Just Catching Up

In-flight Wi-Fi is awesome!  Mommy is on her way back from a conference in Washington DC and she actually has time to catch up on things like the blog!!!  It was hard to be away from the kids for 6 days but daddy had the help of all our family which we couldn't have done this without them.  While I was in DC and not in the conference I got to see some sights.  I even made it down to the Korean War Memorial where I looked up some info on my great Uncle Chan Jay aka Junior who was POW/MIA.  Our little guy Chan is actually named after his father, my great-grandfather.  The weather really cooperated and I got some great shots of the sunsets and full moon over the monuments.  

 

While I was gone daddy got a lot of quality time in with the kids.  He said they were acting out initially because I was gone but it got better.  These pics was taken before I left but this is probably what they did a lot of while I was gone :)  The kids love to ride on his back.  As you can see Esme's just chillin and reading a book and Chan's hanging out, just along for the ride.  Oh yeah, and he's in his underwear!  He's doing great still with the potty!  

The weekend before I left was busy filled with events around town.  There was a lot of face painting too.  Esme and Malia got painted at the Blue Zones kick off rally in Hilo and then Chan got his very own face painting at the HPA pumpkin patch on Sunday.  He was very serious when it was happening and told the high school student who was doing it that he wanted a monster.  See below for his monster face and pose.  Too cute!

 While we were at the pumpkin patch where there were rides and games, it turns out Chan had just as much fun playing on this container when I took him aside to go potty.  Go figure.

Esme also got her school pictures back.  I still need to send them out to family so if you normally get one, don't worry, they're coming!  I'm not sure what happened to her hair.  We put a clip in it when she left for school but apparently her teacher added the little pony tail.  And she also added the same pony tail to a few other girls too.  Haha!

 The kids are gearing up for Halloween.  Chan found one of Tosh's old costumes in our Halloween bin and hasn't taken it off since.  And Esme wore her Elsa dress from Disneyland for the Yacht Club Halloween party this past weekend.

Esme Goes To Disneyland

Phew, where to start???  It's already October and it feels like the end of the year will be here before we know it!  Our house is slowly coming along and we've given ourselves till the new year to get everything moved in completely.  It seems like there's just never enough time but I keep hearing that's gonna be the story of our lives from here on out.  Uh oh!  We still have house projects we want to complete but there's no rush at this point.  They'll happen when they happen.  We honestly spend a lot of our weekends and free time enjoying the kids and then we try to squeeze in house time when they're sleeping.  You can see why this'll take us awhile to complete :)

Esme and I had an awesome mother-daughter trip to Disneyland over fall break!  We met up with our WA friends, the Mitchell's, so Esme and Natalie had each other to experience this new adventure.  Esme was in awe of all the characters, especially the princesses.  I forgot just how much joy something as simple as that would bring her.  She enjoyed the rides and just doing whatever she wanted while we were there.  She also asked if daddy and Chan could come next time which was really cute.  We were at California Adventure and Disneyland for a total of 4 days which gave us a lot of leisure time to go at our own pace.  We also stayed right in the park at the Grand Californian so that also made life a lot easier when it came to taking naps, going back to rest, and just enjoying their awesome pool!  We had a few tired tantrumy moments but overall I think she did really good.  Pics below in a sort of random order.

Allen was amazing and potty trained Chan from start to finish while we were gone.  He did the cold turkey trick like we did with Esme and it worked with him for pee and poop.  With Esme it took a little longer for her to poop in the potty but pee was easy.  Allen also got Chan sleep trained to stay in his bed at night!  Way to go daddy!  We missed our boys a lot and were so excited to come home and see them.  Chan wouldn't let go of me at the airport.  The next day though it took the kids a little while to adjust to being siblings again.  They weren't used to having to share their parents we guessed and they kept trying to talk right over each other.  It was sort of funny until they started getting upset with each other.  Haha!  All is good now :)

This was a favorite ride for Mimi :)

Halloween at Disney!  Esme wanted to know how come we don't trick-or-treat in Hawaii.  She didn't understand why we got to do it early in CA.  

Esme LOVED the bunkbeds in our hotel room!

Pics with our Disney group and Mr Queen (that's what Chan calls him :)

She insisted on the "Elsa hair" for her Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique makeover.

