Just for laughs

Life with a new puppy on top of three kids has been CRAZY. Among the many things neglected has been my blog and the taking of pictures to post on the blog.I just quickly wanted to record a few of the funny things the kids have been saying lately

-A few months ago we took a trip down to Arizona. While there visiting my aunt and uncle, Tavita became OBSESSED with Uncle Rob. He deemed him Uncle Papa because he looks so much like my dad. The first time Tavita saw "Uncle Papa" he thought he was my dad and was pretty disappointed to find out it wasn't. However, after some cool rides in the corvette, scorpion hunting, and an overall good time, Tavita was hooked. It is now a daily routine for Tavita to ask for Uncle Papa, and begs for me to drive him there.

-I took the boys to get their H1N1 vaccines about a month ago. Brayden knew what was coming and was pretty apprehensive. Tavita was relatively clueless and happily volunteered to go first. He jumped when they first pricked him but was fine afterward. Brayden was also pretty tough, cried a little but sat very still for them. In the end they got cool band aids and a sucker. I told Brayden they had to go back for a 2nd shot at Christmas. Brayden looked at me and exclaimed, "But I've been a good boy, why do I get a shot for Christmas."
Tavita was SOLD on the whole shot thing (obviously has a high pain threshold.) He kept asking to back for another shot. In fact I was taking them to Toys R Us to make Christmas lists and Tavita said, "No, I want go get more shot!" It took me over a week to get him to take the band aid off. Even now he'll take my purse and keys and say, "Bye Mommy, I go get shot." STRANGE boy!!!

-While Junior was in Australia we were blessed with a little fury visitor. Poor Tini (Junior's cousin who lives downstairs) is TERRIFIED of rodents and that is were Mr. Mouse decided his home should be. I bought some traps and decided they'd be no problem to set. WRONG! These buggers were sensitive. I tried repeatedly to set them only to have them come snapping down (one time on my finger). Janessa joined the effort to no avail. Every time we'd set one and go to let go Tavita would cringe and shield his eyes "No,no,no, please, no." Finally had to call on our neighbor to set the darn things. One went off after I brought them back home and I was able to set it. It worked though, Mr. Mouse was sent to Mouse Heaven the very next day.
Brayden kept begging to see the mouse. I told him I sent him to a happier place. Brayden replied, "He's happy here, where is there a happier place." Ummmmm....

-Brayden has been learning new songs for his preschool Christmas program. He got in the car one day saying, "Mommy I learned a really funny song today about you kissing Santa." For days after he kept asking me to kiss Santa when we saw him. Finally I said, "I think the song is talking about a mommy kissing Santa because the daddy was dressed up as Santa." His reply, "No Mommy, Daddy is at work, you get to kiss the real Santa!"

-We had a FHE lesson on the different symbols of Christmas. Now every time Brayden says a prayer he has to include, "Thank thee for the star so we can remember the birth of baby Jesus." We can't pass a star without him telling us the start is to remind us of when Jesus was born. It's really cute.

-Janessa helped the boys wrap some Christmas presents for me and Brayden was really excited about the surprise. Tavita was always carrying the presents around begging to open them. Brayden would dutifully take them away and put them back under the tree. One day we wrapped a present in a gift bag for Brayden to take to a birthday party. Soon after we realized one of the presents to me was missing. We were searching everywhere. I went to pick Brayden up from the party and he came running to the door, "Jaxon opened your present." Apparently Tavita had slipped the present into the bag with Jaxon's present. He opened it and kind of stared like, "umm, okay." (it was a figurine for my Christmas village). Apparently Brayden gave him a bit of the what-for for opening my present. He was pretty disappointed the surprise was ruined.

We had a VERY nasty slush storm on Sunday. It was like walking through a Slurpee 2-3 inches deep on the driveway. We were trying to get ready out the door for church, Tavita took one step out the door and said, "Mommy, lets go to Hawaii and go to the pool." Pool is his catch phrase for any sort of swimming. At that moment, I couldn't have agreed with him more.

