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Thursday, July 20, 2017

Ko Olina 2017

We had another fantastic family vacation at Ko Olina on Oahu earlier this month.  Five of our families flew from the Big Island and the Lyman's flew in from Austin, TX for this very special every other year event that we all look forward to, kids and adults alike!

Our whole family (minus Uncle David who was still in TX)

We had tons of fun!

As if our group's not already large enough we even had some extra guests this year - Uncle Chan, Jo, cousin Zoe, and Mema!

These kids were so excited for the plane ride.

Evie had on her best plane behavior ;)

Mommy's little helpers in the airport.  

As soon as we got to Ko Olina the kids hit the beach.  They're pretending to be baby seals here.  

Pops wanted to walk all over the sand.  

Evie kept wanting to feel and play with the sand.  

Matching Rufflebutts are too cute!

They loved the water fountains.  And Evie discovered it was even more funny if she leaned over it or sat on it.  Ha ha!

Visiting Grandpa Kim's grave at Punchbowl.  

The kids got their upgraded shirts :)  Cousins number 1-11 in order of appearance.  We laughed that there's a lot less teeth this time since cousins 1-7 are losing them left and right.  

Esme is always eager to push the stroller.

Little lady bugs on the beach.

Enjoying the welcoming ceremony.  

Cousin time after making smores down by the pool.  

Just relaxing in the stroller.

And a visit from Kariel the mermaid.  She even gets in the pool and swims with the kids!

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

15 Months

Happy 15 months to the babes!  We had their physicals yesterday and they're right on target.  Evie's had a consistent growth curve in the 50th percentiles for both height and weight.  She's now 30.5" tall ad 21#.  Poppy is also continuing on her same growth curves that put her in the 25th percentile for height and 50th for weight still.  She was 29 3/4" tall and 20.4#.  Both of their heads are in the 75th percentile.  It's amazing how close they've always been when it comes to their stats.  

Poppy still loves shoes and clothing.  She takes every opportunity to put whatever she can on herself and then grunts for help otherwise.  Her talking is minimal but she's showing signs of improvement.  She loves to give wet, slobbery open mouthed kisses and when you say "Poppy nigh-nigh" she'll put her head down on your shoulder.  She's got a cute squishy faced smile and reminds us more and more of baby Esme everyday.  They look so much alike as babies too.

Eve has finally found her feet and is using them for walking!  We have freedom all around now!  Our hands are free and she's able to go where she wants.  She's still a "cling-on" as Nana likes to call her though.  Eve can be playing fine by herself or near Poppy but as soon as you make eye contact with her she starts grunting and makes her way towards you to either be close to her or to pick her up.   She's always been like that, even in infancy.  She's talking more and more, above and beyond for her age for sure.  She can point to lots of her body parts and loves to stick her finger in other people's eyes when she wants to show you that too.  Ha ha!

Esme has been doing the County Parks & Rec program Summer Fun since school got out.  It's going well but funny thing, she's tired out from playing so much.  There's organized activities and crafts all day long but at the end of the day she's just beat.  We're thinking next year we might find a summer program that also has an educational component built in also just to mix it up for her.  She's also been perfecting her swimming with lessons at UH-Hilo and private ones with Aunty Peggy.  She's always been a timid swimmer so we want to make sure she's confident in the water before we stop.   Biggest news for Esme right now is that she just learned to ride her bike without training wheels!  She amazed all of us being the cautious little girl that she is.  She was just super motivated and really wanting to learn and she just took off one day.  Woohoo!  And she keeps losing teeth left and right!  Her top two are almost out but so far she's already lost the bottom front four.  We'll be sure to take a picture when the top ones are gone :)

Chan is LOVING being in the bigger kids class at Keikiland.  This summer they're studying endangered animals and everyday he comes home telling me about the new things he's learning.  We also enrolled him in Kumon for reading and he's thrilled about that also.  I think he's been watching all the things Esme has been doing over the years and he just wants to hurry up and do them too.  We started him back in swimming this summer and it was a rough start but he's doing so well now.  He was actually swimming on his own around 2 years old but something happened and he got scared of the water and refused to continue lessons back then.  So we just laid off for awhile and then the twins came along so we really laid off since we weren't near the water all that often anyways.  But now that he's 4 we figured it was time to start again.  He cried the first few days of UH-Hilo swim camp but by the end he was loving it, looking forward to it every day and swimming on his own.  He'll continue private lessons with Esme now and he'll probably stay in that for awhile.

So as you can see life is busy but all in all it's awesome.  Ama and Yeh-Yeh came for a visit to help daddy while I was away for a work conference last week.  They also got to check in on their new house that they bought.  We're all super excited for them to move here this fall so we can make many more family memories together!

Chan's summer haircut

Synchronized milk drinking by Poppy and Eve

Aren't they so cute together?!?!  Going to swim lessons at UH.  Chan only wanted to wear his wetsuit like the instructors did.  

Putting all Chan's energy to good work.  The babes have really enjoyed riding in the wagon compared to the stroller when we go on our daily walks now.  

Oh Evie!  We're not sure where she gets that mop on the top of her head.  Ha ha!

Happy Father's Day Allen!!!  We've made a tradition of going to the smoothie shop in Onomea and taking this same family pic each year.  This is year 3 and we even got all kids to look at the camera!

Mommy got to go on a field trip with Chan to Volcano National Park.

Just hanging at the pool.

This was mommy's solo attempt to take a picture of the girls in their matching dresses that they got for their birthday.  Now that Evie's walking she can wear dresses so it's a big deal.  Anyways, obviously my picture didn't work out cause they kept moving away!

Esme continues to be our little fashionista :)  She loves her gladiator shoes, dangly earrings, off the shoulder and racerback tops, and the latest is this blonde hair extension hairband.  She cracks me up sometimes!  She also got a summer haircut.  I figured it'd be easier since her hair is so thick and with all the swimming and playtime this summer.  She usually wears them in cute pigtails now until it grows out long enough for a ponytail.  

Monday, May 29, 2017

Summer, Here We Come

It's hard to believe that summer is already here!  Esme finished kindergarten last week and Chan is moving out of the 3 year class at Keikiland this week.  The past year has obviously just flown by for all of us!  We're looking forward to more beach and swimming time since the babies are finally more manageable.  And thankfully they don't go crazy and try and eat the sand!  Eve has her moments but that's just Eve.  She's a funny one ;)
The girls have discovered this car that we've had since Esme was this age.  And of course they both want to get into it at the same time.  Twin life!  We need to bust out the old red wagon since there's at least 2 seats in that one.  Ha ha!

We went on a family camping trip to the Hapuna beach cabins recently.  Thanks to all of our family cause we couldn't have done it without them!  Esme and Chan were so incredibly excited to go camping and we're so glad we did it.  

Chan's definitely more of a sand kid.  He loved all the digging.  And the night time trip to the beach to catch sand crabs!

We all slept in one cabin and amazingly we slept all night!  The babies each had their own pack-n-play and we all slept on the built in cots/benches.

Chan's growing his hair out and he says he wants it to be like Uncle Sterling's.  Uh oh!  So we at least have fun with it in the bath at night.  

Esme performed a Bruno Mars medley for her Hoike at the end of the school year.  This was her first real performance in front of people and she was definitely a little shy.  There were all 150 kindergarten students on the floor of the Civic Auditorium and the bleachers were full of parents!

Our kindy graduate!

Poppy thought it would be fun to try and fit inside the bottom of her new water table. 

Our little Evita!  

Hiking in Bird Park on Memorial Day.  The kids had fun exploring nature and the babies kept trying to touch all the trees and leaves from the Ergo.

Baby jeggings are so cute and of course they're even cuter in pairs!

We love our one and only Chan-Man!

Why do babies love remotes so much?  Poppy stole it and hid behind the ottoman.

We finally got our cupboards locked up but some of them are still accessible to the babes.  

Watching the neighborhood action.  A daily activity.

Smoothies for breakfast.  An all time favorite for all the kids.  

Chan turned 4 years old!  He had a blast celebrating his birthday with Uncle Josh who also shares his birthday.  Aunty Amy also has the same birthday but she was in Texas this year.  Chan wanted a Ninja Turtle birthday but was happy with all the other toys and gifts he got.  He loves anything trucks, turtles, cars, legos, dinosaurs, etc.  He's a real boy for sure!

Happy Mother's Day!  I'm not sure where Chan escaped to but he didn't make this picture.  I had to borrow Nana to help me hold the babies.  Ha ha!

Waiting to fill the baby pool!

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Siblings

The past year since the twins were born has been a challenge for all of us in our own way.  Chan had his fair share of struggles as he figured out his place in this family.  But as we round the corner to turning 4 he's just turning into this really cool kid.  His maturity level just took a huge jump along with his height recently.  This past weekend I had to quickly swap out all his 3 year clothes and make way for all the 4 year stuff we had stored away.  And him and Esme have been getting along so well, more often than not.  It's fun to watch them form their sibling relationship :)

One morning before school I caught them in the tv room reading together.  

They both like to help mommy in the kitchen.  

This was one of my faves.  Usually the kids come in our room when they wake up in the morning but this morning was different.  Apparently Chan had a bad dream and so he just went into Mimi's room instead since he saw her light on.  When I got there they were both reading books together in her bed. 

This was another good one.  I had to get fasting labs one morning so the big kids came with me.  When we walked into the waiting room Esme picked a seat and then said "here Chan, you can sit on my lap."

And the twins are forming their own sibling relationship :)  This was their first Easter this past year since they were born just the day after Easter last year.  

Easter egg hunt with the cousins and friends in Volcano.  There were probably a couple hundred eggs in the forest and they had a blast finding them all.  

I just love this shot of Eve.  She's "helping" with the dishes.  

This was the last day he wore 3 year clothes.  Ha ha!

We were so lucky to have Allen's sister Ting (the kids call her Goo-Goo) and cousin Kai visit for their spring break.  It was their first time to see us since we moved and also their first time visiting since the babes were born.  They came just a few weeks after Allen's parents visited too so we've had lots of Shih family fun lately :)  Here the kids are showing off the lovely cows in the pasture by our house.  This is a highlight of any of our morning or afternoon walks around the neighborhood.  

Coloring eggs together.  

This is the best selfie we could get when we went on a day trip to the Volcano National Park. 

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Moving On

The babes had their 12 month well child check up after their birthday and they're coming right along on their growth curves.  At 19.3# and 28" long, Poppy was 50% for weight and 10% for height.  Her head was a whopping 75% though!  And Eve was 19.5# and 29.25" long, which put her at 50% weight and 50% height.  Her head was also 50% so she was right in the middle.  They've always managed to stay very similar in their stats this past year.

12 months of twin pics

Lilikoi cakes for the girls

Stripped down before attacking their cakes.

The Lindsey Clan

Cousins

Face painting kept the kids busy

Chan said he wants the same party without all the baby stuff. 

Poppy loved wearing her frosting and Eve loved smashing her cake.