Christmas Spirit

Usually I can't stand the college students that live down my street.  They are always walking on the road like they own it and don't move to the side when cars are driving by.  I've actually flipped them off once or twice several years ago.  Lately I've been feeling a little Christmas Spirit and I've given a few people rides up the point and it made me feel really happy.  I was lamenting over some silly memory in my head, I can't even remember what it is now, and I was feeling a bit down, but after I offered an exhausted student a ride up the hill I forgot about my problems and felt good about myself.  It's amazing how doing something so small for someone else can lift your spirits.  It makes me feel so good, not in a self-righteous way like, "Oh I'm such a sweet angel for doing nice things for people."  It's a feeling of peace and joy knowing I could make a difference, for good, in a complete strangers day.

Christmas is really "the most wonderful time of the year."  If you sang that part in your head I'm high-fiving you.  I love seeing the look on my nephew's and niece's faces when they open a present.  I love the smell of the Christmas tree in the living room with the explosion of color we usually decorate it in.  I love the way the Aloha spirit is everywhere and seeing people give a bit more of themselves.  I love driving past houses that are decked out in lights, with snowmen or reindeer in the yard.  Most of all, I love Christmas Carols!  It's been a long time since I've been caroling but I can still remember all the words to the songs and I can still remember a hula or two.  It's such a special season.

Today I went with my girlfriend to visit a lactation consultant.  She's been feeling discouraged with breastfeeding, but I know she can do it!  So we drove together with our two baby boys in the back seat, and went to Kailua.  It was a nice little trip.  The consultant's name is Jodi, and she's one of the nurses who also helped me when I was in the hospital.  I'm so grateful for these nurses.  They are amazing individuals and have a very special and sacred responsibility in helping to bring little souls into this world.     After our appointment we had a little lunch and then made a stop at the place where they sell the best coffee on the island.  That's right.  The Morning Brew.  Am I obsessed?  YES!  We drove to my house and fed our babies again while watching The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.  I really enjoyed the performance by Maroon 5.  I love that Jagger-something song.

Tonight my crazy coconut-head-nephews and pretty-girl-neice came over for dinner.  We made tacos and had rice crispy treats for dessert.  Then they came into my room and we watched the JibJab movie that I made for them.  If you haven't seen it yet, it's in a previous post.

Nainoa is sleeping and I'm winding down from a long and busy day.  I really miss my hub-a-luv but I know it's only a few days and that they'll go by faster if I just stay busy.  How could I not stay busy?  I'm the mother of a 4 month old...  Ah!  I love my life.  Merry Christmas my little sweetheart Nainoa.  I hope as the years go by you will come to see just how special giving can be!

Nainoa and Trey

Two little cutie pies hanging out with their crazy moms.

Last but not least I just want to mention how grateful I am for our Savior.  After all, Christmas is the time we celebrate His birth and the gift that He gave to us.  I feel so lucky, so blessed, and so loved.  

Time to moemoe.  Mele Kalikimaka!

The Rest of the Ridiculously Good Day

I typed everything the other night and it got deleted because the stupid Magic Mouse.  We need to get a track pad *hint hint*.  So here begins the continuation of my story.

Unfortunately, this is the ONLY picture we took from our outing to Leilei's! We were too excited talking and catching up.  

So we were at Leilei's and had planned on getting some MOCKTAILS.  (Cocktails without the good stuff)  But after reviewing the menu we decided to just order an early dinner!  Sanoe had ribs, I had a cheeseburger, and our America's Next Top Model Jen had a salad.  We talked about so many different things.  It was so nice to cruise with the girls.  I drove us around, with Nainoa in the back, and we listened to the radio and pretended like we were young and single again. Lol.

I fed the King when I got home and prepared to leave the house once again.  My sister Neo and her family were arriving from SLC via LA and I needed to pick them up at 8:10.  My mom agreed to watch Nainoa and said to just make sure that there's milk in the fridge.  Unfortunately my dad threw some of my milk out.  He thought that it went bad because the fatty parts of the milk were separated from the watery parts.  He thought it was curdled. Lol.  So, there was no milk to leave with the baby sitter, but Nainoa is really good at sticking to his 3-4ish hour schedule so I wasn't too worried.

I enjoyed the drive to town alone.  I pretended I was better than the singers on the radio and thought a lot about how different my life is, and how wonderful it is to be a mother.  I also thought about my sweetheart and how I missed him.  I feel so lucky when I think about him.  He always makes me feel so special.

At the airport we loaded everyone in the car easily and decided to make a food stop in Kaneohe at Jack in the Box.  Neo went through the drive through while I ran inside to use the toilet.  When we got home I could hear Nainoa crying from outside my mom's bedroom window.  I rushed up stairs and felt so anxious to make him feel better!  I don't feel bad when I leave him, but when I come back I do.  He seemed so upset wondering where I was and he was so cute!  When I took him in my arms he grasped his to hands around my neck so tightly.  It was like a desperate hug followed by huge relief, followed by more crying because he was hungry!  As I fed him I felt so helplessly in love.  I felt like I was melting into my baby, trying to let him know how I love him so much and trying to comfort him.  It was one of those really special and defining moments for me.  I'm sure there are more to come!

