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!