Tavita is 4!!!

It does not seem like 4 years ago I brought my little Curious George home from the hospital. I'm always amazed as to how fast time flies. However, despite my protests, time continues to march on and my babies keep getting older.
Tavita actually turned 4 on the 4th buy I'm just a good mom like that and am just now getting around to posting (my excuse is that I HATE blogger and the headache it is to upload pictures. however, since I use this as our family journal, I really should be better about it.)
Anyway, here is everything you could want to know about our little Vita...
Height: 39 3/4"
Weight: 36lbs
Why he's most excited to be 4: I'm going to Disneyland and since I ate my vegetables I'm tall enough to go on Tower of Terror (height limit- 40 in) And yes, the two rides he's most excited for is Haunted Mansion and Tower of Terror. You'll understand why the more you read.
Past Times: working on stuff (LOVES to have tools in hand doing something and chores (ha, how I wish)
Animal: Tiger
Book:Secrets of Droon (see previous post)
Best Friends:Brayden, CArson, Rory&James, Hall Kids and Sister Beasley
Toy: Hulk and Bow and Arrows
Restaurant: "The party place" aka Brick Oven where we take them for their special birthday date with mom and dad and Chuck E Cheese
Song: My Halloween Music
Movie: "The Disneyland movie" (the little promo video they send you in hopes you'll come to visit) and Tarzan
Holiday: Halloween (the kid seriously celebrates it year-round
Food: Watermelon, Oranges, popcorn, cherries, cereals (fav is GrapeNuts no joke), corn and carrots
Tavita is truly a one of a kind kid. He finds joy in the smallest thing and is perfectly content doing his own thing for hours. He loves to explore and is curious about EVERYTHING. He is often a very quiet kid around new people but will talk your ear off. Half the time he doesn't seem aware of what's going on but then will bust out some of the funniest things ever. Although he's not a very emotional kid he does some of the sweetest most thoughtful things. If you're laying there he'll come and cover you with a blanket. If someone is upset over something, he tries to think of a way to make things better. I am so grateful to be this little boy's mother!
A little over a year ago the 11-year old scouts were playing on our (very cheap) tire swing and the thin little rope snapped and sent them flying. Tavita has missed that tire swing dearly so for his birthday Junior built him one that is sure to last the ages (even bought orange chains to remember his Halloween birthday. Don't know why this is the best picture I have of him on it but with the few nice days we've had it has been the hit of the neighborhood. Tavita sits on it all the time, whether swinging or enjoying a snack.

Tavita really wanted a hot dog BBQ for his birthday but the weather wasn't too cooperative. So we grilled outside and had an indoor picnic. He was good with it, especially since it included watermelon (though the rest of us didn't consider it to even be edible)

Everytime someone sang Happy Birthday to him he'd just stand there and tap his foot to the music.

He was very good about letting his siblings help him unwrap his presents. He really wanted golf clubs for his birthday. The only ones I can ever find are those really cheapy plastic ones that break in a week. We decided to go to the thrift store and buy the real deal since they'd never break. BAD IDEA!!! I have a heart attack every time I watch him swing those suckers around with kids running by.

Lastly he got the kite he'd been eying for a few months. Now we just need a windy, nonrainy, day to giver it a whirl.

The Saturday after his birthday we had his LONG awaited Halloween party. The kid seriously started planning this sucker in September. Tavita is Halloween obsessed; dances to his Halloween cd on a regular basis, wears his halloween pants and shirt weekly, and loves all things spooky (as long as its not too gruesome). Luckily for me he did start planning in September because the day after Halloween I went out and stocked up.
Here is his halloween cake complete with all the details he wanted: haunted mansion, a spooky tree, Jack Skellington (just a very obese version of him), a witch, gravestones, Frankenstien, "5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate (take a look at the fence, there are 5 pumpkins scattered on them), zombie hands coming out of a grave, a zombie (that's the bright green character on the mansion done by the birthday boy himself), a black cat, and a swamp with alligators in it (converted into a moat)

A little not about the "spooky tree". I totally overworked the fondant so had to hotglue it together. As I was doing so I got a great idea to cover the tree with a spider web from the strings of the hot glue. I carefully wove a spider web all over the tree thinking for sure I'd earn some mom points. He woke up the next morning, came down to look at all the fondant characters and came up quite upset.
"WHY did you put glue all over the spooky tree???"
"Isn't it cool, now it looks extra spooky."
"How are my friends going to eat it with glue everywhere???"
"Well, there's a lot of other parts of the cake, I thought they'd be ok skipping over that one part."
"I didn't need a spider web, just a spooky tree..."
And so the conversation continued. Luckily the party police forgave me and he was very excited and proud of his cake. He did help put a lot of it together and loved doing it.

When the kids first showed up to the party, the gatehred around the cake forever looking at different parts, laying claim on what part they were going to eat. They then moved on to gawk at the Witch's Brew. We had made an ice ring with gummy alligators in it and put it in a green punch. I thought with a little dry ice smoking it up it'd be killer.
I learned a little something that day. Apparently you don't combine regular ice with dry ice. The react to each other with quite a display. It smoked like crazy (the picture does not do it justice) and was bubbling all over the place. The kids were terrified of drinking it. Luckily by the time we went to drink it, all had calmed down (the reactions causes both forms of ice to melt VERY quickly)


The Jack-o-lantern cheeseball Tavita picked out of a book (seriously think this kid is going to be an event planner with all the details he worked out)

The first activity was to make "Ghost Pops". However, I don't think a single on of those ghost pops made it home. I'm sure the parents wondered why I put crumbled up tissues in their kids party bags.

Next we moved on to "Mixed Match Pumpkin Smash" I wasn't sure how much the kids would enjoy this game but it was a total hit. They had a blast making all kinds of funny faces on the pumpkins.


Next was the long-awaited game of "Zombie Attack". Brayden and Tavita had been talking about playing this game for weeks and were so excited when the day arrived. Don't know if many of you are familiar with the computer game "Plants vs Zombies". It's the only computer game we have and my boys LOVE it. I blew up some of the zombies from the game and we taped them to soda bottles. They slowly advanced towards the kids while they tried knocking them down with beanbags and balls before they came and "ate their brains" We even did a lightning and fog level with the help of a strobe light and fog machine.
The kids getting ready for the zombie onslaught

The zombies slowly advancing forwards. I don't think there was a need to plan anything else but this game. Those poor zombies took a serious beating.

We attempted to do a doughnut from a string eating contest (don't know why I think of that game when I think Halloween)
Started out by asking the kids who liked doughnuts. It was unanimous.

However, dangling a doughnut in front of the noses of 3-5 year olds and telling them they can't use their hands is sheer torture. One girl was in tears. I felt horrible. Kalei thought the game was for the birds and took matters into her own hands.

I told the rest of the kids to follow suit.

In the end, there were smiles all around.

Next it was time to sing Happy Birthday. Since he was sitting, Tavita tapped his hand instead of his foot.

Blowing out the candles

I honestly thought all the fondant figures would be tossed into the trash because fondant is NASTY. Such was not the case. Everyone laid claim to different figures and the chomped right through them. Here's Tavita after taking a HUGE bite out of his ghost. Made me slightly sick to my stomach watching them go to town.

Next it was on to present time

Each kid had to help Tavita open the present the gave him. They were so excited to give it to him, they couldn't sit still.

Next, had to change plans due to weather, and we went trick or treating indoors. Luckily no fingers or toes were crushed as kids ran up and down stairs knocking on doors gathering treats.

The favorite prize was by far the teeth. There were vampires running around everywhere.
We had sweet vampires

scary ones

And ones that weren't quite sure what they were but thought they were a lot of fun

All in all everyone had a blast. I try not to think of the vast amounts of sugar that was inhaled in the two hours they were there. I sent all kids home with a warning label so parents knew why their kids were hanging form the ceiling fans.

A little something to end with. This was the remains of a lovely snowstorm we awoke to the day before Tavita's birthday.
Kalei getting ready for a Winter frolic in Spring

A cute little snow angel

Brayden taking Tavita on a sleigh ride

Sliding down the hill

Collision with the black beast

Total wipeout!

We've had a small handful of "warm" days but are still waiting for Spring to come and stay. Until then, happy Winter to you all!

This and That

So, no particular topic to this post. Just thought I'd throw up some pics of what's been happening in the Shum household.
Spring is finally starting to show it's pretty little face. For those of you that know me at all know that I pretty much hibernate during the winter. I'll take the kids on occasional outings (story time at the library etc) but other than that my poor kids are cooped up inside. In some ways it's fun because it forces us to be a little creative and find fun things to do in the house. However, once Spring hits I become a whole new person. I LOVE seeing everything come into bloom and life slowly creep back into the world. I especially love that my house (actually the yard) fills with countless little ones from all over the neighborhood running around getting dirty, skinning knees, being imaginative and doing all the other things that shapes you as a child. Some of the more popular games so far this year have been Ghostbusters (continuation from last year, backpack, little bats or another long round object, and blocks (aka traps) are all that's needed for this one), Poison Dog (Bowzer is poison and if he touches you, you become poison and have to help poison everyone else. Once everyone becomes poison that the end, move on to the next game. A bit anticlimactic but they love it) and Rabbit trap (something involving a clothes stealing rabbit and leaving boxes of clothes for him or something, haven't quite caught on to that one but they love it!
While the kids run amuck Junior and I spend our time trying to get the yard back in shape (it's amazing how many leaves we have each spring even after spending hours during the fall bagging them up). My one issue with Spring is that at times it slaps you in the face. For instance this past Thurs, Fri and Sat were BEAUTIFUL!!! Even crept up to the 70s! We were LOVING IT! Shorts and t-shirts came out, even had a few water gun fights. However, on Sunday, we awoke to snow. Not just a little, A LOT, and there's not much of a break in sight!
Anyway, long story short, Spring is here which means life is being breathed back into our household. This makes for a happy momma, happy kids, and the return of daily baths (sometimes, they could use 2 or three a day)
Let's begin with this cheesehead!