Gingerbread House

Junior is the 11 year-old scout leader at church and one of the many blessings of this calling is we get hit up for A LOT of fundraisers. Through one of the fundraisers we wound up with a gingerbread house kit. Last night for Family Home Evening we decided to put it to use. The boys had been begging for MONTHS to make one and were so excited we finally did it. The initial start was not a pretty sight. We had burned pieces that were breaking off as we took them off the cookie sheet. I figured since they were to hard for anyone to want to eat anyway, we might as well take a hot glue gun to the sucker. We used hot glue to put the house together then used frosting to make it look pretty and stick all the candy and what not on. In the end we had a great result and the boys love it. They wanted to dig in to it right away, actually they didn't wait for it to be completed. There was a lot of licking of frosting and sneaking of candy going on during construction.
The initial construction with the hot glue

Brayden deciding what he wants to put on top of his peppermint stick. He help frost half the house, Tavita the other then they did the yard.

The final product

The boys with their masterpiece and me sneezing

Snow and more

Much to Brayden's great delight we finally got a real snowstorm from Sun-Tues. It snowed A LOT and Brayden couldn't have been happier, he was so worried there'd be no snow for Christmas. Thanks to FREEZING single digit temps the snow has been here all week and the boys have been loving being able to play in it. Their favorite game is for me to stick them in the tobogan and race around our street (which is now a nice sheet of ice/snow). The boys would do it all day but I poop out after awhile, it hurts to run in the cold).
Here are a few pics of the boys when the snow was first falling
Farmer Brayden. This kid LOVES the snow. We got home and he was wearing a checkered shirt. He decided that coupled with the snow bibs made him look like a farmer. He stuck on his "Farmers Hat" and just sat out there letting the snow fall on him forever.

Janessa teaching Tavita how to make snow angels with the help of Bowzer

Again, Brayden just laying in the snow enjoying it. Man are we opposites

We are all set for Christmas. The only picture I have of us decorating is us putting the star on the tree. We went and got the tree for Family Night but by the time we got home it was too late to decorate. The boys had been so excited to put the star up we decided to do that before bed then finished decorating the next day.

Bowzer and Kalie are the BEST of friends. Wherever she is, he is usually curled up at her feet, between her legs or something of that sort.


I love this picture of Kalei having a "conversation" with her Daddy

I gave Bowzer a bath the other day which he HATED. The boys felt so sorry for him they covered him with their special blankets and Tavita even contributed his binky. Look closely he is there under all the blankets.

The blueberry queen!

B is for Bowzer

I have so many things to be playing catch up on but thought I'd post about this first. Santa came early to the Shum house this year and dropped off a new member of our family. "Bowzer", lovingly named by Brayden is a little 8 week black lab that we're all quickly falling in love with.
We've been looking at getting the kids a dog for Christmas but I came across Bowzer online and couldn't pass him up. Rather than try to hide him for 8 weeks and deprive him of attention and valuable training time we decided that it'd be best if Santa made a special trip to our house.
The boys woke up Saturday morning to Bowzer sitting at the bottom of the stairs with a big bow around his neck. Santa had helped himself to some cookies and milk and left a note explaining he had gotten the boys letters (in which they had asked for a puppy). Santa told him he was so excited to get the letters because he had a puppy up at the North Pole that he knew the boys would love. The puppy was so excited to join the family, he couldn't wait for Christmas. Santa made a special trip all the way from the North Pole just so the puppy could join our family.
When the boys came downstairs they were beside themselves with excitement. The kept laughing and running around. After a little bit the novelty kind of wore off. Bowzer was pretty overwhelmed by all the newness and kids so was acting up quite a bit and nipping (in a playful way) and the boys were disappointed that he didn't know how to fetch and kept biting at their ankles. After everyone, including Bowzer, took a long nap and a lot of work on training, things went much more smoothly. I explained to the boys that Bowzer was just a baby and needed to learn things. I told them it was important to teach Bowzer they were the boss and work with him and soon they'll be best buddies. The rest of the day Brayden went around telling everyone, "This is Bowzer, he was kind of mean but now we're best buddies." Both Brayden and Tavita love walking around the yard with him on a leash and playing with him (until Bowzer get too wound up and starts using his teeth to play). Kalei and Bowzer are way too cute to watch. It's interesting to see how much more gentle he is with her than the boys. If she's in the room he always wants to be near her and Kalei just sits there and babbles and laughs at him. They can entertain each other for a long time.
We've only had him for two days but he already knows that he's only allowed on the middle floor (where there is no carpet) and won't go up or down the stairs. If we go, he just sits there and stares at us with his big puppy eyes. He rings a bell whenever he needs to go out to use the bathroom. He's getting good at sitting, waiting til we tell him to eat, taking food gently, and staying. For a puppy he doesn't chew too bad and is always quick to stop when we reprimand him and give him one of his chewies. He's getting better at not biting while he plays but we still need to work on it. He rarely will nip at Junior and I. He nips at the boys quite a bit when they start chasing and wrestling but he's improving fast. For some reason he has it out for Janessa and is ALWAYS nipping at her, even if she's just walking by. It's always in play but funny how he guns for her.
We're loving having him and are adjusting more and more. Junior may say differently since he's on potty duty at night every 2-3 hours. I've offered to trade him but he doesn't think he's able to nurse Kalei for some reason. We're just so excited to watch him grow with our kids.

