No more blogging...

On blogspot that is... Continuing our family adventures on Wordpress instead. www.lamkazoku.wordpress.com

Kuhio Day - beach fun!

It was a gorgeous day for the beach.  Since Elle had no school we decided to head to Koolina to spend all day swimming.  We packed all of our food, tables, clothes and got to Koolina early in the morning to make sure we got parking.  It was very gusty but the skies were clear and the sun was out.  It was perfect.  I think the highlight of day was Isla and her fried chicken!  This girl can EAT!  Mind you she only has 2 teeth on the top and 4 on the bottom.  I guess that's enough to munch on chicken. I tried taking it away because I didn't want her to choke plus her stomach was going have a field day, but she fought me.  She had a mean grip and wouldn't give up on her chicken.  It was a sight to see! We couldn't resist taking pictures.

Isla and her chicken

First bite

another bite...

and another...

Kyrie and Elle

Buddies

Daddy taking the girls to the water

best part of going to the beach is EATING!

We didn't bring Elle's chair, so Kyrie was nice enough to share.  LOL!

The best part of the beach is sleeping under the trees hearing the ocean waves and feeling the tradewinds.
She really lives up to her name!  She is our island baby.
Isla had a good 2 hour nap!

I love bacon but...

I think my oven was tired of me cooking it!  Yes, I blew up my oven... not entirely but enough for my oven to not work anymore (luckily my stovetop was unaffected).  :( I love my bacon and I love cooking it in the oven on a rack so all of the oil drips in a pan.  I found that baking/broiling it cooks quicker and it doesn't smell up my whole house, plus the bacon renders nicely without shriveling up.  Well I guess after so many mornings of making bacon my broiler element accumulated too much bacon grease and blew up.  It was SUPER scary! All I heard was "buzz....POP!" and a bright electrical flash!  I was so scared my oven was going to catch on fire I turned it off immediately.  I opened it up a little and brown smoke emitted from the open door.  It was BAD.  I had to open all of the windows to air out the smoke so the alarm wouldn't go off.  After it cleared up everything in the oven was covered with brown dust. My poor oven.  

See the chunk of element disintegrated.

My husband wasn't too thrilled with what happened but we couldn't let it stay broken.  We needed to find a place that sold appliance parts.  My dad told me a place in Waipio that sold parts so we stopped by one afternoon and picked up a new broiler element.  $60!  Yes, $60 for a brand new broiler element, ridiculous!  We didn't imagine it to be so expensive!  

Huy figuring out the wiring on the stove

Back at home Huy did a great job taking the old element out and putting in the new one.  I was impressed.  The broiler was up and running just like new until...

I realized that the baking element wasn't working!  I was like NOOOO!  I didn't want to get a new baking element too!  Too much money... but I wanted it fixed.  Before jumping the gun and buying a new element, Huy wanted to test out the wiring to see if he rewired something wrong.  Everything looked like they were in its proper place.  So he decided to put the stove back in place and go pick up a new baking element. Unfortunately while he was starting to put the stove back two loose wires touched and sparked (making the same electrical spark sound I had heard) and this time...FRIED my whole stove.  This time EVERYTHING stopped working!  The timer, clock, stovetop...everything!  Our stove shut down on us.  

We knew we now needed a brand new stove.  :(

Triple Date Night -- no kids!

First dinner date in 10 months!

Tonight we did something very last minute and went to dinner with a couple of Huy's co-workers!  It actually turned out to be like a triple date night without any kiddies!  We all have kids so usually when we see each other its planned with kids involved.  Not tonight though, we were all kid free.  It was REALLY NICE!  I love my girls but I love my husband too and enjoying his company without having to worry about Isla screaming or throwing food or Elle acting overly silly, I enjoyed spending a nice "child-free" night with him.  Plus I got to eat and enjoy my food without having to scarf it down really quick!

Anyhow, there is this new pizza parlor in Kapolei called Brick Oven Pizza and it was YUMMY!  Hands down the best pizza!  Plus the restaurant was nice and clean and pretty big with TVs all around so my husband was happy to catch highlights as well.  We pretty much tried everything on the menu.  I guess that's the fun part of doing a whole group date, everyone tries a little something of everything!

It was a great satisfying night!

(L-R) Randy, Karen, Maggie, Mark, myself and Huy

A day at Windward Mall

Best friends
Elle and Kyrie

This morning we planned to meet up with our friends Randy, Karen and Kyrie at Windward Mall.  We hardly ever get out to this side of the island but I'm so glad we did.  It is such a nice mall!  They did some nice renovations.  It is great for the family especially mommies with babies.  There are CLEAN bathrooms at every corner and wide walkways (great for strollers).  There is also so much seating for you to take breaks in between shopping.  On one end of the mall there is this carpeted enclosed play area for babies - 5 year olds! The nice thing about this play area is the seating area for parents to keep an eye on their kids.  Elle and Kyrie loved it as did Isla! (I wish I took pictures!)