I looked at the clock and realized Tim's flight to Australia should be landing soon.  I began to look for my phone, when all of a sudden my mom asked me, "Are you calling me?"  I said "No, I'm looking for my phone."  Silly me.  I left it in the bathroom at Jack's.  Luckily they found it and called my mom to say they had it.  I'm so happy there are honest people in the world still!

I'm so tired today, but had another wonderful day.  Lots of blogging/journaling to do and not enough energy to do it.  I need rest.

I just want to end by saying... I'm so happy, I feel so blessed and so loved.  It feels too good to be true, and I worry one day I will wake up and find it has all been a dream or worry that it will end.  My husband and my son mean so much to me and I feel so overwhelmed right now with love.  Ok. I'll stop being a sap now and go to bed.

Good night neverlaaaaaaand!

Half of The Ridiculously Good Day

I'm so mad, I typed a really long blog and then the stupid mouse went back a page and blogger didn't auto save my stuff. F! Here's the first half, I doubt I'll finish the second. Man... I was feeling so good! But now I'm just feeling tired. Oh well... Today was such a long day! But so much fun. This morning we ate breakfast at the little cafe in the back of a health food store in Haleiwa. It was sooooo Yum! Egg, avocado sandwich with sprouts and aioli (sp?) and some sort of spicy sauce. Sounds really simple right? It was delicious! Tim had an egg, bean, avocado burrito with mango salsa. That was yum too! 

We dropped Tim off at the airport and said our prolonged goodbyes. It's so weird that he's not next to me while I type this up. I miss him a lot. He went ahead to Sydney before us and is going to fly down to Melbourne to meet some people and look into some job opportunities. I fed Nainoa in the car and he is getting so ni'ele! He wants to look around and see EVERYTHING instead of eating. I wish I could record it and post it for everyone. It is that funny. Don't worry I won't post it.

 On the way home I stopped in Haleiwa to pick something up from Tim's friend Gary's house. No one was home and I had to open the gate and brave 3 dogs! Luckily I remembered one of the dogs names, and maybe she remembered me. Her name is Mango and she's a really nice dog. I've always been afraid of dogs, and while they barked at me as I walked up to the gate I started to have flashbacks of scary moments when I was little. Hahaha. I'm so glad I've gotten over that fear. (Kind of over it) I held my hand out to mango, palms facing up, and she licked my hand several times. I grabbed the items that I needed to get, then left feeling really proud of myself. I know it sounds silly, but I felt really good. I've come a long way!

 Nainoa was such a good passenger and took a nice, but brief, nap. We got home and tried to settle him back into sleep, but he wasn't having it. My girlfriend Jeneka showed up at the house! She's home, visiting from Orlando and was free and available to spend the whole afternoon with me! It was so much fun! We talked and I fed a very distracted Nainoa, then we tried calling Sanoe. She didn't answer her phone after several calls! So we decided to ambush her. She didn't know Jen was in town so we wanted to surprise her. We got to her house as her husband was leaving to pick her and the kids up. We told him we would get her, and then we told him we weren't bringing her back. Lol. He's so nice. He said she needed a break and we should take her with us. We waited for a while at the byu flag circle and she didn't show up. AND she still wasn't answering her phone! Finally after doing our 4th lap around the flag circle we spotted her. We pulled up honking and cheering for her. (She's graduating this week!) Nainoa didn't like all the noise and started to cry a little but settled down once Aunty Sanoe was in the back seat with him smiling and talking to him. Sanoe wanted to go home and change her clothes. There is something about hanging out with Jeneka that makes us want to be trendy... LIKE HER! We drove our fabulous selves all the way to.... Lei Lei's at Turtle Bay.

Rock Rock Rockin'

Merry Kalikimaka!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Out Of My Way! (please)

Sleep Training.  Just a warning, I'm going to blab and complain a little.  And it's not going to go anywhere.  I just need to vent.

I read somewhere, in regards to sleep training, "If you don't train your baby, your baby will train you."  This is turning out to be too true for me.  I've been wanting to try the CIO (Cry It Out) method for some time now but I'm not, I should be saying WE are not, consistent enough.  I'm obviously about to complain about things I feel are getting in my way, and I apologize for the negativity, BUT I'm sure at the end of it I will find something good.

1.  My biggest enemy - indecisiveness

We can't make a firm decision about our goals for sleep time and the method to use.

2.  Parents, siblings, and other people who like to give their opinions.  We worry about what they think and say and it influences our decisions.  We worry about all the crying EVERYONE in our household will have to listen to if we let Nainoa cry it out.  I can handle it because I know what the goal is, I'm not sure if Tim can handle it, and I'm pretty sure my parents won't be able to handle it because they don't understand why we are doing it.  My dad thinks it's an "American way" YES that's what he called it.  And he told me that when the baby is crying it means something.  I think I knew that already.  I think.

I'm starting to get so frustrated.  I can't even finish this blog.  