The boys coming down the stairs

Tavita's first interaction

Brayden's first interaction

Family Picture

Yes, he is actually eating the food. For the first half of Saturday, I was constantly chasing him away from the food dish, taking bones out of his mouth etc. He kept saying, "No Mommy, I'm a woof"

The new "Best Buddies"

6-months and all is well...

Here's a shout out to little Miss Lei has made it through the first half of her first year of life. To start with here are her stats:

Weight: 17 lbs 2 oz (75-90%)
Height: 27 3/8 in (95%)
Head: 16.4 cm (off the charts, yep she's a Shum alright!)

A few facts about Kalei:
-She sits completely unassisted and loves to reach around as she does so
-She can steamroll/scoot to whatever she has her mind set on
-Her favorite food is frozen blueberries (I put them in those netted teether things). If she's ever upset, put those in her hand and she's instantly content
-Other foods she's had: poi, rice, applesauce, banana, green bean, mango, cream of wheat, carrots, potato, mixed cereal). Still haven't given her any real baby food, just not much a fan of them.
- She has a heart-melting laugh and no one can make her laugh harder than Brayden. He can get her absolutely rolling.
-She loves to ride around in her sling so she can watch everything I do.
-She's very social and does not like to feel left out of ANYTHING
-At one point she was an incredible sleeper, went down at 7 and slept until 5:30. Now she wakes up A LOT but we'll give her the benefit of having a minor ear infection and Daddy being gone. It'll be interesting to see how she's doing in a few days when Junior gets back and the anitbiotics do their thing.
It truly has been such a joy to have Kalei in our lives. She is a VERY smiley and happy baby. It doesn't take much to get a huge grin from this little girl. She loves life and loves to explore the world around her. I just love this stage when they have this wide-eyed wonderment at everything they come in contact with.
We love you Lei Lei!!!

