when he gave her his juice. And when she stopped he was so happy, he started clapping. It just melted my heart!

And here is a picture of my little man. He is such a big boy. He loves playing in the snow, playing with his trains, and he loves to draw and paint. Oh how I love my babies!!!!

New Years

2011-01-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

For the New Year we headed to New York city to visit our friends Jace and Christy. We had a blast. Jace had this cool remote control jeep that Tale loved playing with.
They took Tale to see choochoo's!!! Because we all know how much he loves his trains!!! We really had to hold him back, but he was so cute waving at all of them as they passed, and was really excited about getting on one.
He also LOVED running the streets of the city. He didn't want us to carry him or ride in his stroller he insisted on running everywhere!! Oh mommy was sooo scared!!
Jace took Tahri to the really good sandwich place and the sandwiches were soooo good! Leila loved the pickle. She was content forever just sucking on it.
We ate like all weekend! We went to this really good breakfast place. It was sooo good. Oh and Tale loved Jace!!! He wanted Jace to do everything with him, feed him, play with him, carry him, it was so cute. Hopefully Jace didn't get too annoyed. :)
Jace made waffles this morning and we made Tale a plate but he wanted Jace's waffles and wanted him to feed him. We were so surprised because usually he only wants his mama or he wants to feed himself.

We went to the museum that Night of the Museum was filmed at. It was huge and really cool.
We had a blast!!! The weather was nice so he was so fun walking around the city. Oh for New Year's we went to one of their friend's house, but of course we left early because the kids were sooo tired and couldn't fall asleep there. But we heard the celebration around the city!!!! Happy New year everyone!!!!

Oh and I thought Tale was sooo cute in his hat! so i had to post this picture. :)

Sledding

2011-01-02T16:39:00.001-08:00

After a good snow day we decided to try sledding with Tale. He really loved the snow and of course had to take his trains with him. He was having a blast just running through it.He didn't want to put his gloves on or wear his beanie but soon learned it was better to wear it. ha! He and his dad went down first and there was a big pile of snow at the bottom and poor Tale went crashing right into all of it. As you can tell, he didn't like that very much, he cried and was saying all done.

But then Leila and I went down and he decided he would try it again. This time his daddy held him up when they were about to hit the bottom and that was a much better try.
Then he kept saying more, more! And even got brave enough to go down on his own. He was having a blast!!!!!
Leila only made it down once but was more then happy to just watch from the top. She loves being outside. How cute is she with her red cheeks.
Tale had some cute red cheeks too! We sure will be going again.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T12:22:00.000-08:00

This was our first year having Christmas by ourselves. It was kind of nice not having to worry about packing, finding a sitter for Chanel and TRAVELLING. But we sure did miss our families. Luckily we had some friends that decided to stay around for the holidays too. We had dinner with our friends Mike and Jen and then played some board games. Then for Christmas eve we had biscuits and gravy at our friends Jonathan and Hillary's. They have a son Tale's age and lets just say they weren't the best of friends but finally figured out a way to play in the same room by the end of the night. :) For Christmas we were planning on going over to our Bishop's house but they ended up getting really sick so we had to come up with a Christmas dinner menu. And Tahri came up with a good one. We got steaks, shrimp, and tuna. Tahri pretty much did the whole dinner, he seared the tuna, bbq'ed the steaks and cooked the shrimp in butter and garlic. Oh dinner was sooo yummy.

Leila also got to try some rice cereal which she LOVED!!! We couldn't feed her fast enough. :)

Christmas morning, I handed out all the presents and from youngest to oldest we open them. Here is Leila with her pile. We didn't get her much because we figured we would go big for Tale since she pretty much has no idea. But she got lots of presents from her Gigi and Papa and her family in Idaho. Thank you everyone for my wonderful presents!!!!Tale had the biggest pile, but he didn't quite get the concept. He would open a gift and then just want to play with that. He didn't care for the rest of them. But then I started opening a section of the gift and then once he got a glimpse of what was inside he would rush to it to open it. He is totally into Trains and Toy Story right now. He got a tent and a chair and he loved it! He put all his toys in there and eventually his chair and just stayed in there for a good part of the day playing with all his toys. Mostly trains.

But I think he favorite gift was from Santa who brought him a train table! When he walked down the stairs and saw it his face lit up so big and he rushed over to it. He took most of it apart so we might have to glue it down. But he loves his trains!!!It was such a wonderful Christmas! Thank you so much to everyone that sent us cards, gifts and Christmas wishes we love you all so much! And thank you to our friends that stayed around. And thank you Santa for being so good to us this year!!!!!

First Play

2010-12-17T17:44:00.001-08:00

We had our Branch Christmas party and the kids put on the smallest "play" ever. :) But they were so cute. Tale was a Shepard and of course he fought with me when trying to put on his costume. As soon as he got on the stage he was trying to get off. But he was sooo cute, I wish he would wear things on his head, his outfit would have looked so much better. Poor kid I just wrapped a couple of my scarfs around him and wallah a shepard! :) Of course as soon as the song was over he wanted it off. But I guess I'm grateful he at least made it to the stage. Santa was there too but he wanted nothing to do with him. so no picture with santa. :(

Cuteness!

2010-12-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

We had a playdate at Grahams house and they all loved playing in the kitchen. There were all these toys in the living room but they wanted to clean up the kitchen. Except my son, ha! He was monitoring the cleaning. Mommy must not clean enough. ha! Tale found one of Norah's dolls, he was carrying it around and being so sweet to it. Then he lifted up his shirt and put the doll diagonally across his stomach. I was like what is he doing? The other moms were asking the same thing. Then one said I think he is breastfeeding her. I wasn't quite sure if that is what he was doing until he took the baby and put it over his shoulders and started to tap her back. I just about died, it was the cutest thing I ever saw. I kept trying to get a picture of it but he would run away every time. This was the only picture I could catch of him with her. It is incredible the things they pick up on. Oh and he wouldn't let anyone on the train either he was guarding that toy. He is obsessed!

5 months

2010-12-16T18:22:00.000-08:00

This is pretty late, but I thought I should post it before she turned 6 months. :) I'm not sure about her stats but she sure is growing. She has to grab everything in her sight. She loves to pull my hair, laugh, be tickled, and loves attention. She "crawls" in a circle and backwards. She rolls over all the time from both her tummy and her back. It is getting so hard to change her diaper and dress her. She tries to roll away and has the strongest kicks! She also gets up on all 4s in the crawling position and usually falls on her face. :) She can also sit by herself. I love this picture because it is sooo what she does all the time. She puts everything in her mouth but she loves to suck on paper. I'm forever taking it away from her but that is the thing she always grabs for before anything else. I'm not sure what it is about paper but she sure loves it. Oh she is sooo cute!

More California Fun

2010-12-16T18:05:00.000-08:00

While we were there we got to meet up with one of my best friends Melody. Her son is about a year older than Tale, and the last time they visited us, Tale was a little too young for Jonas to play with him, but this time around they had a blast together. They all loved going on the rides even Leila.
It was fun watching my dad with Leila, just like my brothers she had him wrapped around around her little finger.
My mom bought Tale the Toy Story series and he watched it on her computer like the whole time they were there. Then he became obsessed with Buzz lightyear too. So she went and bought him a Toy Story backpack and shirt and he wouldn't take it off.

Oh how we miss gigi and papa.........They sure did spoil us while we were there.

Wedding

2010-12-16T17:33:00.000-08:00

One of the main reasons we went to California for Thanksgiving rather than Christmas was because one of Tahri's childhood friends was getting married and he was in his line. It was such a beautiful fun wedding, it was at a winery in California and the location was absolutely beautiful. It was really fun seeing old friends and meeting some of Tahri's friends that I hadn't met before.

This is a picture of Tahri with Adam and Andrew. Andrew was the groom and he is in the middle. They lived in the same neighborhood and have known each other since like the 3rd grade. That is one cool thing about living in one area for a long time, you make childhood friends that you know for most of your life.

I didn't know anyone there, but they had a table with the spouses/girlfriends of the groomsman, and these are a couple of my new buddies that I made that night. They were so much fun!
It was so nice to get out with Tahri, we hadn't been out together in a long time, mainly because my kids freak out when we leave them. But they did AWESOME with my brothers and my sister in law. They like never cried. They probably had way more fun with their uncles then with me. :)

They took them to the park, watched movies, played games. They were the best babysitters, and Tahri and I got to stay out a lot longer then we anticipated.

Oh and Tale is like obsessed with Thomas the Train. I saw these PJ's at the Walmart for like 5 bucks, and the boy did not want to take them off! He thought he was the coolest thing ever. It had rained most of the day, and the park equipment was really wet, but he insisted on wearing it to play, and after they gave him a bath he had to wear it after that too. They put it in the dryer and then had to iron it dry for him so that he would stay happy.
Leila was pretty good, she won't take a bottle so I was worried about her. But she played with the guitar and everyone took turns holding her until finally she fell asleep. I told them to just let her cry but they couldn't stand it. But when you look at those big blue eyes I could understand why............... :)You guys are the best babysitters, thanks so much for letting have a fun night.

Family Photos

2010-12-01T17:32:00.001-08:00

While we were there we took some family photos. Oh it was such a challenge to get Tale to cooperate, but there were a few good ones.

We took some in Charger gear.......My brother Josh bought the kids their outfits, how cute is Leila in her cheerleader outfit. :) Tale loved his jersey, he still asks to wear it now.

A few in black by the beach but they didn't come out very well.

My mom bought the kids matching outfits but Tale was just not into taking pictures. He just wanted to go play by the water. We didn't get too many good ones of these either. We need to learn how to work with the shadows.

Thanksgiving

2010-12-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

For Thanksgiving we went to California and we got to hang out with my family. Oh it was so nice being in San Diego and seeing my brothers and my parents. My parents brought Kalbi ribs, manapua, poke (raw fish), rib eye steaks, guava cake, passion fruit cake, and all kinds of Hawaiian candy. Oh our dinner was sooo ono! My brother Jared marinated the meat with the seasonings my parents brought. My brother Josh grilled it, and my sister in laws mom hooked it up with all the traditional Thanksgiving goods, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. We had a feast! Then we sat around the fire and laughed and laughed! It was an awesome day. I miss everyone so much, I'm so thankful for my wonderful family!

Playtime.........

2010-11-17T18:35:00.000-08:00

We were so excited to have some friends over to play. Not the best picture but they were all smiling in it. It was sooo cold today, so we stayed in and had cupcakes and played with the millions of balls Tale has. Then we turned the TV on because they started to get bored. How cute is this, Norah and Graham were coming up to Tale and giving him kisses and hugs, it was sooo cute, of course once I got the camera out they stopped but I managed to get one of these two cuddling.
And here are the mommies, and the two babies. Thanks guys that was way fun!

5 years........

2010-11-17T18:21:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it has been 5 years for Tahri and I. I was remembering back when we first got married, we made out a goals list. I can remember most of them, and some we have accomplished and some we are still working on but I don't think either of us ever imagined that we would be here in New York at Cornell. But it has been an amazing adventure so far, everything with Tahri is one, and I'm so glad that I get to go through them by his side.

He is so patient with me and even when he is furious with me he still treats me like the princess I think I am. :) I'm so grateful to be his wife, and I just love him for all that he does and most of all for the 2 beautiful babies he has given me.

I can't wait to see what the next 5 years brings us.

I can't believe we don't have an updated picture of all of us, will have to get that done.