After they had their fill of playing we tried out the food court.  We had some korean bbq.  It was yummy.  While we were eating we saw that there was a train that drove through the mall.  On the train you see parents with their kids in the carts.  I thought that was so cool! At Pearlridge mall you only have the kiddy train they provide twice a year and only little kids can ride it.  This train on the other hand is both for parents and kids!  I wanted to ride it!

After our fun day at the mall we decided last minute to meet up for dinner as a dinner date with adults only.  A quick phone call to my mom and she was more than happy to watch the girls.  Yay! Date night!
 

Enjoying Spring Break

Elle's spring break officially began from the 12th thru the 16th! Actually it started on the 9th -teacher work day.  Huy planned ahead and scheduled vacation so we could do some fun things together as a family.   

A great way we enjoyed spring break was swimming at our pool!  Today we invited Elle's friend Kyrie to our pool.  The girls had a blast!  Elle can stay in the water FOREVER.  Her friend on the other hand not so much.  She liked sunbathing.  The weather was really nice for a swim.  This was actually the first time we got Isla in the pool (We took a while picking up a baby float for her.) She really likes the water!  In fact she liked it so much she didn't want to stay in the baby float.  She actually wanted out and swim on her own.  She also liked trying to drink the pool water, yuck! 

Daddy and Isla

Isla squirming out of my arms.

kicking, kicking, kicking
Isla don't mind water on her face, unlike Elle.
We are still trying to get her unafraid of water on her face.

I think we are going to need to get Isla in the pool more often.  

After our swim we all headed back home and got cleaned up in time for dinner.  We did take out from Shakeys Pizza and had some yummy chicken alfredo pizza, mojos and fried chicken (sooo yummy!) After we all digested we played some Kinect - Just Dance!  Great way to burn off the calories!!  

Exceptionally fun day/night!

Home sweet home

It's been a year since we moved into our home and although we loved it just the way it was, there were a few things we wanted to do to make it more of our own.  It took us a whole year but that's only because so many things were going on in our lives at the time.  For one thing, I was 6 months pregnant when we moved (not so easy packing, cleaning and unpacking).  A few months later Isla came.  Life was a bit more hectic caring for a newborn and preparing a 4 year old for her first year in kindergarten at a new school.  There really wasn't any time for us to do anything!  

Well... now that we've settled in and things have slowed down, we felt that spring break was a great time to start our "mini home renovation" project we've been longing to do, nothing too dramatic but something just enough for us to make our home more inviting!  

We decided to give our kitchen, dining room and living room a little facelift.  Nothing drastic of course but just a little paint here and there with some new accessories to make it feel more like "our home".  

The first thing we decided to do was to brighten up our kitchen and dining with a little bit of color.  We wanted to bring in some of the outside blue color in our home so we went with a cool "sea mist" color for our walls.  We wanted something that would contrast nicely with our dark floors as well as blend well with the beige color walls we have in the rest of our home.  

Part I - Painting (3-10-12)

prepping the walls

prepping the kitchen

priming commenced

priming done

kitchen ready for color!

painting, painting, painting..

cleaning, cleaning, cleaning

waiting to dry

not too shabby for a days work!

paint has dried...

SUNDAY REST (3-11-12)

Resumed - Monday 3-12-12

Part II - New dining pendant

New dining pendant - courtesy of Crate and Barrell

finding placement...

and its up!

cozy dining room

Part III - A few new accessories...

It is amazing what a new rug and new lamps can do to a space!  We wanted so badly to get rid of our sofas but after careful consideration (keeping in mind that Elle LOVES jumping on the sofas as does Isla...) we decided to hold off and try to make the green sofas work with our space and color palette.  So in lieu of new sofas we decided to start off with a new neutral-lighter color rug to help lighten up our living room space.  Now that we have wood floors, a cushy rug is so comfy cozy! Also in addition to the rug we went with new lamps to tie in the color from the dining room just so everything would blend nicely. So far we like what we see. We are still working on accent pieces to make everything feel more complete, but for now we feel that what we've accomplished has made our home feel definitely our own!

our comfy home

our beautiful dining area

our nice new lamp to lighten up our living space

Blueberry Crumb Cake heaven

I <3 my cake!