Realization

Yesterday was just one of those days that every parent with a 2-year old goes through. There was hardly a minute where I wasn't ready to hang him out in a tree for a little while. The day started at 4:30 (yes, as in am). Tavita woke from a nightmare, can't blame the poor kid for that, but once he calmed down rather than going back to sleep he wanted to read books, eat cereal, and play. The ENTIRE day consisted of him getting into stuff, tearing stuff apart, throwing fits (I'm one of those mean moms that won't let him have candy for breakfast, a 3rd orange in 2 hrs, run out in the 30 degree weather with nothing but his underwear on). Long story short, I was exhausted by the end of the day. I put the kids to bed (my favorite time of day by the way) and set to the task of cleaning a torn apart house. I had just finished cleaning, cut myself a big slice of pumpkin roll (if I really was a single mom, I'd weigh 300lbs. Every night Junior has been gone, I eat some treat at the end of the day to destress), had the heating pad all warmed to relax my siatic nerve, and was one step away from that moment of euphoria when I can sit down and say, "Ahh, the day is done." I gathered my treat and was about to head to the couch when I heard a dreaded "thump." Not dreaded in that I thought someone was hurt but in that I knew someone was still awake.
I head upstairs and there's Tavita sitting at the top of the stairs draped in floss with trails of floss everywhere. I go in his bedroom to find deodorant all over the place, books strewn around, the entire contents of an almost full bottle of fish food in with "Soopy" the fish, and just an overall minor disaster. I looked at him and glared. He jsut gave me a grin and said, "Hi, Mommy." While trying to keep my voice down (both to keep my cool and to keep from waking his two sleeping siblings) very firmly told him to get in bed NOW! He responded with a very innocent, "Okay Mommy." I was trying to clean the mess up and asked him where his binky was. He told me he didn't know then got a big grin and ran up to me, while pointing to his ear said, "Here, check here." We always play a game with him when he can't find his binky that it's is stuck in his ear and we pull it out, it's one his favorite games. I grumbled that it wasn't the time for it and what he did was very naughty. Again he gets and innocent look of "Why I naughty, I feed fishy." I was not in the mood to discuss anything, I simply told him that once he's put to bed it's not okay to get out. I cleaned the mess, put him to bed, shut the door, and went downstairs.
As I sat and thought more about it, I realized he probably didn't think what he did was all to naughty. Sure it's wrong for him to get out of bed, but other than that the resulting mess was simply him exploring the world around him. The fish was hungry, so he figured he'd feed it. Wanted to read books so he did. The deodorant smelled good, and you can't really see it so he was just helping the room smell better. The floss was very interesting, it just kept coming and coming from this tiny little box. I realized that I need to take more time to think on a 2-year old's level before flying off the handle, or in this case just ignoring them all together. The world looks and functions compltetly different in their eyes. I might be a lot more relaxed and happy in life if I took the time to realize how facinating floss really can be.

Random sidenote: Brayden was eating an apple today. I overheard him, while giving his apple a good examination, "You're going down apple bah ha ha"

The 3 P's

And these three p's would be: Prayer, Political Correctness, and Pyrex

Prayers:
Tavita is finally getting to the point where he wants to say prayers. Before whenever we'd try to help him say a prayer he'd just say, "No". Anyway, yesterday he asked to say the prayer at lunch. I was helping him along and he was doing great. Prayer went something like this:
He'd generally repeat everything I said but where there's a parantheses he inserted himself.
Thank Thee for the food, Thank Thee for our house, Thank Thee for "pumpkins".....Please bless Daddy in "Auntie" (I giggled and repeated "in")"Mommy" in "Bray"....
I was trying to say "Please bless Daddy in Australlia" He thought I was saying "and" and he kept trying to figure out who else we were thankful for.

Politically Correct:
Brayden has a slight fetish with UPS/Fed-ex/any type of delivery driver. He fondly calls them "Boxmen". He loves a visit from them because more times than not they come bearing goodies from familiy. We see their trucks often because the guy across the street from us owns some sort of online business and is constantly sending and recieving thing.
Janessa has gotten a seasonal job as a "Delivery assistant" with UPS. We went to drop her off for orientation and as we were pulling through to go back out Brayden saw the endless lines of UPS trucks...
B: "Ohhh, so this is where all the Boxmen come from."
M: "Yep, now Auntie is going to be a Boxman."
B(with HUGE awe-struck eyes): "Wow, cool...wait, you mean she's gonna be a BoxWOMAN."
M: "Sorry, you're right she'll be a Boxwoman."
We went to go pick her up and I told him to keep an eye out for her.
B:"Is she wearing boxman, I mean woman, clothes."
M: "No, just regular clothes, she'll wear her boxwoman clothes when she drives on the truck."
The second Janessa got in the car.
B:"Auntie let me see your clothes. This is so cool!!!"

Pyrex:
I've heard a lot of stories about how Pyrex sold their copyrights to some company in China. They changed the make up of the glass in order to produce it at lower cost. However, the new components cause the glass to spontaneously explode. I didn't think it all too common until last night. I pulled some funeral potatoes out of the oven and was about to set them down with the other end of the glass just burst. I hadn't set it down on anything hot, hadn't knocked it, nothing. It just exploded in my hands. Luckily it was the other end and I didn't get cut. However, it's happened to me a good handful of other people I know. I'm now in the market for a new set of non-pyrex bakeware.