I've picked my baby up 6 times tonight to rock him back to sleep.  Don't get me wrong.  I love cuddling him and seeing him relax and close his eyes as soon as he's in my arms.  It feels wonderful!  What worries me is that he will develop poor sleeping habits, which will in turn effect his wake-time habits, which in turn effect eating habits.  

I can't even finish that paragraph.  There is too much to say, and complain about.  I'm just going to skip it and move to the positive.

I went to a graduation dinner with my friend Sanoe.  She's graduating from BYU-H with a bachelors degree in Business and with honors!  Woohooo!

Nainoa is such a sweet little boy and is learning and growing so much.  According to my book "The Baby Bible" he shows a lot of the physical development signs of a 5 month old baby!  Woohoo!  Now all I need to do is help him to have better naps.  The Dr. said 1.5 hours 2-3 times a day.  Right now we are lucky if we can get him down for one sleep cycle.  Oh well.  I'll just keep trying.  

I'm a VS Angel

I just had to take a screen shot of this and post it on my blog.  I don't want to forget the funny, silly, cute and adorable things my nephews say.  Makamau is 4 years old and goes to Kamehameha preschool.  But he sure is smarter than a preschooler.  He knows just what to say to make me smile.  I love being an Aunty!

I think my sister Krisann was probably referring to me walking around in my bikini. Lol.  No one else in our family wears one and the vs fashion show is all about the lingerie!  Maybe that's the resemblance Maka saw because I know I definitely bare no resemblance to the model he was talking about... Alessandra.

 I also think it's hilarious because she was my favorite VS Angel for a long time.  I don't have one anymore, but am thinking about picking a new one because some of the girls are getting old... older. :)  This makes me think back to several other funny things my nephews have said in the past.  I hope I can find and document them.

That's all for now... Happy Sunday!

The Two of Us

Tonight we went on a date.  Just the two of us.  Technically it's our first date ALONE in a year!  Around this time last year I began to realize that I was in fact pregnant.  We just finished celebrating Thanksgiving in Japan and were preparing to move to NYC together.  I'm so glad that we didn't!  Instead we started a family, got married, and are living happily ever after one day at a time.  There are a lot of surf events happening every winter, and I never realized it until recently.  The North Shore Surf Film Festival is going on at Turtle Bay Resort and they are showing several screenings at Surfer. The Bar which opened recently.  Donavan Frankenreiter, a popular Jack Johnson type musician, tweeted the other day that he would be performing at Turtle Bay.  Tim and I saw him perform at the Fuji Rock Festival last year in Japan and after we sealed the deal and got married we played his song, "Glow."

He played most of my favorites, Glow, Move by yourself, and a few others I don't know the names to.

We were both really nervous to leave Nainoa.  It's not that he's a clingy baby, I'm just a clingy mommy.  My mom and Amber agreed to watch him for us.  We didn't have to leave home till after his bedtime, but I was worried about what would happen if he woke up and didn't find me there.  We put him to bed around 8 and he slept the whole time we were gone.  His baby sitters didn't have to do anything!  He didn't wake till 6am!  For a while we weren't sticking to a schedule and it messed up his sleeping routines, but now that we are back on a schedule it's good to see that he's sleeping through the night again.

Is this pic from before or after?  You decide...

If you chose AFTER you are incorrect!  We took this pic while we were waiting to get inside the venue.  We were both so tired!  My face looks so chubby and my eyes were so red!  I ducked out of the house for an hour in the morning and went surfing at Goat Island.  (I got worked!  But also got some really nice lefts!)  After surfing I fed Nainoa, went for a walk to the post office and Subway, then Rissa came and picked us up and we went to Kahuku Park to help prepare the elementary kids to march in the Kaneohe Christmas Parade!  I was already feeling really tired, but once we started dancing and marching around the field I totally forgot that I needed to conserve energy. lol.  I got home, fed the little king, then tried to find something to wear.  What happened to all my nice clothes?  I couldn't find anything.  After asking him several times, "Does this look good?" and, "What do you think of this one?" I still couldn't find anything I felt good in.  Tim was so nice he let me run down the hill to Jeans Warehouse to buy a new top!  I bought two!  I couldn't decide and I needed his opinion.  He's really trendy and always gives me fashion advice when I need it.  Just another reason why I'm so in love with him. :)  He helps me to get out of my boring-solid-color-wearing comfort zone and makes me feel like I'm trendy, like him.  SO... We waited almost an hour to get inside because the movie they were screening had started late and we were soooo tired!  We started to pretend like we were on a first date and asked each other really silly cliche-first-date questions like, "So... what kind of like... hobbies to you have." Hahaha it was so fun.

One thing I noticed, which was really weird for me, I was the only brown person there!  Not counting the bouncers and guys at the door.  Weird!  Lots of surfy types and pro surfers hanging out and drinking.  But I was little bit disappointed in the crowd.  Only a handful of people got up and danced.  I wanted to dance but Tim didn't want to so we just sat at a table and danced in our seats.  Maybe next time I will get him up.  

Yay! We survived our first date night without our son and he survived too!  But we both missed him so much and kept checking our phones to make sure we didnt miss a call.