Esme was soooooooooooo happy this afternoon!

After their makeovers they got to meet the princesses in the Royal Hall.

And then we went trick-or-treating at Mickey's Halloween Party.  They had to stop and pose in this scene we passed while in line.  

Esme wasn't so sure about Mickey Mouse.  She was fine with some characters and not so fine with others.  

She was totally into the princesses.  

Minnie Faces!

Sitting in a chair in Minnie Mouses house :)

Meeting one of the fairies in Pixie Hollow!  This was our last day which started off as pajama day for Esme.  

And then meeting Tinkerbell afterwards!

And don't forget Mary Poppins.  She watched the movie right before the trip so she had a frame of reference.  

We're Still Alive...And Doing Well!

So obviously the house and our crazy lives have kept us super busy and we haven't been able to update the blog!  Sorry!  The house is coming along slowly but surely.  So far this is what we've had done: new paint in the bedrooms/bathrooms/hallway, new carpet, new kitchen counters, new dishwasher, new gas stove, new toilets, and new curtains.  I feel like we're missing something cause it seems like way more than that.  Still yet to come is a microwave above the stove and new counters in the bathrooms and the master vanity.  After that it's all minor stuff we'll do at random like change all the gold and glass chandeliers :)

The kids are loving the new house and all the space.  They really love the fenced in yard and covered lanai that they can roam at their own will.  They also love being back in a bikeable and walkable neighborhood.  Esme took a break from her bike for awhile but now she's back at it.  And Chan is learning his tricycle pretty good too.  

Over the past month Esme had her first case of strep throat and Chan started having bloody noses.  The strep was shocking since she had the mildest of symptoms but I also think we caught it really early before anyone else in our family got it.  Chan's nose has been a bigger challenge cause he doesn't like us messing with it.  It's just been a little wet when he's sleeping and we notice it when he wakes up or barely drippy in the day when we've caught it before.  However today he fell and hit his nose and there was blood EVERYWHERE.  Worse yet, the more blood there was, the more he was freaking out.  So it took a little while to calm him down but we finally did and got his nose to stop.  We put our new carpet to the test also.  The blood came out just by blotting it with a damp cloth so it was worth all that extra money!  Ha ha!  

We haven't taken a ton of pictures cause we've been so busy but here's a few.  Thankfully the weather did a complete switch and we're back to normal temps all of a sudden.  We were hitting record highs for what seems like months this summer!  We're actually in the middle of a tropical storm and it's so nice to have the rain back!

I'm gonna warn you that the next post probably won't be for 2 weeks because next week is fall break and Esme and mommy are going to Disneyland!!!  Daddy's gonna stay home and sleep train Chan.  Ha ha!  We switched him out of his crib into a toddler bed and he keeps waking up at night and coming straight to our bed.  Sometimes it's nightmares but other times I think it's just out of habit.  Wish Allen luck!

The house has been a royal mess as we move in so the kids have had free reign over the furniture in different places.  

Chan loves playing in the doll house just as much as Esme.

The clear view of Mauna Kea from our front room.  It's much better in person :)

Papa made the kids a house out of the toilet box. 

Our happy boy!

And our happy girl!

Enjoying the new Mauna Kea State Park playground on Saddle Road. 

Touch-A-Truck event in Kona.

The kids loved pulling the loud horn in this truck.

Happy Birthday lunch for cousin Sarah in Kona.

The kids love to place all their Lego animals in different places all over the house.  This is how they were when I woke up one morning.  

On The Move

Sorry for the delay but we've been super busy!  We moved again and for the final time cause we bought a house!  New address is 1299 Launa St, Hilo, HI 96720.  We're also in the process of some big home renovations to make it just what we want so we've been without a kitchen since we moved in.  It's been a challenge but it'll be so worth the end result.  The carpets and painting along with a lot of other minor changes already took place.  Pics to come soon!

Life With Chan

I feel like the last few posts were about Esme so lets catch everyone up to speed on Chan.  He is the funniest little guy!  He has such a sense of humor already.  And he knows he's silly cause he always looks at you with a sly little face when he does something silly.  He continues to be incredibly thorough with his speech.  He copies/repeats what you say and then makes sentence twice as long.  It's amazing he just turned two.  He also continues with his sometimes monotone, sometimes southern accent, and sometimes deepened voice. The deepened voice is the funniest but it's like he's barely trying and he talks like that for hours.

