Thursday, 09 July 2009

• Birthday, back-to-school and other randomness...

  I suck.  I've completely lost the blogging knack.  And I miss it!  I realize I'm taking less pictures, too, and I've got to get back in gear. I have taken pics of a few fun things lately, so thought I'd get motivated and share.  I'll go backwards, most recent stuff first.
  
  Yesterday was Willy's 34th birthday.  We were referring to it as "old plus four" but I don't think we want to acknowledge or believe that 30 is old any more.  So "old minus six" it is.  Willy recently had to get a new monitor and his Zune mp3 player went kaput so we had to replace that last week too.  So unfortunately those things took the excitement out of birthday gift giving, so I had to come up with something else.  I turned to my online friends and over 50 of them showered Willy with birthday wishes via email.  I think he started the day baffled, and moved on to eye-rolling as they kept pouring in.  But I do think in the end he was pleased to have so many people take a sec to wish him a happy day.  He opened and read every email (with me playing commentator and explaining who all the people were.)  Thanks to my friends who played along.  The kids and I gave him cards (The kids card had fart joke after fart joke... I'm not sure who appreciated it more:  Willy?  or the boys?)  We did get Willy a gag gift last week when we went to Bishop museum to see the Backyard Monsters insect exhibit.  And when I say "gag" gift I really do mean GAG.  The kids picked out a little box of Larvettes, Mexican Spice flavored larvae!  Willy, lunatic good sport that he is actually ate one.  He said it was fine at first while it was still dry and crispy but once he rehydrated it in his mouth it turned to major yuck.  Thank goodness for a Coke Zero chaser, and some pineapple cake with strawberries, bananas and real whip cream to evict the bug taste from his mouth.  (I made real whip cream for the first time!  Why oh why oh why in the world have I been using Cool Whip??  I could have literally eaten the whole bowl of whip cream last night.  I refrained.  It was HARD.)
  
   
  
  
  Yesterday was a big day for the big boys too.  Ben and Brady finished their 2008-2009 school year on June 23rd.  We enjoyed a whirlwind, whopping two week "summer break" and they started their 2009-10 school year yesterday!  They were both really happy when they got home from school which makes my heart so happy.  Last year was a bit rough.  Even though we moved into this house at the beginning of August, they'd missed the first several weeks of school and just had a really rough start to their school year and school experience here.  I'm so thrilled that they were both happy with their teachers and classmates yesterday.  Hopefully they'll come home equally as enthused today and we'll be off to a truly good start.  Ben is a Junior Police Officer (JPO) working in traffic (crosswalk) this year again.  He was promoted to Sergeant and he really, really enjoys the experience and responsibility.  He was wearing his JPO shirt for the first day of school. Makes for some bright first day pics.  He had to leave early for JPO duty so I was lucky to get this one quick shot of him before he left.  (There was some serious eye-rolling going on, too, but he obliged.)  And poor Brady's got a backpack so heavy that he actually had to lean to balance!  Ben is in SIXTH (*gasp* *sputter* *sigh*) grade this year (which is still in Elementary thank goodness) and Brady is in THIRD!!  He just seems too little still to be in third grade already.  I can't believe I've got a 6th and 3rd grader.  Ugh. 
  
   
  
  Going backwards... no great pics from the Fourth of July, although we did have a nice relaxing day.  Willy had gone on a 10 mile hike to the highest peak on O'ahu the day before and he could barely walk on Saturday (LOL) so we just stayed at home until fireworks time and then drove to a place where we could see a good show.  When we got home the Pearl Harbor fireworks display was going on and we could see it really well from the end of our road so now we know for next year... no need to go anywhere unless we want to be up close and personal with the fireworks).  Even cooler in the night sky was the International Space Station that we saw cross the sky on Sunday night.  It was amazing to see.
  
  Okay going clear back to June now (whoops...) Toby had his 4th birthday on June 20th!  He felt like a little king all day.  He's so happy to be 4 like his best friend hehehe.  He got some games and Mega Blocks for his birthday and he also got his first BIKE!  He's so excited about it.  He rides it everywhere (with training wheels, but I predict he'll be an early two-wheel rider!) and just loves it.  He asked for chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (Mama was all too happy to oblige.)  A couple days later, since the boys were on "summer break" I took all the kids to an ice cream parlor for lunch and Toby got the royal treatment there.  We were sitting right next to the bell/whistle/siren and it was SO loud.  The boys covered their ears.  Molly wailed.  But Toby loved having the servers sing to him, so it was fun  fun fun.  I tried really hard to make his birthday special.  He was feeling blue that Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and Papa weren't here for his birthday.  He keeps hearing about them all coming in October at the time of Ben and Brady's birthdays so I think he was expecting them here for his.  Poor kid.  These are the kind of times that being far from family is the hardest.
  
  Toby in his "4" shirt from Sara at SewSara.  Toby LOVES his special shirt!
  
  
  
  
  And I certainly can't give you a blog update without pics of the Little Princess.  But like I said... I haven't been taking pictures very often lately (maybe I'm sick?!) so I don't have much to choose from.  I LOVE her in this little flouncy cherry outfit so I snapped some shots of her the other day.  I promise to get more pics of her this week because she's changing SO much right now.  Her hair is suddenly growing and has this lovely curl in the back (but still straight on top... hopefully it will make up it's mind one way or the other).  She has 9 teeth now, runs and tackles with her big brothers, still not talking (other than mama, daddy, turtle and booboo) but definitely babbling more.  She also signs please and thank you which I think is downright adorable.  I'm trying desperately to wean her from breastfeeding but for a little girl who was stubborn about nursing in the beginning and made my life such painful hell... she's now a stubborn girl about stopping nursing (and is kind of making my life a painful hell LOL).  I'm ready to be done.  I'm experiencing something pretty special though which is making it tricky to wean Molly.  My best friend here just adopted a newborn baby boy and I've been able to pump some breastmilk for him to have and hopefully help boost his little immune system here in the beginning.  I don't have an ample enough supply for him to be exclusively breastfed, but we figure every little bit counts, so I've been pumping as often as possible for him.  But I think the increase in my supply from the increased demand is making Molly want it even more.  So it's proving VERY tricky to 1) wean her and 2) end up with much for the baby.  And honestly, as much as I'm ready to wean, I'm not quite ready to be done with this stage of my life.  This is my last baby.  My last experience with breastfeeding which has been such a special thing for me.  It makes me feel like superwoman.  Little else does that, so I hold on to it with fond feelings.  Anyway, I'm rambling.  Here's my little princess, growing up so fast.
  
  
  
  Here's hoping I can get back in a blogging groove.  I dread thinking of putting together my kids' scrapbooks at the end of the year and not having my blog to go back and pull stories from!  Encourage me, pretty please!
  
  
  

  • 10:01 AM
  • 63 Views
  • 10 eProps
  • 11 Comments