This girl keeps me on my toes to say the least. I feel like I spend all day running after her cleaning up one mess on top of the other. She can't be told what to do for anything. The girl has an impenetrable stubborn streak. She's my first bully I've had to work with. When the boys went to nursery the teachers would always tell me how passive they were. If another kid hit them, or took a toy from them etc, they never cried but they never reacted. They would just look at the kid as if he/she were annoying then move on to the next thing. The other day the teacher (who just happens to live in our basement aka my cousin's wife) told me the "bully" of the group was going around pushing all the kids down resulting in a lot of crying. He decided it was Kalei's turn, walked over and pushed her down. She got a furious look on her face, stood up and popped him one square in the face, sending him running and crying. Now I'm not gonna lie, that one made me kinda proud. However, when I see her go up to her brothers or other kids and start pushing, scratching, hitting to get what she wants it worries me. She knows what she wants and nothing can get in her way.
She's not even two and I'm already having a hard time finding "safe places" to put things. With the help of a chair (which she moves around like a pro), some climbing skills, and a lot of will, she can get into ANYTHING!
She also likes to go on napping hiatuses. She'll go days refusing to nap. Then she'll crash and burn, fall dead asleep in mid motion. This picture doesn't capture it but she was sleeping and eating at the same time.

When she does finally sleep, it's usually naked. We can't keep clothes on her for the life of us. Onesies, pants, taped diapers, footie pajamas with the zipper pinned to the pajamas, NOTHING is too much for her. More times then not, when we go in to check on her at night this is the sight we find.

However, she is a very neat girl. Always, cleans up after herself, even during her stripping sessions.

Kalei has been going through warm weather withdrawls since returning from Hawaii. Every time it's time to get dressed she pulls out her swimsuits. One day I couldn't find her and I found her stomping down the driveway, surrounded by snow, dressed like this. Yes, she has two tops on and no she doesn't have any bottoms on of any kind but at least she remembered the shoes.

The kids only get sugar cereal once a week, a day the look forward to with much anticipation. Kalei however does not like that rule. One day she got a bar stool, got the cereal of the top shelf of the pantry, got a bowl and poured herself some cereal!

Despite all her energy and trying of my patience I love this girl with every bit of my being. She's my little sidekick, always by my side (unless there's trouble to be had of course) and she gives the world's greatest hugs. Seriously, if you're ever having a bad day, come borrow her and she'll hug all the troubles and worries right out of you!

When we were in Hawaii, my parents gave us book series called "The Secrets of Droon". Their neighbors were getting rid of a bunch of stuff in anticipation of a move and my mom snagged the series. I've never heard of it but there 25-30 books and Brayden LOVES them. We're currently on book #13 and Brayden eats up every word. He'll spend forever just looking through the books, trying to use the occasional picture to figure out what's going on.

On St. Patty's day the leprechauns had the nerve to tie the boys in their room (with enough room to get out in case of a fire of course!). No they weren't just waking up, both were just caught midblink


Once Kalei discovered there was "gold" aka gold wrapped candy on the ground, she plopped down and started going to town

The boys tried to climb over the mess left behind by the leprechauns and collect all the gold.

Then in a very resourceful way, made use of the mess.

Later that day, we headed to a neighbors house for a killer St. Patty's day party. We made leprechauns hats, ate a delicious lunch of everything green you can imagine (lime smoothies, sandwhiches with green lettuce, it's the best we could come up with, sugar snap peas, guacamole, green rice krispy treats, celery etc) and made leprechaun traps in hopes of catching one next year.


Thanks for the great party Halls! My kids are already asking when is "leprechauns day" again.

Brayden and Tavita had a big day a few weeks ago. They advanced from White belt to Orange belt. They have really been looking forward to this day since they were the only two white belts in the class (they started after everyone). They love being a higher rank and having the newbies stand lower in line then them.
Being the wonderful mother that I am forgot to charge the camera before we went so I only got a couple pictures before it died. We got it on video though!
"Present cards" aka taking role

JunBee (Korean for stand strong or something like that)

Demonstrating blocks

My little brother Tyler is going to BYU and we got to go watch him dance in the Maori section of the luau. He did a great job and the kids LOVED watching Uncle Tyler up on stage. Go to my family blog for more pictures and a video!


Well, that about catches me up. I have the past couple weeks still to download but we're getting there!