He's sort of interested in the potty but nothing consistent yet.  We started a potty chart but he hasn't gotten very far.  Esme saw it and decided she wanted a potty chart too so we thought it would help entice him but no such luck.  Up until recently he's been horrible at teeth brushing and flossing but we may have recently turned the corner.  He used to scream and kick when he did it and he seemed to have stopped this past weekend.  Thank goodness cause that's always torture.  And in the past week he's been taking extra long naps, up to 4 1/2 hours, so maybe he's getting ready for a growth spurt.  He's also getting in his top left 2nd year molar so that could be doing it.

Nightime sleep has gotten way better too.  He consistently sleeps through the night with bedtime around 7:30pm and waking around 6:30am.   Esme and Chan are still sharing a room and they really like that.  We've asked if they want their own rooms but they always decline the opportunity. .

Chan has swim lessons with Nana and Aunty Peggy every Monday and seems to be making progress.  He has no problem going right under the water and holding his breath.  He actually comes up smiling and wants to dive in again from the edge of the pool.  It's actually hard to stop him which can be a little scary.  He's good at kicking and knows he needs to do that to get around and move.  Esme also has swim lessons with Aunty Peggy on Saturdays and she finally made the leap to comfortably swimming after we got back from the mainland.  Pretty soon the kids will be swimming together!

Chan also loves to sing, mostly children's songs.  He listens to all kinds of kids songs in our cars and sings along with most of the words.  He also likes to immitate all the animals in Old MacDonald which he thinks is so funny :)

The kids potty charts :)

We love our Chan Man!

Hanging out at Target on a Sunday with these two.

Still Catching Up

I feel like I still have some catch up to do with the blog.  Here's one last picture from our trip this summer.  This wasn't the first time Esme's taken a picture in front of a blank wall and then had her image superimposed onto a scene but she definitely thought about it this time.  So we took this pic before getting on the Great Wheel in Seattle and then picked up our souvenir photo at the end.  For the rest of the day she kept looking at it and reminding me that we weren't standing in front of the Great Wheel when we took that picture.  Sharp little kiddo!

The week we got back Esme had a field trip to Suisan Fish Market, KTA Superstores, and Coconut Island for lunch, fishing and activities.  It was the last field trip mommy could go on before she headed back to work also.  Esme was super excited about the fishing and bummed we didn't catch anything.  We'll have to go again cause I never thought she'd be into that.  

Ms Sky's summer class. 

Watching the fish market happenings.

Esme's bus partner, Ethan.

All of Keikiland at Coconut Island!

Esme and her little bamboo pole

Keikiland friends Ethan and Tehya

Esme also had her schoo's ho'olaulea (Hawaiian for celebration/gathering/festival) the week after she returned.  She was supposed to sing and dance but she didn't remember a lot of the words and moves since she'd been gone while they were practicing.  Nana and Chan went to watch and apparently she was pretty shy.  This was her only smiling face that day.

Esme and Tosh wearing their kihei's for the ho'olaulea.  

 Apparently when we were gone there was a heat wave and that sort of continued when we returned.  Hilo made some record temps up to 90 degrees that hadn't been touched since the mid 60's!  Chan and Esme weren't always so happy with the extra hot weather.

Bored and tired of the hot day. 

Fun parties with family!  Esme was so happy to have her face painted again!

We also got to go out to the beachhouse at Kapoho but that was at the same time that Hurricane Guillermo was pacing by us so it rained most of the time!  Thankfully the water is still warm and the kids could swim but it wasn't the same.

Rain, rain go away!

Hanging out on the porch with cousin Mahina

Chan was so bored he opted just to lay on the porch and watch someone's phone. 

Chan looking for the good weather...

 We left the beach house to see what Uncle Sterling was up to at his house that he's building.  Tosh made the kids their own Flintstone car!  Notice it's the upgraded version with a gas and brake pedal.

Chan's been super hungry lately and loving his eggs.  He cleaned up the pan this night.  

Potty training!  We're still a ways off though.

Putting the kids to work on a Sunday morning.