The Camera Thief

Even though we bought Hailey her own digital camera for Christmas, she still likes to use mine. She's actually pretty good at taking nice pictures, but it probably isn't the smartest thing to allow since there is that risk of dropping it while the lense is out. Anyway, she was really into taking self-portraits recently, so I've showed her how to set the timer and then wait. She stole my camera at some point today and this is what I found.


Here are also a few pics from the recent weeks




...

For Heidi and Family

Heidi said she was having some issues uploading videos of Jackson, so I thought I'd put this one on my blog so she can post the link on her blog to show family back home. Jackson started army crawling last week and here's a video of him today as I lured him over with my cell phone. "Oh so helpful Hailey" had to join in the fun too.

Hailey's 3rd Birthday Party

We celebrated Hailey's 3rd Birthday with her friends at the Pearl Harbor pool. The weather was perfect and everyone enjoyed the playground, pool, and sun! I couldn't have done it without all the extra helpful hands from our amazing Hawaiian Ohana (thanks guys for making Hailey's day so special and for helping me with the girls and the clean-up...and an EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS to Auntie Sarah who even came home with me to help unload and clean!!!)

The Birthday Girl!

Kailee

One of the many visits from this cardinal

Kailee chillin while Sarah and I set up

The MacDonald girls

Hailey playing with Uncle Shelley (Leevi's "boyfriend"...their affair has been put on hold with the deployment...I'm sure they are lost without one another!) Hailey made Shelley take the turtle for a walk

Colin, Rylee and Hailey in the kiddie pool

The babies soakin up the sun (Brooke's Mommy, Monica; Brooke; Kailee; and Jackson)

Uncle Shelley with Colin and Hailey (A naval ship in Pearl Harbor is in the background)

Everyone gathering to sing (Colin, Tanya, Mariah, Monica, Kailee, Lisa, Abby, Katie, Lexi, Rylee, Heidi, Jackson)

Cake #2 (Dora and Diego)

Trying to light the candles! (Tiffany and Sarah were holding towels to block the wind)

Singing Happy Birthday (Hailey was sing to herself too) (Lexi, Rylee, Me, Tiff, Hailey, Sarah, Makaela, and Jenn)

Make a wish!

Relaxing

Leila's future?

I got this story in a forwarded email from a friend...it was cute, and I felt it was blog-worthy because I know many of you that read this blog have small children and a family pet. Could this be Leila's future when the babies start crawling!? :)

An older, tired-looking dog wandered into my yard.
I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home and was well taken care of.
He calmly came over to me, I gave him a few pats on his head;
he then followed me into my house, slowly walked down the
hall, curled up in the corner and fell asleep. An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out. The next day he was back, greeted me in my yard, walked inside and resumed his spot in the hall and again slept for about an hour.This continued off and on for several weeks.Curious I pinned a note to his collar: 'I would like to find out who the owner of this wonderful sweet dog is and ask if you are aware that almost every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap.'The next day he arrived for his nap, with a different note pinned to his collar:'He lives in a home with 6 children, 2 under the age of 3 - he's trying to catch up on his sleep.Can I come with him tomorrow?'

The Birthday Girl!

Hailey had a very busy birthday today starting with opening a few gifts, a partial webcam with Leevi (we could hear each other and he could see us, but we couldn't see him), many birthday wishing phone calls, playing with friends, two walks, and finally dinner, CAKE, and more PRESENTS! The festivities aren't finished yet...she's having her birthday party on Sunday at the Pearl Harbor pool...more pics to come!

Playing with her new Ariel (color changes in water...she couldn't wait for the bath that night) She must have told me a hundred times today that "Ariel needs her tail to swim!"


Dancing for the babies with her new Kid's MP3 player from Gramma Kini and Grandpa

A princess nap to insure she made it peacefully through the evening (she did...only one meltdown because she wanted to skip dinner and just eat cake!)

A bit of coloring

Her "3" birthday tiara

Singing Happy Birthday...note the cell phone next to her on speaker phone with Leevi so he could sing along (good thing we dimmed the light because it was a little emotional...him being gone always hits hard on special occasions!) Glad he was able to "join" us though!

Cake!

Kailee and her party hat!

More presents!

Happy Birthday, Hailey!

We can't believe our baby is THREE! We are having a few friends over for cake and then her big pool party is on Sunday. I'm beat and heading to bed way too late, but got the cake finished and presents wrapped (thanks to Sarah as we watched Grey's) Here's what Hailey will see when she walks downstairs in the morning to begin her first day as a three year old! Many pics to follow...

Blog Book...A MUST!!!

I had been tossing around the idea in my head about turning my blog into a book just to have these precious memories saved forever. Recently, friends of mine have had computers crash and even blogs deleted losing all those priceless memories, pictures, and thoughts. I googled "turn blog into book" and found this amazing website! For free you can download a program that "slurps" (as they call it) your blog into a book. It was too simple! Even if I never created the hardcopy of the book (which I'm sure I will) at least the blog is saved on my computer. It will definitely take some time to go through and customize each page, but I'm thinking I will create one book per year. My grandfather was a big story teller and documented all of his thoughts into journals. When he passed away a few years ago my dad and his brother found countless journals, notepads, and scraps of paper of stories he had put into writing. We sat around as a family each flipping through a journal and reading aloud a funny story we came across about the boys growing up or even his thoughts when dating my grandmother!!!! It was amazing. I'd love for Hailey and Kailee to have these memories too. Anyway, enough of the mushy stuff. Here's the link to the website. If you have a blog, DO IT!!! If you don't have a blog, start one!!!!! :) http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook

Tornado in Hawaii

Not sure if this made the news (we seem to be popular when we have an earthquake or the power goes out when the President is here on vacation!), but we had a tornado on our island. Not only was it on our island of Oahu, but it was right down the hill from where we live. It struck at one of the main courses I golf at! I had just gotten home from taking Leila for a walk with the babies and it started to thunder and pour! I thought, 'where did that come from' and nothing more until I saw the news that night. People living up on our hill could see the twister down in Kapolei. