Happy Birthday to Nalani!

Four years ago our family got the best Christmas present ever...Nalani! She is such a sweet little girl. I love her sparkly eyes and her sweet little personality. It seems like she's always singing a song or humming a little tune. She likes to play with her big sisters and little brother, she also likes to tease and get a rise out of people:) Hmmm, I wonder where she got that from??

Once again, our ward party landed on my kid's birthday, so I feel like we had a built in birthday party too. Hey, she's four, she doesn't care where the party's at, just as long as she gets to see her friends:) Plus, with our snow days this week, I think the roads were too scary for friends to come to a party. Maybe I'll adopt the idea of celebrating half-birthdays in the summer, for my December birthday girl...We love you Nalani!

Here are few pictures from the last four years.

Recycling

One of the many good things about marrying a cute Hawaiian boy is having three cute Hawaiian girls I get to share this little sun dress with.

My parents brought it home for me from a trip to Hawaii. I think I was just over two in this picture and my sister, Melanie was about 6 months. I think I can see a little bit of Bronson in this picture...

Here is a picture of Logan at around two, wearing a similar dress. I don't think my mom had given me the original yet, so we found a similar one at the swap meet on Oahu. Logan obviously wasn't happy at the moment.

Here is Maika at around 7 or 8 months. She was in the weird hair phase:)

And, here is Nalani just last week, 3 weeks before her fourth birthday, wearing the dress. Don't you just love the dress-with-jeans fad?

So, living in Oregon has turned me greener than I realized. I've had the same dress around for 30 years and it's still so darn cute.

Not Feeling Very Grateful...

For the first gray hair I found clinging to my scalp this morning! What the H-E-Double Toothpicks??

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year spent with Jeremy and Rochelle and their family. It's so nice to have "family" when you are away from family!

It was a pretty low-key day for me, as my only assignment for dinner was my stuffing. I read "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak (you all should read this book!) for a good part of the morning.

After dinner with all the usual yummy fixings, the afternoon was spent going through the newspaper adds for Black Friday. I'm a Black Friday first timer, you know. After carefully compiling our lists, clipping coupons and determining what stores to hit we went home and hit the sack.

2:45 am comes around fast! That's right, 2:45 in the freaking middle of the night! We were off to Kohl's and the good deals. The thing that really surprises me about this whole craze is the amount of grumps out there! Why in the world do you get up and go and then complain about the crowds, and long lines? Hello? If the line was wrapped around the parking lot just to get into the store, it's surely going to take awhile to get out of the store.

After Kohl's we went to Fred Meyer for their famous sock sale. Kmart for some good deals on toys. IHOP for a breakfast breather. Target for DVDs. Walgreen's for some crayon deals. Then, back where we started, Kohl's. Rochelle decided she needed to take advantage of one more deal she overlooked earlier. So, after a marathon day of shopping and being out for 12 hours...we were home by 2:30 in the afternoon with 98% of our Christmas shopping completed! Yay!

Nap time.

I'll do it again next year. The savings and deals were totally worth the crowds and lack of sleep.

Same old, same old...

Can anyone guess what words came out of my mouth when I discovered this?

Well, if you pictured me with my eyes stuck to the top of my sockets and using my favorite phrase of frustration, err, I guess pretty much anything, "Oh, my Hell!" Or maybe you think I cursed my husband for leaving the raspberry jam out on the counter? If you thought either of those things...You're wrong! (I'll admit to thinking it, but not saying it, I'm mastering self control;))

After assuring myself that he was finger painting with raspberry jam and NOT blood, I ran for the camera. Some day I'll be able to use my collection of "messy" pictures to comfort Bronson's wife as she wonders where their kids got their spunk. And, to remind her to cherish how cute they are, even when they're getting into trouble...

Sport's Fans

Last week was an all you can eat Sport's Buffet at our house. We watched a Jazz game (they won the Blazers!), Bronson and I even sported our Jazz gear. We watched a Blazer's game (they won the Rockets), I'm actually starting to not hate the Blazers, but will still always cheer for the Jazz over them. We watched the University of Utah win TCU, and even spotted our brother-in-law, Jasen, coaching away on the sidelines.

On Saturday we watched the much anticipated game of the week...Maika's first basketball game! Oh, the comedy of watching a bunch of first and second grade girls playing basketball for the first time. It was so much fun to watch. This week we will be working on the concepts of offense and defense:) Maika is a good dribbler, but we had to tell her that it is okay to use more than one hand when you are trying to take the ball away from the other team.

Maika is looking forward to another practice tonight and two more games on Saturday. We will be there cheering her on! Remind me not to sit on the top bleachers with Bronson. Last week he took his shoes off and hit an old lady in the head as he threw them over the edge. That boy and his temper...

We're Off to See the Wizard!

Starring: Logan as The Wicked Witch of the West, Brody as Toto, Nalani as Dorothy, Maika as The Scarecrow, and Bronson as The Tin Man! I guess Kelly and I were the Cowardly Lion, since we're too scared to have more kids to fill up all the roles.

We had a great Halloween this year! Bronson was the hit of the night! One of my favorite comments came from a house-full of big-burly-logger-looking-dudes (not in costume, most likely just home from work!). The guy who answered the door said, "oh! Look at the cute Dorothy! Oh, awesome! Look at the Tin Man! Hey, guys come look at this Tin Man!" At this point two other loggers come to the door and one says, "Awww! That is just adorable! Did you make that (looking at me)?" Um, no. But, did the word "adorable" just come out of a loggers mouth? Too funny! Honestly, people would stop and yell across the road at how awesome his costume was. Although, he wasn't too thrilled by the process of becoming the Tin Man...

My other favorite quote from the night came from Thatcher. We were at our first door of the night, and the people were handing out boxes of Hot Tamales (one of my personal favorites). After Thatcher received his, he ran up to his mom yelling, "Hey mom! They got Hot Molly's over there! I like Hot Molly's!" That just struck me so funny! Hopefully he'll find some Hot Molly in the future:)

Nalani and Bronson were a bit freaked out by the scary costumes some people donned. Nalani loved handing candy out to our "customers". Every time the doorbell rang she'd yell, "Dad, there's another customer!" When she opened the door and someone was dressed scary she'd run away and hide until they were gone. If they were friendly looking, she'd gladly hand them a piece of candy.

I didn't get too many pictures of Maika as the Scarecrow because she kept having "wardrobe malfunctions". That darn straw kept scratching her head and wouldn't stay in place. She looked so cute though! It was a last minute idea that we pulled together out of the dress-up drawer. Logan loved being the Wicked Witch. I finally let her spray paint her hair and we got to do an ugly make-over.

And here's the Table O' Cavities, and Rochelle sampling some of Maika's loot.