Brayden turns 7!!!

Will someone please tell me when I became old enough to have a 7 year old! I keep telling him to slow down and he won't. He is very quickly gaining on me as far as height goes and I'm pretty sure he already has in strength. It's a good thing he's such a good kid because I don't think I could physically make him do anything! Brayden is my right hand man! I can count on him to help me with just about anything around the house. He full on taught himself how to change Taiven's diaper and has done so on many occasions. I'm not just talking about wet ones either. One day (while still in Utah so Taiven was still very little) Brayden came down with a dirty diaper in hand to take out to the trash. I asked him where he got in from and he nonchalantly replied "I just changed Taiven's diaper" I ran upstairs expecting a mess but there lay Taiven clean, diapered and happy as a clam!

Brayden is a wonderful friend to all and very quick to make people feel comfortable around him. He views everyone as a lifelong friend and magically skips the "we just met, not sure how to act around each other" phase and goes straight into the running around screaming, having the time of their life phase.

Brayden tries very hard in school and his teachers love having him in class. Last week he was Table Captain in his class and this week he was Teachers Helper. He took both roles very seriously and loved every minute of it!

For his birthday dinner he chose to go to Organ Stop Pizza. We of course forgot our camera and my phone so we had no way of taking any pictures. The kids absolutely loved it though and had a great time get down to the music as it blasted from all around them.

Brayden has been saying he wants to learn more sports and spend more time playing with us. So for his birthday we got him some sporting equipment and a promise of many family trips to the park to put them to use (if only it would cool down enough to do so! We have had some fun batting practice in our backyard though). Junior also took him for a special date to Gameworks, the ultimate arcade experience. Our little gamer of a 7 year old was in absolute heaven!

Brayden was a little worried for his birthday this year as his birthday was on the 1st day of school and there aren't too many kids in the ward. He was worried he wouldn't have anyone to invite to his party. In the end we had a great group of kids and Brayden declared it was one of his best birthday's ever!

He specifically chose for us to make this cake because he wanted an excuse to by Megatron and Optimus Prime! He sat there drooling over them for 2 weeks until the big day finally came to open them, then he just stared at his cake dying to rip them off and play with them

We did let him arrange them in battle mode.

As his friend first arrived the practiced transforming by transforming eachother into mummies.

Then they had to knock over the decepticons, but the decepticons had immobilized their arms so the could only fight with their heads.

Next they had to fish through the murky waters, find their color energon crystal, run and sit on it in order to absorb the energy.

Some were a little put out to have this dainty, very unrushed tranformer on their team!

Everyone ran their hardest and absorbed a lot of energy.

Next they had to battle through several decepticons to ice Megatron in order to ensure he stayed frozen at the bottom of Hoover dam. First they had to take out some deceptions in car form. They had to limbo under lasers (streams of water) the decepticons were shooting at them. Then they had to bomb barricade. Grab the ice, slip and slide to the Hoover Dam and freeze Megatron. I sat back and watched the 100 water balloons I rubbed my finger raw tying disappear in 3 minutes flat! Oh well!

They had to complete their final mission by taking the Matrix back from the deceptions, After a long journey they were elated to finally find the matirx but then dumbfounded as to how they would ever get it down.

They put their heads together, used some teamwork and got it down. Inside they found energon crystals to keep around their necks for sustained energy and robot arms to make them true robots. Here's most of the party crew with their crystals and arms!

We didn't get very good pictures because it was a little chaotic, but each of the kids made their own pizzas. We had some very creative pizzas.

While the pizza baked, we sang happy birthday to Optimus Prime

While the pizza baked, we sang Happy Birthday to Optimus Prime

He transformed into Brayden so he could blow the candles out

 We also opened presents. Man did these guys know Brayden well. He was in Transformer/Lego heaven!

Then the kids gorged themselves on pizza, watermelon. soda, and cake while watching the original Transformer cartoons. And as always, just as the sugar rush kicked in we sent them home to their parents (at 8 o'clock at night and a dare to any parent to get their kid to actually go to sleep!)

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All about Brayden:

Height: 4 ft 3 inches (95th %)

Weight: 61lbs 95th%)

What is your favorite color? red

What is your favorite toy? legos
What is your favorite fruit? strawberries
What is your favorite tv show? Transformers
What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Mac and Cheese
What is your favorite game? Transformers
What is your favorite snack? green smoothies
What is your favorite animal? Cheetah
What is your favorite song? This is Halloween
What is your favorite book? Chronicles of Narnia
Who is your best friend? Colton Andreas, Isaiah Fa, Carson Shorts, Jeremy Hall
What is your favorite cereal? Captain Crunch
What is your favorite thing to do outside? Swing
What is your favorite drink? Root Beer
What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
What do you like to take to bed with you at night? My cheetah
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Soaked Oatmeal Squares
What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Chicken and Rice
What do you want to be when you grow up? Palentologist




Taiven turns 4 months!