Now that I stay home in the day I get to watch foodnetwork.com more often and one of my newest favorite shows is the Barefoot Contessa.  I didn't really care for this show at first because a lot of her food looked so pretentious for my taste buds but I grew fond of her show after watching it more often.  What intrigued me about her was her relationship with her husband.  She makes such yummy meals for him that inspires me to try and do the same for my husband.  A well fed husband is a happy husband!

Anywhoo on one episode she made a simple old fashioned blueberry crumb cake that looked YUM!  I just so happen had all of the ingredients in my refrigerator and pantry so I thought that would be such a yummy dessert after dinner!  I don't bake too often because I'm not so much a sweets person but for some reason I really wanted to try and make this dessert.  I fell in love!  It wasn't too sweet, cake was moist and the streusel topping added a perfect crunch.  I thought of it as a blueberry muffin on steroids!  It was a big hit with my husband!

10 months already?

10 months
weight: 20 lbs 12.4 oz
length:  30 in

Isla is already 10 months!  It really is amazing how fast time flies...

At 10 months Isla:
- is crawling effortlessly around the house
- is putting everything in her mouth
- is crawling up stairs
- is eating rice, noodles, chicken, bread, cheerios, bananas, fish....
- loves wrestling with her sister (she may be small but she can play rough with her sister)
- knows how to "love love" (she places her forehead on you when we ask for a hug or kiss)
- thinks its funny when we tell her not to go up the stairs and still does it anyway... :/
- pulls herself up on the couch
- waves "hi" and "bye"
- gets upset when she sees her sister sad
- screams and gets all excited when she sees her daddy in the mornings
- mumbles "mama" and "da"
- sings when she is trying to fall asleep
- enjoys music (i.e. Barney, Gene Kelley in "Singing in the Rain" and Elle's CD with Black Eye Peas "Pump It")
- is standing up much more without holding on to anything

Toothless

And so its begun...Elle lost her first tooth today!  Her little tooth has been wiggling for the longest time and on our trip to church this morning it finally came out!  I've been wanting to just pull it out because it was barely hanging on.   (I'm mean...but it was bugging me how she would play with it.) We were so happy it came out especially Elle.  She felt so proud because all of her friends at school were losing their teeth too.  

In Elle's case, she didn't have to worry about having a gap in her teeth because her permanent tooth wanted to make its presence very quickly.  It was actually starting to grow in back of her baby tooth.  We are hoping it slowly makes its way into its little gap.  

1st missing tooth!

Of course the best part of losing teeth is the rewards from the tooth fairy!  Elle was looking forward to hearing from the tooth fairy.  She really could care less about the money (that will definitely change as she gets older). She did receive $2.00 and stuffed it in her piggy bank.  (The average going rate is $2.10, so the tooth fairy did well.) However the highlight for Elle was waking up to find a "tooth card" under her pillow with a personalized note.  She was so happy that the tooth fairy wrote her a note saying how happy she was to receive such a healthy tooth!

Tooth fairy goods!

After reading her card Elle asked me, "how come the tooth fairy used my markers and paper and Aunty Amber's sparkles (sequins)?" I was a little caught off guard. I guess for the next tooth the tooth fairy better be better prepared and pack her own supplies! :)

It's so hard to say goodbye...

Kaydence & Elizabeth (with Elle in the back)

It's the hardest thing seeing your 5 year old so sad.  Elle gets sad for lots of things but today was different.  Today her best friend from kindergarten had to say goodbye.  This was Kaydence's last day of school because her family was moving all the way to Massachusetts!

Elle and Kaydence became real close friends halfway through the school year.  They share a lot similarities and when put together they could seriously pass as sisters.  During the school year I got to know Kaydence's mom, Charity and baby sister Savannah (who by the way, just so happen to be 2 months older than Isla!) We've had playdates together and really enjoyed getting to know one another.  Elle was never happier when with Kaydence.  They both enjoyed each other's company.  This was Elle's first BEST FRIEND so saying goodbye today was extremely hard for her.  It was so hard that she didn't want to take a farewell picture (as you can tell above).

Charity and I are going to try staying in touch and the girls are going to practice their writing skills by keeping in touch writing letters!

We wish Kaydence and her family the best and hope they enjoy their new home all the way on the east coast!

Things are getting so much easier!

Isla is growing up way too fast! Although I am saddened by the fact that she won't be a baby no more, I have to admit that I am loving the fact that she is crawling/standing, feeding herself (with her 2 bottom teeth only), crying less with others and most of all sleeping through the night! It seems like all these new milestones happened overnight (they kind of did).

Right when Isla turned 8 months old my life just got a whole lot easier. I am so happy! The one thing I am most happy about is, Isla sleeping through the night! I thought it was never going to happen, ever! I am so happy to sleep again. :)