who done it?

Last night we had the kids from Jason's 9th grade class over for a murder mystery dinner. It had a luau theme and characters names like Joey Breakers, Chief Wiki-Wiki and Leilani...to name a few. The kids all brought the food...poi, kalua pig, poke, haupia pie and much, much more. I didn't get to stick around to see if they could figure out who did the crime (our friend Joel was the murder victim) because I had to retire early due to a head cold that was zapping all my energy. Although no one actually figured out who poisoned Chase Diamond, I heard much laughing all evening...fun memories.

happy birthday to me...

Has anyone ever asked you what your favorite day would look like if you got to plan it? Mine always consisted of some sort of pampering (mani/pedi or massage), having to not cook a single meal for myself (I don't mind cooking but it's nice to take a break every once in a while), not having to clean up anything or wash a single dish...nothing too outrageous, maybe a little selfish though. Well today for my birthday my husband surprised me with a day of pretty much all of that...and it's not even a big birthday year...just 33.
I woke up to breakfast already made for me because Jason decided to take the day off (which he never does) just so he could make my day special...this would be my "just got up" look. He then set up our computer so I could Skype my mom and sister while we all ate breakfast/lunch together...the tiara is from my mother...it's a family birthday thing. Jason then surprised me by getting a babysitter while I went and got a mani/pedi. Afterward Jason and I had a lunch date together...a real date...me and him! A teacher at Jason's school heard of his birthday surprise plan for me and offered to trade cars so we could go on our date in his convertible...can it get any better than that? Then I had Awanas with the boys and Jason stayed home to make my birthday dinner and cake. Can I just say I have an amazing husband? And then to top it off, I had our ladies Bible study at our house that night. We studied God's Word and had sweet fellowship.

So I got to spend my birthday with my family, kids, husband and friends. I feel loved and blessed. What a great day it was!

snort face

Not sure why kids go through this stage of scrunching up their faces and blowing in and out of their nose really fast...well maybe it's just my kids that do this. But it's almost like a developmental milestone for my kids. I remember when each of them went through this stage, and every time it makes us all laugh...which is maybe why Ansley does it all the time. It's definitely a sure way to get attention from everyone.

And just so you know that her face didn't get stuck like that, here's a picture with her bro Ethan...and a normal looking expression/smile.

hair cut

For those that wanted to see...here is my new hair cut. Actually all I cut was my bangs (the last time I had bangs was 1992)...and a few layers. The rest is the look of being "air" dried. In this heat the last thing I want to do is use a blow dryer...so this is my natural look.

what we've been up to...

I guess my 3 readers weren't as impressed by The Planet Song as we were but that's okay. I still get to hear the song about a dozen times a day (per request of my boys) and even Jude is singing it to himself as well. It's kind of a catchy 80's, techno sounding melody.

Anyhow, I thought I would give a run down of what we've been up to since I have absolutely no pictures on my camera right now...a first for me. This has been quite the busy week for us but we've managed to make it to Wednesday and we're still plugging along. Thankfully this busy-ness is not the norm for us but just happened to be that way this week.

• The boys started Awana this week. Jude is now in Cubbies (3 and 4 year olds) and I am a helper in his class. Thankfully all I have to do is hand out snacks. Ansley gets to hang out in the nursery and apparently she was trying to eat everyones Cheerios...we really do feed her, I promise.


• I am planning a tea for the ladies in our church for this Sunday and am actually really excited about it. Just trying not to go overboard and get overwhelmed by all the planning. Scones, tea cups, tea sandwiches, linens, lemon curd, oh my!


• Ansley has gotten herself into quite a few predicaments lately....she is the type of baby that all those baby proofing gadgets were invented for.


• I cut my hair...again. I gave myself bangs. You would think I would have learned by now not to make major hair decisions at night when there are no salons open to fix what I have done. At least it grows back.


• Jason and I are planning a murder mystery dinner at our house for the 9th graders at his school. It's called Lethal Luau and should be an interesting night.


• I have been sewing a lot lately...4 bear orders, 2 bags, and a book holder project for our friends the "Caw-wins" and a t-shirt quilt for Jason (my friend Jess made one for her hubby...so I'm copying her idea).


• We're plugging along in school with Ethan and we've seemed to find a good schedule that works around Ansley's naps. Jude has his little activity books and projects to work on, so that he feels a part of things.


• Jason is almost done with his Greek class for seminary. Yeah! 3 more classes to go and he will be done with his Masters.


• We're planning a planetarium visit this week to go along with our Astronomy study. We were looking at the Big Dipper in the sky the other night and we actually saw a shooting 'star'...which we had just talked about that day in science. Ethan turned to me and said with amazement, "mommy, we keep seeing things that we just learned about."


• We've finally found a food that Ansley has turned her nose up to...green beans. I felt bad that we kept feeding her spoonfuls just so we could laugh at her funny faces.


• We've had 3 different gatherings/dinners at our house in the past 5 days...it does wonders for keeping a clean house.


• I had to pay my first parking ticket (ever) today. Apparently my appeal didn't cause them to feel sorry for me and dismiss it....they made me pay it anyway.

Well if you made it this far, good job. Probably a little too much information but it was fun to think back over the past week and remember what we've been up to.

the planet song

As I had mentioned before we are doing Astronomy this year and right now we are learning about the planets in our Solar System. So I got on YouTube to find a planet song and this is what we found (by PaintedTrousers). The boys wanted to listen to it over and over again...and Pluto is still included because it's considered a dwarf planet. It's amazing how quickly kids can memorize and learn things that are put to song.

just a little geeky

You know how people say that homeschooled kids are a bit on the geeky/socially awkward side? I don't know what they are talking about. Isn't it normal to have kids dance this way to their states and capitals song?

And as far as the dance moves, I don't know whose side of the family that comes from. Tee, Hee.

1st day of school

Ethan is officially a 1st grader now. I can't believe my first born is a 1st grader already. We actually did a half day yesterday (yes it was a holiday) and did another half day today (since we had MOPS in the morning). So we're easing into it. I am super excited about the curriculum and Ethan is excited to be doing school again...I'm not exaggerating either. Ethan actually woke up Monday morning and said "Mommy, today is my first day of school!!!" as he jumped out of bed. Hopefully that will rub off on Jude because his personality isn't quite so enthusiastic about everything...except maybe when he gets a new train.

This year we will be doing the basics: math, phonics, grammar, handwriting. Then we will do a bit of astronomy (which we learned comes from aster-meaning stars and onomoy-meaning knowledge of...not to be confused with astrology), learning our states and capitals, and some art.

So to kick off our year we met up with Jason at his school and had lunch with him.

reading

Ethan wanted to read to Jude the other day before his nap time. I thought it was too cute to pass up a photo opportunity.

beach lover

This one is a bit long but if you want to see a cute little baby crawling around at the beach, it's worth the watch. She has finally stopped eating the sand every second she gets and now just seems to enjoy the freedom to go where she wants...or until she goes a little too far into the water. If you watch til the end you can see Jason throw his cup, full of soda, up the beach to rescue Ansley from a wave...okay it's not that dramatic but I didn't remember him doing that until I watched the video again. She's a little timid of the water but instead of high tailing it out of there when a wave comes, she just freezes and then gets all wet.

My little "surfer" My treasure hunter

My little water baby

kids

We took a walk the other night so the boys could ride their scooters. Jude's was a Craigslist find with big all-terrain wheels and Ethan's is the Target brand (that looks like a Razor but is waaayyy less expensive) that a friend gave him. While we were walking, some other boys were riding their scooters towards us and this was their interaction with Ethan:

Boys: What kind of scooters are those? (in a mocking sort of "we have Razor Scooters" kind of voice)

Ethan: (having no category for name brands he looks at his scooter, shrugs his shoulders and says) I have the folder kind. (meaning: his folds in half)

Boys: (looking at each other puzzled and at a loss for words...but didn't want to be one-upped...they reply) Well we have folders too.

After a lull everyone rode off in different directions...Ethan still unaware that there was a difference and the other boys probably still thinking they had the better scooter.

a couple of projects

We've had a few projects lately that we've been working on...and since I'm a fan of before and after pictures, I thought I would post a few.

Our first project was to put in a chalkboard for our school time...but the problem we encountered was that we didn't have any wall space for one. So I found some chalkboard paint and used our school "closet" as the canvas.
BEFORE:
This is the only before picture I could find...since I forgot to take the before picture. So look beyond the silly kids and the cabinet is what we used.
AFTER:

Our next project was a toy box we picked up at the thrift store for super cheap. As you can see by the pictures I almost forgot to take a before picture...so it's half painted and I already took the wooden knobs off the front. But you get the idea....pretty ugly.
BEFORE:

AFTER:

8 months

I almost forgot to take her 8 month old pictures today until right before bed. So this time we get some jammy pics...but she's still stinkin' cute to us either way.

If you look closely, you can see Ansley's new top teeth...which I think makes her look so much older.

She's still crawling around like crazy and is now starting to walk along the furniture. Just today she let go of something and stood for a few seconds...I think she was just as surprised as we were.

We're loving this stage that Ansley is in and are so thankful for her. It will be fun to see what new things she will learn this next month.

portraits

For Ethan's birthday we had these portraits "drawn" by Chuck E. Cheese himself, as you can tell by the signature in the bottom right hand corner.

Jason started it off by getting his picture with Ansley...aww, cute isn't it? And then the rest of us thought it would be fun, so the boys and I tried it next. Almost looks Olan Mills doesn't it? Ha!
Then Ethan wanted a self-portrait...this was right before he said "mommy, when do I smile?"

And then it just went down hill from there.

lost teeth and new teeth

The weird thing about the teeth that Ethan has lost so far is that Ansley has her new teeth coming in the same spots he is missing teeth. Weird huh?

sewing, sewing, sewing

My sewing machine and notions have been invading our dining space for the past week or so. It all started with sewing a bear for a friend of mine who had a baby shower this week. Then onto making baby burpies for my MOPS group as give-aways for moms with newbie babies. I decided to try a new design too and was glad to use up some scraps of fabric I have left-over from the many bears I have made. And then lastly, I am trying to sew a baby sling...but this seemingly easy project is turning out to be my most difficult...and it only has two pieces of fabric. Anyone out there made a simple baby sling before?

50 years

Today marks 50 years since Hawaii became a state. Happy Statehood Day Hawaii!

giggle box

Ansley has entered the stage of belly-laugh giggles. For some reason sharp sounds make her almost fall over with laughter...and the rest of us can't help but laugh right along with her.

friends

We're so thankful for our new friends, the "Cawins" (as Jude would say).

the big 6

6 years old that is. Why does 6 seem so much older than 5? Our theme for the day was the number 6.

Number 6 pancakes (idea came from my friend Lisa)...these looked better on the other side but then it would be backwards. But the boys gobbled them up and that's all that mattered.

and a number 6 cake.

Our big celebration was at Chuck E. Cheese where you can see by their expressions that they had a blast...they're just very serious when it comes to playing games. But with all the chaos there, I think we all left with blank stares and feeling a little overwhelmed.


And then you can't leave out the presents. I think his expression says it all here.

Happy Birthday Ethan! We are so thankful for our energetic, full of life, loving, hard worker, adventuresome little/big boy! I can't wait to see what little man God is going to grow you up to be.