In some ways I can't believe 4 months (well, as of yesterday it's been 5 months) have already flown by since our sweet Taiven has joined our family. Yet, in others it seems ages ago that all the events surrounding his birth occured. Taiven is still our very gentle, giggle bug. As I said earlier, we couldn't ask for a more easy going baby. Taiven loves to socialize and be in the thick of things. He loves his Eeyore and elephant that he hangs out with in his crib. His favorite toy is a blue phone rattle that has been the favorite for all of our kids. It's so simple yet every baby loves it! He loves to sing and dance (well when people move his arms to the music), Popcorn Popping is his favorite. No one gets him laughing like his daddy can. He gives a full body smile whenever Daddy walks in the door from work.
Here are his 4 month stats:
Height: 26 1/4 inches
Weight: 16 lbs 8 oz
Compared to his 2 months stats:
Height: 23 1/2 inches
Weight 12lbs 1 oz
And his birth:
Height: 18 inches
Weight: 7lbs 8 oz
He's moving right along. We love our chunky bundle of joy!

Tavita Turns 5!!!

Ok, another post I started back in April. I'm too lazy to do any updating so I'm just adding a slew of pictures.
In this midst of all the chaos of Taiven's arrival, Tavita patiently sat and waited for his birthday. He was very understanding about Taiven not being born on his birthday and about having to postpone his party a few days. Anyone that knows Tavita, knows that he is born to party! He starts planning his parties waaaay in advance (I think he has themes picked for all his birthdays until he hits 9). And the crazy thing is he sticks to them, never changes. It's nice because I know I can start collecting things here and there a year in advance, rather than having to wait until a week or two before because the theme of the party will change 10 times before then. Anyway, his theme for this year was pirates and boy was he excited for it. This year was a lot of fun because I involved him in a lot of the planning/making the decorations. Postponing the party actually was a good thing because then he got to have the party on his actual birthday (April 4th).
Few Facts about our big 5 year old:
 Height:  3ft 9 in
Weight: 41 lbs
What is your favorite color? red
What is your favorite toy? my guns
What is your favorite fruit? mango
What is your favorite tv show? He-man
What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? egg drop soup, hot pockets and saimin noodles (can you tell we've been minimizing all cooking the past while prepping for a move!)
What is your favorite game? soccer
What is your favorite snack? apple
What is your favorite animal? black cheetas
What is your favorite song? Anything Michael Jackson esp Thriller
What is your favorite book? We have too many for me to pick a favorite
Who is your best friend? Carson Shorts, Jeremy Hall, Conrad Bigelow and Zachary Simmons
What is your favorite cereal? Captain Crunch
What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play Games and play with Bowzer
What is your favorite drink? Juice
What is your favorite holiday? Halloween
What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Jesus Christ picture and my blue blanket
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Hootenany and waffles
What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Mango and waffles
What do you want to be when you grow up? a police officer
Tavita is truly a special little boy that belongs in our family. He makes me laugh everyday. His laugh and smile melt my heart. He has an imagination that is bigger then life itself. He can occupy himself for hours creating, building, coloring etc. He loves to set up carnivals, towns, villages, caves, you name it. He truly can be entertained for hours with a plain cardboard box. One of his latest things is "watching movies" while he sleeps. The other day my mom caught him out of bed. She told him he needed to get in bed and go to sleep. He replied with, "Ok, yeah I better go watch my movie now." When my mom inquired further he said, "Everynight I watch a movie, I just close my eyes and I can see the movie. I can't hear it but I can see it." A few days ago my brother asked him what he dreamed about the night before and he replied with, "I didn't have a dream, I just watched my movies all night." He has such a free-loving, easy-going spirit that I hope he clings to as adulthood and reality encroaches on him. He's not one to show too much emotion, though he's getting more and more open. He puts off that he doesn't like attention, but in reality he loves being in the thick of things and surrounded by people. He has a fierce love and loyalty for his family members, even his sister. It is definitely one of those relationships where only he's allowed to bully his sister, anyone else does, and they have him to answer to. He loves his new baby brother and gets really bothered if he cries. He begs me to stop whatever I'm doing and go take care of Taiven if he is at all fussy. I love my little curious george more than words. Happy Birthday Mr. T!
Tavita had an extra special birthday this year. He had a TON of family in town. We were blessed to have some of Junior's family in from Aussie for a long awaited trip. They were troopers coming in the middle of our lives completely upside down. Between the move and Taiven making a slightly early arrival I'm afraid we weren't the best of hosts but Tavita thought it was great they were there for his birthday. Grandma and Grandpa were also in town to meet Taiven. We were quite a party with just our family, add the friends on top and it was quite the blowout. For selfish reason I was very grateful for all the helping hands. If it wasn't for all of them there's no way we could've had such a fun party as I was freshly postpartum and pretty useless. So THANK YOU THANK YOU to all of our family and dear "Sister Beazy" (who has stepped in for every one of my kids parties! reason #147 why I'm going ot miss her so much!)

Tavita's well planned out cake, the kid is quite the planner and expects every detail he imagines to be included. With the help of my mom and Rach, I think we got it all on there!

 As the kids arrived they recieved their facial hair and tatoos, the 1st step to becoming a pirate!

 The captian ready to head up his motley crew!

 The then learned to talk like a pirate. Here's all the pirates halfway through their training!

 A pirate wouldn't be a pirate without an eyepatch!

 Unfortunately Tavita struggled a little with this portion of the training!

 And others did as well!

 They then recieved pirate names and played various pirate games to help them learn pirate ways.

 Next, they learned how to attack other pirate ships with cannonballs (This was Tavita's and my project we did right before I had Taiven. He was very proud of it)

 The baby holders enjoying the party for a quiter, safer vantage point.

 Finally the pirates were just about ready so Captain Tavita enlisted them all to help find the treasure!

 This young squashbuckler was particularly attentive.

 They searched high and low, went through a treacherous forest,

 scaled mountains

 and at last found their swords, bandanas, eye patches and everything else any self respecting pirate would have! Unfortunately for Tyler, they decided he was an enemy pirate...

 They didn't relent...

 He tried to defend himself...

 But alas, they conquered!

 Then all chaos broke loose and it was every pirate for themsleves.

 Everynow and then they'd take a break and pilfer through the treasure chest for their share of the loot.

Captain Tavita in front of his Jolly Roger (artwork done by him!)

 The crew became hungry so it was off to the galley for a feed.

 The wind helped him blow all his candles out in one breath!

 The captian decided he could down the entire ship single handedly!

 When asked what snacks Tavita wanted at his party his reply was "carrots, mango and pineapple" Brayden convinced him to add chips as well. The chips were devoured. Us adults enjoyed the fruits and veggies!

Taiven's Blessing

Here's a post I started clear back in April but never got the pictures up. So there's some here from April and some I'm adding today.
So like much of Taiven's life thus far, his blessing day was a scene of beautiful chaos! We had originally planned to bless him Easter Sunday along with my brother's son Ryder who is 6 weeks older than Taiven. However, our bishop called to discuss final plans for the blessing and heard Junior had a bunch of family in town. He told Junior, "It's a rare thing for you to have all this family around, why don't we bless him tomorrow."
"Tomorrow" just so happened to be Taivta's birthday with a huge pirate party planned. Also meant that Taiven would be a whopping 1 week old. Sounds like the perfect recipe for a nice, spiritual event. We  also weren't sure who all from Junior's family would actually be there that evening so we told Bishop Black we would get back to him. Junior's brother Andrew wound up driving up to Utah for the day so we decidedit was too good of a chance to miss. We made plans at 1:00 to have the blessing at 5:30 (about 1/2 hour after Tavita's party ended), plenty of time to prepare! Since none of Junior's family knew there was going to be a blessing none of them had church clothes with them. They were all champs about it and we really appreciate them willing to fulfill their preisthood duties even in crazy circumstances. It truly was wonderful to be able to have all of them in attendance for the blessing as we don't get to see them NEARLY as much as we wish we could. We didn't even call to invite any friends over. The thought to do that came after the blessing was finished! Sorry, know that we wish all of you were there.
Despite the chaos that was swiriling around us that day, ahh lets be honest, that week month past several months, it was a very beautiful blessing. At first Junior accidently gave him the name of Tavita Lealofi, to which Tavita quickly looked up rather panicked thinking his name was being given away. The 2nd try went more smoothly and Taiven Lealofi Shum was given a wonderful blessing with many great promises. I have it recorded in my journal but one thing I wanted to share was his promise of being a friend to all and a calming influence where ever he goes. This has already proven to be very true. He is the most easy going, smily baby in existince! I swear it, I dare you to find a challenger! He has been a great blessing from our Heavenly Father to help us get through the craziness of the move and trying to settle into a new place. He is so content, and happy to sit and watch the world go round. He lets me know he is hungry, in need of a change etc. then sits and quietly waits until I'm able to get to it (so quietly that I have to make a concious effort to to make him wait too long!). He is quick to smile and freely shares his deep belly laugh! Makes the darkest of days bright!

Our handsome little guy!

 Proud Daddy and Mommy

 Thought we'd through a few pirates in to complete the picture!

 Grandma and Grandpa with Grandbaby #7!

 Thanks again Bishop Black for letting us do this so last minute!

 Junior P. looked styling! Don't worry Bishop, we won't show anyone!

 How can you not feel safe wiht this crowd surrounding you!

 After, Uncle Tyler gave rides to a group of eager kiddos!

 The birthday boy out for a ride!

 We LOVED having everyone in town to visit. Sadly they had to leave immediately after the blessing. Very much lookin gofrward to our next reunion, hopefully next time it'll go a little more smoothly!