Sewing........

2010-11-16T18:24:00.000-08:00

So I've had a sewing machine for over 4 years now and have never used, and well I still haven't. HA! I couldn't really figure out how to thread it so I used my friend Julie's. :) She showed me how to make these.I had so much fun, who knew I would enjoy it so much. I made these for my younger brother who is having twin girls in May. I'm so excited for him and his wife! Thanks so much Julie for helping me with this.

Oh and we figured out that I bought quilting thread instead of regular thread? ha! rookie! Hopefully I'll figure out how to use my machine soon. :)

Finger sucker

2010-11-11T06:39:00.000-08:00

Oh great another one!

Heart Burn

2010-11-05T08:41:00.001-07:00

Time seems to be going too fast for me lately. I feel like my kiddos are growing up too fast and doing things that sometimes I don't always acknowledge the way that I should. And I don't ever want to forget all these fun milestones that are happening everyday. Since this is my "journal" I have to record these things here. It is so hard to be a mommy sometimes because my heart just burns so much sometimes that it hurts! Not like a bad pain but like trying to hold on kind of pain. Like I don't ever want this moment to end, I want to freeze this moment forever.

For example, at night when Tale is getting ready for bed after we do our normal routine, I kneel down by his bedside to tuck him in and kiss him goodnight. Some nights he just doesn't want me to go, so he'll put one arm around my neck and pull me close and put his forehead on mine, and everytime I pull back to leave he holds my neck so tight, takes his fingers out of his mouth and gives me a kiss, and of course I stay. Or when we are at the park and he follows the big kids around because he wants to play with them. I watch him and he tries so hard to be a big boy and keep up. Trying to walk on the monkey bars, run from one thing to another. I just love watching him explore and wishing I had a camera because I never want to forget this moment. These little things just make my heart burn!!

So I thought I would jot somethings down that my kiddos are doing at this stage that just make my heart burn.

Tale (21 months)

He is trying so hard to communicate with us now. He is using more signs and starting to say more things too. He points at different things all the time wanting us to tell him what it is. Everytime we figure something out together I get sooo excited.

He loves his sister! He will lay down wherever we are when he wants to hold her. He lays down at the park, in the mall, in the bath tub sometimes, and motions his hands for her, it is the cutest thing. He loves to hold her.

When Leila cries he will run over to her and pat her back, or give her his blanket, give her a hug and kisses her head. He even tries to bring her different toys or he goes into the kitchen to get her a few of his favorite treats.

When he wants something he is the best kid!

When I scold him or yell he curls his lip down and puts his head down but quickly tries to give me a kiss to make it all better.

He likes me to kiss his ouchie and when i have one his kisses it too.

When he listens to me or starts picking up his toys to put them away when I don't even ask him to.

When he lays his head on my shoulder

Waves bye bye whenever he leaves and always has the biggest smile when he gets to go somewhere with his daddy.

Falling asleep on his own at night with the lights on.

Leila (4 months)

She sucks on my cheeks or my lips, oh I love that

She pushes back on her elbows and leans her head forward to try to sit up when she wants me to pick her up.

She oohs and ahhs in her crib when she wakes up in the morning

When I put her down or give her to her dad she doesn't take her eyes off of me.

When i'm breastfeeding her I love when she looks at me and smiles and then goes back to work

She thinks her brother is the funniest person, she will laugh at just about everything he does and he will do it over and over for her.

She tries to grab for everything now and you can tell she is trying to process everything! What we are eating, things on TV, the dog, I love seeing her try to figure things out.

When she is on her tummy she tries so hard to roll over, and when she does she has this look of accomplishment.

The big tears from her eyes when she cries.

There are so many things that I hope I will always remember. I can't wait to witness more things that make my heart burn. Mommy loves you Tale and Leila...........so much!!!!

Halloween part II

2010-11-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

On Halloween we decided to go out trick or treating. Tucker stopped by to say hi and grab some candy and of course we had to get a picture of them. How cute are they? Tale was the only one that thought Sam was funny. haha......
We went to a close neighborhood that I wouldn't have to worry about cars because I wanted Tale to feel free to run crazy if he wanted to, to get all that energy out. He loved, going door to door, I think this is his favorite holiday. :)
Leila slept through the whole thing. ha!
This house was really cool, Tale wanted to stay at this one forever. You can't see it very well in this picture but there was a machine that blew out bubbles that had like this mist in it. Tale just wanted to chase the bubbles and pop them. These holidays are sooo much fun with kids!

4 months

2010-10-31T13:48:00.000-07:00

This little girl loves to smile, she loves people talking to her and is just a joy!!! She is still not sleeping through the night yet, but usually only gets up like once or twice. AND she is still in mommy's room. ha!

Halloween

2010-10-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

We started off Halloween with going to the science center for their spooky center, it was so crowded but we ran into a few of our friends. Bad mommy forgot the camera! so no pixs. Then we had the branch party. Leila got dressed up as a cow.
Tale got dressed up as a little emperor. My dad went to Hong Kong and brought him back this cute outfit, I wish he would leave the hat on because it was so cute with it on, but as you can see it was a struggle to keep it on him.
He hates long sleeves so he didn't like wearing the top too much either. Here he is with a few of his friends. Graham won the scariest costume.
But he put his shirt back on once I told him he could get candy. ha! He loved knocking on the doors and getting candy. He held on to his pale the whole night! He wouldn't share his candy with ANYONE! Little stinker!
There were 3 witches at the party, here are two of them.
They had donuts at the party and I was like waiting for them to put it out. Then they said it was for a game, so of course I had to play. ha! So Lindsey joined in with me. I ended up winning but by default. I was the last to have the donut not fall off the string. So not really a win, but I did end up getting the donut and they gave me a big candy bar for it too. so I'll take it. :). Tahri said his costume was man married to a witch. ha! It was a fun night.

Buttermilk Falls Park

2010-10-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Every Wednesday we get to hang out with Norah and her mom. I love my playdates because Tale is entertained and I get someone to hang out with too. And of course Leila is always a trooper either in her stroller or my arms. This Wednesday it was beautiful! Playdates are usually at my house but today since it was so nice we decided to go out and play. We ended up going to buttermilk falls park and it was a good one. Both kids had a lot of fun there. They have a big kid and little kid area, here Tale is at the big kid area. I was nervous because there weren't any guards around this rock which lead to the top of the slide. Tale loved climbing it and going down the slide but I just wanted him to go to the other park. It was making me so nervous because he kept slipping and with me being able to only be on one side of the rock I was scared he would fall of the other. But he wanted no help and wanted to get up there fast. I finally convinced him after like 10 trips to go back to the little kid playground.

Movie Night and Painting

2010-10-26T20:22:00.001-07:00

On Sundays we usually go for a family walk, but now that it is getting a little cooler we decided to have movie night. So we blow up the air mattress, throw pillows and blankets on it, pop popcorn, bake cookies and watch a movie. Tale loves it as you can see. He loves it when we bring out the mattress, he jumps on it from the couch, until the popcorn comes out. He loves having his own bowl. This night the movie was How to Train a Dragon. Before Davyne and Grandma left they bought us a big pumpkin, Tale got to paint it. He was having so much fun and of course made a mess. Here he is hard at work. And here he is with paint all over him and his clothes.

Grandma Molifua visits

2010-10-26T20:02:00.001-07:00

Tahri's mom and grandma came out to visit us for a few days. We loved having them here and wish they could have stayed longer. We had so much fun with them. These pictures are a little out of order and it was taking too long to put them in order.

Davyne makes quilts for all her grandchildren, here is the one she made for Leila, isn't it beautiful?

We took them to Treman Park and it was beautiful with all the fall leaves. Tale loved playing with the leaves. He especially loved throwing the leaves in the water. He was so close to the edge, which was scaring Grandma, that boy wanted to go into the water so bad! We all had to take turns standing by him to make sure he didn't jump. Crazy boy.

Grandma toots is reciting one of her many poems that she has memorized. It was so peaceful listening to her while watching the leaves fall from the trees. We also went to buttermilk falls. It was the perfect day to go, it was nice and warm with the sun out, and the next day it poured.

Grandma Molifua and Leila

We ate at Ithaca Bakery, Thai Express, and we got some pumpkin ice-cream from Purity Ice-Cream, oh my it was good. We miss you guys!!!

Mommymobile

2010-10-26T19:55:00.001-07:00

This is a little late but still exciting for me. So Tahri went to D.C. for a conference and came home with this:

My new mommymobile!!! I am loving it. It is a Jeep Commander, lots more room, no more bending over to buckle the kids in, and best of all it is 4 wheel drive, which will be perfect for the winter!!! :) I'm the worst driver in snow. It has a sunroof and two moonroofs in the back. Tale is loving his and always has to have it open. Thanks babe, I love it!

Strike!

2010-10-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

Today we went bowling. Tale was going crazy with all the bowling balls, he couldn't keep his hands off of them. I was surprised at how well he did though, he listened really good. He waited for his turn, he didn't throw a fit when he had to wait, and he didn't go chasing the ball down the lane. :)

Here he is admiring his roll. Tale and Tucker taking their last roll. How cute are the their bowling shoes? I feel bad that I never get any pictures of Leila because she is always just in the background hanging out. So we got one of just us girls. :)

Kindness

2010-10-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

Tahri has been in D.C. for a couple of days and we sure do miss him. With him gone I have to walk Chanel more often then I usually do and that has been such a pain for me. Today the weather was not very good, it was overcast and wet! I could tell Chanel was ready to go out (it had been a few hours) but I was hoping that the kids would be asleep, but of course they weren't. So I had to get them dressed and take them on the walk with me. Instead of carrying Leila I decided to put her in the stroller because I knew I probably would have to carry Tale too. Anyways..........It is such a battle to get Tale to wear a jacket and put on his shoes. With mismatched shoes on and finally a jacket we went outside. OF course is started to rain and because Tale had one sandal on he got his feet wet and wanted me to carry him. So I picked him up, was pushing the stroller and Chanel was running around going crazy, the leash kept getting caught in the wheel and I was getting so annoyed. Well this older Asian lady came running to me, she didn't speak a lick on English so we couldn't understand each other. She held out her umbrella and covered Tale with it, she tried to take him from him but he wouldn't let her. So she gave me her umbrella and took off with Leila in the stroller and just pointed ahead. I was like ah no i'm just trying to walk my dog, well off she went with Leila to her apartment, she opened her door and pointed in then put the stroller in the doorway. I could tell she didn't want the kids to get wet and she was in a hurry. So she just kept gesturing for us to go in. Then she took the umbrella from me and ran up the hill. I was so confused. so I just left Leila there and walked Chanel around until she at least peed, then got the stroller out and started walking back to our place. Well I see her with her grandson she just picked him up from the school bus. She runs back over to me and helps me again. Giving me her umbrella and pushing the stroller for me. She was sooo nice and so concerned for my babies. All the frustrations I was feeling just went away. I was so touched by this woman who doesn't even know me, can't even communicate with me, but cared so much.

Fall Break

2010-10-12T20:00:00.001-07:00

Tahri had a few days off from school for Fall break. Last year we went to Boston and this year we decided to stay in Ithaca and boy did we have fun. We loved having daddy around.
We went to the apple festival and ate way too much food......Saw more pumpkins

Visited the Iron Kettle Farm which Tale LOVED! He got to feed the animals. Play in a castle, he had so much fun going up and down the slide.

We went into the kiddie haunted house

And the big hit was the train ride. Tale is soooooo into trains right now and was soo excited when he saw the train going round and round the track. So of course he had to go on it, you had to be at least 3 and we figured with his new haircut he could pass and he got on!!!! This boy had a smile on his face the whole time. It was such a precious moment for me. I loved that he was enjoying himself sooo much.

He was soooooo cute, he was just smiling and waving at everyone that he passed.

Once he waved to everyone he would turn around with that big smile and countine to wave at everyone as the trained circled. Oh my heart was just melting.

I thought he was going to have a melt down when the ride was over and he had to get off but he was sooo excited to run and telll his daddy all about his trip. He kept saying choo choo........oh he is so cute!

The weather was so nice and things are always more fun when daddy's around. :) Poor Leila, she was just in her stroller the whole time, baby girl I can't wait for you to start enjoying these things too. I just love watching this boy explore and experience new things, he seriously makes my world so much better.

Pumpkin Picking

2010-10-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went pumpkin picking with the Bechtholds and Tale had so much fun looking for the perfect pumpkin. He kept trying to get his dad to break off every one and bring it home with us. He was so cute. We finally got him to settle on one. We found one for Leila too, but as you can tell she couldn't care less. ha! I'm not sure what we are going to do with them, this is the first time that I've ever bought a pumpkin. :)

How cute are these boys???? I didn't do a very good job at hiding myself. haha......

What did I do!!!!

2010-10-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

So there will no longer be:

Hair in the eyes

Ponytails or pins

Or crazy wet hair

Because today Tale went from
To.................

AHHH I can't believe I finally found the courage to cut his hair!! What did I do? I turned my cute baby boy into a handsome big boy!! Oh I just love his new cut but I am still trying to get use to it. He looks so different to me now and I even think he is acting different now too. I sure do miss his curls but hopefully now people will stop saying how cute SHE is. hahaha........He totally looks like a little boy now. Thanks Roo, you did awesome! Tale did not like getting his hair cut.

3 Months

2010-10-06T19:23:00.000-07:00

Leila turned 3 months on September 30th. My baby girl is getting so big! Look at those cheeks!!! I just love kissing them. She has rolled over twice now, but only when she is on her tummy. She wakes up one or two times a night now (mostly two), still sleeps periodically through the day. She loves people talking to her, she started giggling, and she loves to talk!

Fine Print

2010-09-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

I took Leila in to take some pictures because I saw this awesome deal for 26 photos for $8 for one person. So I thought oh I'll get some pictures of Leila and then take Tale another day and do the same deal. Of course when I looked at the coupon while she was getting her picture taken it was for one pose. I was so annoyed because I ended up getting their cheapest package which you can have as many people as you like, so I spent all this money and Tale isn't in any of them. But she was so cute I just had to get them, and there were some other coupons that I was able to use sooo it wasn't that bad. But still, next time I'll be sure to READ THE FINE PRINT!

But Leila was totally loving it, she would smile and ohh, when I took Tale in at this age he cried like the whole time. Here are some of her shots.....Oh and how cute are her headbands that I made. :)

Big Slide

2010-09-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

At one of the parks we go to there is a big kid playground and a little kid playground. This day Tale wanted to go the the big kid playground. He headed to the big slide and I was trying to be brave as he climbed up the stairs. I wanted so bad to run up behind him and hold his hand but I stayed below and held my breathe. It was no big deal to him. He also likes to walk down the slide and look over the edge so that was the main reason I was so scared, but he listened when i said to sit down.
And of course I was right there at the bottom to see him slide down. My baby is growing up too fast for his mommy!!! Tale you are such a big boy and I love you sooo much!

Golf, Harley and Swinging

2010-09-22T05:37:00.001-07:00

We drove up to Cortland one day and Tale was getting restless in the car, we drove by a miniature golf course that looked really fun so we stopped to let Tale run around a bit. They had a cute miniature club for him and he tried hitting the ball a few times but was obsessed with just putting them in the hole. He also loved to climb on all the rocks and loved the water features they had there too.
Daddy showing Tale how to hit the ball.

After golfing we got a slushy and Leila got to get out of her stroller for a bit before we headed home.
Norah came over to play and they had a blast going up and down the slide, and Norah did so good on the big girl swing.
We went to this restaurant in Syracuse with the Bectholds and one of the guys eating outside said the boys could take a picture on his Harley, Tale had a blast but wanted to go and sit on all the Harleys.

Summer is over.........

2010-09-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

Oh how I don't want it to end! Tahri started back to school a couple of weeks ago and my online classes that I teach for BYU-Idaho will be starting this week so I tried to take the kids out as many days as possible last week before I start working again. Not that it will take up a ton of my time but it sure does take up my free time! I really loved having the summer off.

Leila was a trooper, this is what she did: While we:

Played at the arcade

Feed the ducks

Went to the Splash Park

Cruised around the farmers market

Visited the plantations at Cornell

And played at the park

We are excited for Fall but winter not so much. It was such a fun summer and we hope to continue to do fun stuff before it gets cold even though daddy is back at school.

Cute outfits

2010-09-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

Leila looked like such a big girl when I got her dressed. I couldn't believe that she fit in these clothes already but she is growing so fast. I thought she looked so cute so I just had to take a million of pictures of her. She had some sandals on but they wouldn't stay on.

Tale has to pick out his own clothes, we were doing laundry this day and he had to put Leila's skirt on. I didn't think it was going to fit him but sure enough it went on. He is also obsessed with the car right now. He goes in there and jams out to the music and takes they keys in and out of the ignition. This day it was like 90 degrees outside and he wanted to sit in the car. So I just let him and would go out and check on him peridocially. He was dripping with sweat but still didn't want to come out. I couldn't get the skirt off of him either, he just loved it because it had so many different colors on it. At least that is what I tell myself. ha!

2 Months

2010-09-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

Oh my I can't believe that Leila is now 2 months. She has grown so much and too fast for me. She is such a big girl I hardly got to enjoy the tiny stage. But I'm loving every minute with her.

We went to the doctor today for her check-up and both my babies were so good for me. Tale loves playing with all the toys in the doctor's office, and usually I have a hard time tearing him away from them but this time another girl had a melt down and while she was doing that Tale was willing to come with me. I'm glad it was someone elses kid this time. :)

Leila has grown so much! Here are some of her updates:

13 pounds

23 inches

She is holding her head up so good now, she smiles and oohs and coos. Doctor said she has good muscles tone and her reflexes are great.

Smiles.........

2010-08-31T08:20:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks Leila has been responding to us and I'm just loving it. I love her smiles and her coos and ooohhs, and the funny faces she makes when she gets really excited about a story I tell her or just my huge smile. How I love this little girl....

Cali Trip

2010-08-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

We got word that one of Tahri's uncles wasn't doing too well health wise and so a week before school started we headed to California to visit him and to help in anyway that we could. We literally had a day to make all of our travel arrangements. It was the fastest trip that we had to plan and pack for. I was sooo dreading it, I reall didn't want to go because it felt so rushed and I sore that we would never fly again with Tale on our laps, but because we were flying out the next day we couldn't really afford an extra seat. We were lucky to get our seats next to each other but as soon as we got to check in we found out that we couldn't sit next to each other with 2 lap kids. Oh the more I dreaded it. BUT, it ended up turing out to be a really good trip for us. We drove to Rochester which was about 2 hours, when we got to our gate they had a little play area. Thank goodness, Tale was able to get some energy out from the 2 hour drive before we made him sit again. I wish all the airports had this!

The last time we travelled he kept wanting to roll our carry on so I decided to let him bring his own rolling suitcase. He was so cute carrying it around the airport, he loved having his own. Thanks gigi!!!!

It was Leila's first trip and she was just a little angel. Slept most of the time and when she was awake she just looked around and smiled. She is such a good baby. Tale loves to hold her in his lap. We stayed at my brother Josh's place when we got there. My brothers were sooo excited to meet their niece and she loved being held by them. There were soo awesome with my kids. I wish we were closer to them. My brother Jared drove up from San Diego everyday and always brought something with him for them. He brought Tale balls and ballons, grapes, organes, bananas, and juices. He always made sure he was fed and always had a drink with him. He was so gentle with Leila and hated it when she cried.

My brother Josh had the magic touch with Leila, she would crash out everytime she was with him. It was the cutest thing watching my brothers with her!!!! Josh took good care of her too, always putting her to sleep, changing her diaper when she needed it, and always making sure she wasn't too hot.

They both are going to be great dads!!!!

Here Uncle Josh is teaching Tale to play the ukulele, Tale loved to play it.

When we were done doing the family things that we went there for, we got out and enjoyed some of the fun things in California. We went to a water park in Orange County. Tale had a blast. Here he is going down the slide, he could have done it all day!

We saw some friends there too that day. How cute are these two?

We got to see Tahri's grandma and she met Leila for the first time.

Tahri's sister Kira also came down to help with the family stuff and Tale loved seeing his cousins. He had so much fun playing with them. We went to the beach for lunch and they were feeding the seagulls our food. eh!

I was so glad they were able to make it!! I sooo miss my sisters! Lanayia ended up coming out too but we left the day before she came. :( I was so bummed.

Okay why are my eyes closed. I was so mad after this picture because I knew I was blinking. But it was the only one we were able to get so I guess it will have to do. errrrrr

My brother has a pool in his complex and so Tale got to go swimming there. He wasn't able to walk by himself in the water and we didn't have any floaties for him so he didn't like it that much. He kept wanting to break free from his daddy, he is becoming so independent.

We went to the beach and Tale had a blast there. He loved playing in the sand and running away from the water. The water was sooo cold none of us got in.

We took him to chucky cheese to play. He had a blast. Here he is sneaking on to a ride with another boy who had a cup load of tokens. The boy was so nice to let him ride.

This was a popular ride amongest the other kids, and Tale wanted to get on it the whole time, when it was his turn, he liked it for about 2 seconds and then wanted to get off and go on another one. oh this boy.

We met up with some other family members too. Here is Tale with Kiana they are a month apart.

Aunty Sili took us out for pizza. Here is us girls, Aunty sili, me and Victoria (Kiana's mom if you couldn't already tell. they are identical)

The trip home was good too. The kids did good, since we couldn't sit together because of the oxygen mask, they had to keep finding seats for us, and on one leg Tale and Tahri got to sit in first class. Lucky!!!!

Playdate

2010-08-13T07:32:00.001-07:00

Norah has come over a couple of times to play with Tale. This day he was all over her! He kept following her around and trying to hug her and she kept trying to get away from him poor guy. But she didn't have a problem rocking in the chair with him. Thanks Norah for coming over to play. And thanks Lindsey for letting me borrow your camera. I'm totally going to get one too now!!!

New Headbands

2010-08-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

How cute is my little fatso!

One Month

2010-08-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

Leila is now one month! She was not in the mood to take any pictures at this time but I knew that if I didn't do it then I wouldn't get around to it for awhile. So not the best but it will have to do.

Weight: 10 pounds 6 ounces

Height: 22 3/4 inches

She is a healthy baby! She is in the 90th percentile for both weight and height. My goodness this girl likes to eat. She still has her blue eyes, I'm wondering if I'm lucky enough to have two babies with blue eyes???? I guess we will have to see.

Also one of my really good friends is leaving Ithaca. Christy and her husband will be moving to New York city to begin life after Cornell. We sure will miss them. I had a little surprise get together for her. Here are a few people that were there. Tale was the only boy there, lucky! Tahri was there long enough to take our picture, hello you cut half my head off. :) Oh well, I think he was a little nervous.

Big Boy

2010-07-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

Tale is definitely becoming more and more independent and very opinionated. The other day a friend of ours brought dinner over for us and made corn on the cobb. I didn't think Tale would eat it as is so I was cutting corn off for him, then he just grabed it and starting biting the corn off. He loved it. Now this is the only way he will eat corn.

He doesn't like to sit in his car seat that much either, he would much rather sit in the front and drive. ha! The mall is like a block from our house, here he is in the front seat, he did not want to ride in his seat home. I know bad parents right? But we have been saying no to him so much lately, I figured it is only a block! He also has opinions about what he wears now. This is one of his outfits he picked out. And another outfit that he picked out himself. He loves these pajama bottoms and these shorts are a favorite too. Tonight he wanted to wear both. He is just too cute. The other day he would not take them off, we went everywhere in those pants. I was so trying to get him to wear something else but then figured what is the big deal? So he doesn't look that cute, this sooo isn't a battle worth fighting. So now he gets to pick what he wants to wear and it makes getting dressed so much easier for both of us. Hopefully he will adapt to my style soon. :)

Blessing Day

2010-07-29T08:29:00.001-07:00

I wanted to have Leila's blessing before my parents left so she was about a week and a half old when we did it. She was so tiny her dress and her shoes barely fit her, but she was still so cute. Tahri gave an awesome blessing and Tale followed his daddy up there and he stood there and watched his sister, it was so cute.

check up and water parks

2010-07-21T08:20:00.001-07:00

I feel so bad for Tale because his mommy is always on the couch feeding his sister so he doesn't get to go out as much as he use to. He does pretty good playing by himself with his toys downstairs but I have the tv on all day long, so he watches a lot of TV too. poor guy! So we are on the couch watching TV and I just finished feeding Leila and Tale asks to hold Leila. So I give her to him and 5 mins later here is what you have. How cute is that! Usually she stays on him for like 2 mins and then starts crying, but this time she fell asleep on him and so he just laid there holding her and ended up falling asleep too. He is such a good big brother, he loves holding her, kissing her, and also hits her a lot. He thinks he is helping because he sees me hitting her back when I burp her, so he is constantly hitting her back or her head just everywhere actually. But he just loves her so much!

Here is Leila at her 3 week check up. She is growing like no other. She gained 2 pounds and has grown 2 inches since she was born. She is a tanker! ha, soon she will be beating up on her brother. And when is the cord going to fall off already? geez! Tales came off real quick, hers is like in there, hopefully it will come off soon!

We love the weekends because we get daddy home with us and Tale gets to venture out a bit. We went to Steward park to feed the ducks and play at the playground. It was so hot this day that the slides and most of the equipment was too hot to play on, but they had the water on, so Tale ran over there. Good thing we had his swim trunks in the car. Here he is feeding the ducks.

Here are a couple of outdated pictures that I meant to put up awhile ago, but just haven't had the time. While my parents were still here we took Tale to Treman park to go swimming. The water was freezing though. It was like 55 degrees so he stayed pretty close to the rocks. He had fun filling up his water gun and shooting his dad.

His grandpa bought him a pair of sunglasses and he loves to wear them all the time. Inside and outside. How cute is he?????

one week and a day

2010-07-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

Tale is so sweet to his sister. When she cries he stops everything he is doing and runs to check on her. Then comes and pulls me to her to see whats wrong. He is so cute.

He loves to give her kisses too. Here she is at one week and a day old. I think she looks more like her daddy.

Night and Day...........

2010-07-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

That is what this delivery was like compared to Tale's. Of course my doctors did say that you can't really compare your first delivery to your second. But my goodness this was a breeze compared to Tale's. I think I only pushed for like 15 mins, and so far recovery is so much faster! I did the epidural this time with Leila and hardly felt a thing. I'm not sure I liked the whole not being able to feel my legs thing, but hardly feeling the contractions was AWESOME! So Leila was born on June 30th around 3:40pm, weighing 7 lbs 3 oz and was 19 inches long.

Here are some pictures from the birth, they are out of order but I don't feel like rearranging them right now. :)

Leila and her Papa, she is only a few minutes old here.

Here she is with gigi on going home day.

All dressed up to go home.

Tale wasn't really sure about here at first but he is starting to warm up to her. He is going to be such a good big brother! Here he is rubbing her while she is sleeping. Oh I sure did miss this boy while I was in the hospital. I couldn't wait to get home to him.

Daddy and Leila right after she got her first bath at the hospital.

Here is Tale bringing balloons and flowers for mommy and sister.

Family of 4..............

She made it!

2010-07-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Leila finally got here. She and mom are doing good. Will post pictures when we get home. We are so happy that she is finally here with us. S

Waiting.....

2010-06-24T15:57:00.001-07:00

We are still waiting for our little girl to join us. This pregnancy has gone by so fast until the last 3 days! My parents came about a week ago and my mom went to work. Now that everything is organized I'm so ready for her to come! My mom is amazing, she has been taking such good care of all of us, entertaining Tale so that I can sleep, taking him on walks, to the park, cooking every night, cleaning, organizing, and my dad has been walking Chanel too, oh what am I going to do when they leave? I'm like on vacation right now. :)

Okay baby girl, we are all waiting for you!!!! Please come, mommy is ready for you.

Ithaca is Gorges

2010-06-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

When we first got here, that phrase was on t-shirts, cups, bumper stickers, everywhere, I didn't fully understand it until now. Man Ithaca has some really awesome places. We have really been enjoying getting out together and exploring this place a little more. We went to two different parks and did the hike. The hikes weren't too bad but I would have enjoyed them a lot more if I wasn't 9 months pregnant. It seemed so much harder than it really was.