A few giggles

Junior has our camera in Australia right now so I don't have any pics to post, nor will I until Thanksgiving. I decided that despite that I still needed to take the time to blog, especially so Junior can know our going ons over here.
Today the morning started with a conjested Brayden saying he was too sick to go to school. He did have an ugly sounding cough but other than that was acting fine. Tavita was the same way except he had a runny nose more than a cough (that kid's nose runs non-stop if the weather dips below 50). Even though I know he would have been fine at preschool, I didn't think it was fair to the other kids in case he was sick. Brayden was bummed about missing school so I told him we'd do school at home. He got so excited. "You'll be Miss. Katie and Tavita gets to be in my class today! I'm so excited."
I looked at the schedule and saw todays lesson was supposed to be on the First Thanksgiving and ovals. Brayden already has his shapes down pretty well and Tavita was kind of taking part in the whole school thing pretty intermitintly. I decided to skip the oval thing and focus on Thanksgiving. While I tried pulling a lesson togther I told Brayden to practice writing his name, which is how he starts his day at preschool. Note that when I try working with him at home it's like pulling teeth to get him to even trace his name. He just keeps saying he can't do it, he needs help etc. Anyway, he sits down and in two minutes is back, "Here you go Miss. Katie."
I was shocked when I looked at the paper. Granted he spelled his name "Bradyeb" but he had all the letters (except the n) there and they were all very legible. Before I could really say anything he asks, "Would you like me to write Tavita's name?" I reply, "Sure, that'd be great." Thinking there's no way anything is going to come of it. He comes back with a paper that says "Taat". He at least had an idea of what Tavita's name consisted of.
I asked: "Brayden how come you always have such a hard time writting your name for me, but do such a great job for Miss. Katie?"
His response: "I don't know Miss. Katie just tells me to do it so I do. Right now your Miss Katie so I did it."
Apparently if I ever want anything done I need to put on the Miss. Katie hat.
We then had a lesson on the First Thanksgiving, talked about the pilgrims and indians, found items around the house and compared them to what the pilgrims had (thing of soap/pilgrims had to make soap, a lightbulb/pilgrims only had candles etc).
Then we talked about chores pilgirm boys and girls would do.
We finished the day by making little tabletop turkey decorations out of paper bags. This was the one part of the lesson Tavita was totally involved. The boys loved it and they came out really cute.

Other funny things said today:
Brayden playing around with Kalei. Stops, looks at her and says whole-heartedly, "Leilei I love you so much, one day I'm gonna marry you. When you're all grown up, we're gonna get married."

At dinner today Tavita was being a stinker about staying put so I strapped him into his booster seat, which he was not at all happy about. Brayden had finished his dinner and was running around playing. He was goofing around by the couch and playfully yelled, "Help, I'm stuck!"
To which Tavita responded as he pulled on his straps that were restraining him, "No Bray, I'm MORE stuck."

We were acting out Samuel the Lamanite for FHE. Brayden was playing Samuel and had run away from the wicked Nephites (Tavita)who was threatening to kill him. As he was leaving I was playing the voice of the Lord and commanded him to return to the city. He was so into his part. He looked up the stairs and all around as if trying to figure out where the voice was coming from, rolled his eyes, then said, "Okay, if you say so."

I was vaccuming and Tavita starting chewing on the cord. Janessa stopped him and explained that doing that could electrocute him, give really big owies and he could die. Shortly after he slipped and started crying. She picked him up and said, "Did you get an owie?
"No, a really big owie, I'm gonna die."

More Toilet Humor

Okay, I know that I've been posting a lot of this stuff lately. There's just something about kids and how they respond to the call of nature that gives me a good laugh. The other day we were eating dinner and Tavita went upstairs to use the bathroom. Somewhere along the way he slipped in and couldn't figure how to get out. Apparently it didn't bother him too much because he never called for help but rather continued sitting that way, and took care of business. When we went upstairs to see what was going on he just gave us a look like, "Huh, look at the mess I got myself into." He really wasn't bothered by it at all.

And then she blew!!!

I have to start of by apologizing to anyone who finds this blog gross but I had to document it.
Anyway, Kalei has been having some issues as far as digestion and elimination goes. In fact today marked day 4 of no doodies. We stopped giving her solids and have been pumping her full of prune juice (had to use a syringe to spray it in her mouth) and even gave her a little Epsom salt. We were preparing to take more drastic measures (aka a suppository) tomorrow. I was dreading having to do it and was wishing and praying she'd take care of things on her own. This evening we were getting dinner ready when Junior called me over to take a look at Kalei. I looked in her bouncer and noticed a nice little puddle of baby poopy next to her. This is when I had a defining moment as a mom. I found myself cheering for nasty, gooey poop.
I went to pick her up and realized it was on her other side as well, picked her up some more and realized it was all over her back and front as well. We stripped her and I was utterly shocked at the sheer volume of the mess. I was anticipating a decent sized explosion given there was several days of build-up, but I've never seen anything like it. She was wearing a bigger diaper (we accidentally opened an old pack of Tavita's size 4s instead of her size 3s) and the thing was filled beyond capacity in every direction. It was all over her chair and CAKED all over her little body.
The boys were running around plugging their noses, announcing to the world how bad it smelled (remember she'd been pumped full of prune juice). Junior was just cracking up at the whole situation, though he was kind enough to hold the sprayer for me. Janessa was a champ and took on the task of cleaning up the bouncer while I washed the culprit.
After a good spray down and a bath, Kalei was as good as new. She had a blast drinking from the sink as we washed her, after she had her fill of drink she played with the faucet absolutely enthralled with the running water.
All I can say is after 3 kids of my own and a lot of babysitting, Kalei hands down wins the award for biggest explosion I have EVER witnessed!
This picture was part way through clean up but gives you a good idea of what we were dealing with.

The proud producer!

Quick side note. As you know Brayden and Tavita see no point in reserving dressing-up for Halloween. They decided to spread the cheer and were made up into monsters for other holidays. Brayden was the 4th of July monster and Tavita was the Christmas monster, note their coordinating colors. Oh the things that entertain little boys.

"This is Haloween..."

Well another year of Halloweening and trick-or-treating has come and gone. Now enters the phase of sugar overload and rotting teeth!
The boys had a blast again this year. Anyone that knows my boys know how much they love to dress-up. Having pirates, cowboys, superheroes and dinosaurs running around are a daily occurance at our house. Haloween is great for them cause all their friends dress-up with them, and then of course there's the candy!
The first night to dress up was on Thursday for the ward Halloween party. Only problem: Church rules is no masks. I told the boys this as we were getting ready to leave and they insisted on changing costumes, they were supposed to be Wolverine and Spiderman.
Brayden quickly transformed into a ninja. Black ninja suit, a headband, chinese writing on the cheek and a pirate sword turned ninja sword and he was set.\
Apparently Ninja's have a very particular face and sign

Tavita (remember he is on a clothing strike) was running around in underwear and a fireman's hat shouting, "I fireguy." He was refusing to put any other clothes on and since "Fireguy" covers quite a few words for him I convinced him he should be a "fireknife dancer" (this word is covered in "fireguy). Quick wrap of a lava lava, a wrapping paper tube with balls taped to the end, some duct tape and tissue paper we had ourselves a fireknife dancer. He was a hit and did several performances at the party. Brayden is now insisting on being a fireknife dancer next year, we may have to head home to Hawaii so he can trick or treat in it!
Chee-hoo

Kalei was already geared up to be a cat (she was going to be Catwoman) but as I was digging through the dress-up bucket I came across a gorrilla suit. We stuck her in it and then she fell asleep. So she was "Queen Kong" half the night and Catwoman the other half after she got to hot.
"Queen Kong" already had the top pulled off, cause she was too hot. It was one of those where the hood looked like the face.

Now she's a cat

Ready to Go!