These pictures are from Buttermilk Falls. The falls were so pretty, we were a little bummed we couldn't get in the water though.

These pictures are a little out of order, this is the start of our hike, there were some really steep parts in the trail that weren't very fun. We finally got to level ground and Tale had a blast running around. I was grateful for a break. :)At the end of our hike there was a really nice park that we took Tale to. He had a blast with his daddy. He took his shoes off and was able to walk up the slide, he was so proud of himself, but instead of going back down, he walked down the stairs and then crawled back up the slide. I don't know what he was thinking. :) Oh well it kept him busy. :) At the front of this picture there is a little spinning thing, he loved that! It was so funny to watch him try to walk after spinning him around and around. He couldn't get enough of it. His daddy was spinning him so fast on it too, I thought he was going to get sick, but he kept begging for more. It was a big day for Tale, as soon as he got into the car he was out! Robert Treman Park was beautiful too, we had a lot of fun here. I think we really liked the fact that you could go swimming just about anywhere. The water was a little too cold for Tale, but he still loved being in the shallow areas splashing around.

The hike wasn't too bad, there were a lot of steps and we didn't go too far because I was getting tired. Probably not the best for someone that is nearly 38 weeks pregnant. ha! So this isn't the best picture but you can see one of the waterfalls, and get a side profile of my big belly.

How pretty is that view? It reminded us a little of the narrows at Zion Park.

The summer so far has been a lot of fun! We love having daddy home with us. Tahri starts working tomorrow so i'm a little bummed, but hopefully we can get to a few more hikes before baby comes. I can't believe how many spots there are here. Ithaca sure is beautiful.

2010-05-31T17:42:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a big post because I'm so bad at updating. The earlier post start at the bottom.

Our trip back to New York was HORRIBLE! We got delayed in Dulles AGAIN but this time we were stuck on a small airplane for nearly 4 hours because of weather. It was horrible. Tale did good for most of it, he did have a little outburst there but who could blame him. We got on the plan at 10pm and didn't leave until almost 2 in the morning. My poor baby. We finally got home at like 5 in the morning on Friday. We laid around most of Friday trying to recover. Then on Saturday we finally had some energy so we took Tale to Taughannock Falls. He loved it! He loved splashing in the water and finding rocks and throwing them. It was the cutest thing to watch.

Okay time to take the t-shirt off and get a little tan. Tale loved climbing up all the rocks and putting his hands under the water as it streamed down the rocks.

And here he is after. He looks like such a big boy now. He has a little mullet going on because Tahri only cut the front and left the back long. I'm not a big fan of it, but he is still the most handsome boy!!!!While we were in Idaho, Tahri decided to cut Tales hair. Here are some pictures of him with his long hair that mommy didn't want to lose. :(

My sister in laws threw a baby shower for me. They are the best! I got a lot of really cute things and it was so nice to catch up with some of my friends there. I can't believe that I'm going to be a mommy of two pretty soon.

After finals we went to Idaho to visit our family there. The trip there wasn't the best. We had a layover in Washington and wasted a whole day of our vacation. Here is a tip, always carry and extra set of clothes and at least a toothbrush in your carryon. It was a nightmare having a layover and not having your luggage. Tale did really good on the flights though. Once we got there he had so much fun with all of his cousins. We all got together and took some pictures, Tale wasn't the best during them, all he wanted to do was play with all the cool toys that his cousins had, so he was mad we took him away from it. But how cute is everyone in the polynesian outfit?

We went to a Cornell Lacross game. The game was pretty intense, but Tale just wanted to climb the stairs most of the time.

Tale was having a blast playing at the playground with his daddy. He was getting so brave, hanging from the bar as you can see here. And then going down the slide by himself.

We met the Booths at the park for some pizza and to let the kids play at the park. I can't believe they are leaving already, I feel like we all just got here. We sure are going to miss them.

After lunch we went to Barnes and Noble so the kids could play. They were the only ones there that day and had a blast playing with all the toys and the books. Tale is going to miss his friends. The last lunch! It was so sad, Julie and Tucker were leaving for Washington for their internship so we all got together for one last lunch together. I can't believe everyone is leaving already! But at least they will be back after the summer. As for Tiffany and Taylor, they are graduating so they won't be coming back. We sure are going to miss everyone. This isn't the best picture, the lady I asked to take the picture kept putting her finger in front of the camera so finally I just said thanks and here is what he got.

Enjoying the sun

2010-05-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

This is kind of a random post. We haven't been doing a ton but playing outside a lot, the weather has been so nice. Tahri is almost done with the semester and we are looking forward to having him to ourselves for a bit. :)

One of Tale's best buds is Tucker. They will be leaving soon for the summer and we sure are going to miss him and his mommy. Here are a few pictures of the two cute guys.

Tahri's program had an end of the semester dinner that we attended. Tale is trying to go outside and Tucker ran over to give him a hug. How cute is he???

We went over to Tucker's house for some yummy carne asada tacos, it was so hot that day, so the two guys hopped in the bath.

Tahri and Sam play in a softball league together so the boys went to watch the last game of the season. They had a ton of fun playing together. Tahri was gathering all the equipment and Tale was crawling all over him, I couldn't resist taking a picture of them, it kind of turned out like a little league picture. ha!My little island boy, he loves to run around with no shoes on, and mommy hates him doing it. Here he is running without any shoes on. I had to bribe him with a popsicle to put shoes on. Sleepy boy, oh he is so precious, I can't stand how much I love this little guy...........

And here I am at 33 weeks pregnant. I haven't taken very many pictures and this one is that great either but I've been asked to post one so here it is. I can't believe I'm going to have another baby next month!!! ahhhh, this pregnancy has gone by so fast!