Hangin out at the party

Junior playing Halloween twister with some of his scouts

On Halloween, we stuck with original costumes and headed out for trick-or-treating. Kalei and I tagged along for our cul-de-sac and the next one over and headed home to pass out candy. Good thing we did since we got a whole 5 groups of trick-or-treaters. There was only us and one of our neighbors home and passing out candy so every one just skipped us. Needless to say those that did come got hooked up and we still have a TON leftover. Good thing I was sure to by mine and Junior's favorite kind of candies in case this should happen! The boys had a blast and Tavita keeps asking to go "Halloween" again and doesn't like our answer of, "Next year."
Our little Trick-or-Treaters



Oh yeah, she may not take a bottle, but she loves a sippy cup!
Must have it!

Got it!

Halloween Fun

The past little while has been all about Halloween. The boys are so excited for it. Tavita walks around singing his own song of, "Hal, Hal, Hallow, Halloween." Brayden sings endless songs he's learned in preschool and talks non-stop about "spooky things".
On Saturday my parents were visiting so we headed out to the pumpkin patch we went to last year. It's not a big fancy one, an older gentleman runs it and you get to cut the pumpkin yourself. We managed to get there just as a 15-min storm blew in and it was FREEZING. Needless to say it was a very brief visit but got our pumpkins regardless.
Lei Lei selected her pumpkin, err gourd, and decided to accessorize with it!

Brayden cutting his pumpkin of choice

The biggest kid of them all with his pumpkin. He searched everywhere and was so excited to find the "perfect one"

Tavita hacking away to obtain his prize

Monday we decided to get into the Halloween spirit and do some activities. While Junior was at work I helped the boys make handprint spiders. You fold a piece of paper in half trace their four fingers and a bit of the hand on the fold. Cut it out, unfold and you have a spider! The boys loved coloring them and putting them around the house so we had a "spooky house." Brayden even cut a few out on his own.

Then we started in on the dessert, "Ghost in the Graveyard." Use pudding, whip cream, and crushed oreos to make the bottom layer. Sprinkle with more crushed oreos to make the dirt and refrigerate. Decorated some cookies to look like headstones. The boys then put the headstones throughout the "dirt", and added some candy corn and pumpkins. Then we dolloped some whip cream, added eyes and we had our ghost. The boys were so excited to eat it. Only problem is they did so much snacking on candy and cookies while we made it that they couldn't eat more than a bite or two once we served it up. I didn't think I could put my boys on a sugar-overload but I succeeded!

To top the night off we did pumpkin carving. The boys lasted long enough to scrape a few seeds out and do a few cuts on their pumpkins then the rest was left to Junior. I did help on the final one though.
Daddy helping Brayden carve his pumpkin-scarecrow

Mommy helping Tavita with the "Boo" ghost

The finished products


The boys proud of their art. Yes, Tavita is wearing nothing but a jacket. He seems to be going through a bit of a clothing strike at the moment.


We got "spooked" while we were carrying out our festivities. The doorbell rang and we found a paper ghost and some goodies with the instructions to do the same to two other people. Today, the boys and I made some cupcakes with sprinkles and ,you guessed it, canycorn and pumpkins. Yet another sugar-overload, gotta love Halloween time! Tonight Junior took the boys to deliver them and they loved "spooking" their friends.
Today, Wednesday, some friends of ours invited us for a trainride a family in their neighborhood puts on. I have never seen anything like it. The front house is an average house, nothing eye catching. However, you look a little closer and you see there are minature train tracks laid out. We're talking permanent tracks. You walk around the corner and it's a slew of huge gorgeous homes. Apparently the parents (who live in the front house) owned a ton of land behind the house and owned a very successful contracting bussiness. As their kids married, they gave them some of the land and built them a house. The entire familiy lives there and share a pool, tennis court, volleyball court, soccerfield etc. The train tracks work their way around all the houses with little split off so it can go right up to each house. Every year for Halloween the do a haunted train ride and then Polar Express at Christmas. They go ALL out and open it to the public for free.
The boys loved it, Tavita kept asking to go back to the "pumpkin train", but were rather spooked by it at the same time. It's obvious they attract quite a crowd at times because you go through a series of tunnels and tents converted into little spook alleys with areas roped off as if you were waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland. Fortunately we got there before the crowds but the boys managed to get spooked enough. Brayde scares really easily, you can give him just about anything and his imagination will run with it.
We went through the first little tunnel where they had body bags and coffins. Brayden kind of held his breath and walked through choosing not to look at anything. There was a ghostly looking guy standing real still in a coffin and as people walked by he'd try and scare them. Since we had little kids he simply waved. Brayden picked up the pace a bit but Tavita just stopped and waved back. The guy busted up laughing.
We went into the next tent where it was just an open room with the whole zig-zag stand in line thing, except no one was inthere. They had a giant face projected on the wall and a booming voice (kind of like Wizard of Oz). The boys walked in the tent and just froze. I was videoing and tried asking Brayden what was going on. He was too scared to even acknowledge someone was talking to him. Junior told him we were going to have to walk through (note it was still daylight so the face was pretty faded, of all the things I didn't think it would scare the boys). Brayden started walking very hesitantly and when he got to the first turn in the zig-zag, right next to the face) he bolted. We're talking sprinting faster then I knew a 4-year old could run. He ran up and down each zig-zag, pushed his way through the people standing at the exit and kept going. The poor kid was running for his life. Junior had to go after him and bring him back.
Tavita finally got his scare when we were getting to board the train. They had a light show with the intro to "Nightmare Before Christmas" and a flashing jack-o-lantern telling the story. Again, I didn't think it would scare the kids. A lot of the other kids weren't paying attention. All the sudden I hear a wail of "Mommy" Tavita jumped out of his chair and ran to me. I tried telling him it was okay. He pointed to the jack-o-lantern and said, "no, that's not okay." Brayden was so proud he wasn't scared. Funny how somethings that terrify some kids my boys don't blink at but then they are petrified of other things.
In the end the train ride was just spooky enough to make them squeal but not terrify them. It was a lot of fun and I thought it was great the family put on such a fun thing for the community.
The guy who tried to scare Tavita and got a wave in return, out walking about.


The train going past the front house (It's far but we were getting back in the car and thought we'd grab a quick shot between all the cars going by)

I'm glad Halloween provides for so many fun activities while we hide in our houses from the weather outside (it snowed today).

1st foods and my 3 girls???

So I've been lazy and even though Kalei is nearing 5 months I just started her on solids last Wednesday. Neither of my boys would have anything to do with rice cereal, it would come out of their mouths as fast as I put it in. For that reason, we always use poi as a first food for our kids. It's great because it has more sustance to it than rice cereal but it's more basic with no known allergies. So in following suit tasteless, glue-like poi was Kalei's first food. Just like her brothers she LOVED it! I couldn't believe how much she ate, I almost couldn't give it to her fast enough. We're going to have another poi baby on our hands (aka, she's gonna be huge they call the stuff natural steroids) We've added in banana (doesn't care for it too much I think it's too sweet) and apple. She's so cute to watch eat because she always wants her own spoon to "eat" with. She does an excellent job of painting her face before she gets it in her mouth but hey, at least she's attempting to feed herself!

She got sick of waiting for her food.

So you all know this adorable, beautiful girl.


But have you met my other two daughters???

May I present to you Brandy and Talitha!

The other night I was going through a box of girl clothes my aunt had given me. I pulled out a dress and got this impulse to stick it out Tavita. I decided to complete the ensemble with a headband. We could not stop laughing and Tavita was thoroughly enjoying it!
Tavita struttin his stuff


Brayden desperately wanted to join in the fun. He was non-stop laughing and enjoyed being goofy. Should I be concerned my boys enjoy cross-dressing so much?


Kalei's new favorits spot

Tavita and his "sticky poptick"

We were getting ready to go out for the night and the boys knew that meant a fun night with Grandma. Tavita had been eyeing the carmel corn I made all day long and as soon as we said it was movie time he squealed and ran. When he returned he had the bowl and was beaming.
The boy's pet snake

Man, Tavita was heartbroken when we had them let it go a few days later. We explained to him we had to let it go to get food and find his family. He'll randomly say, "snake went bye-bye. Find his dad". It was sooo sad to watch.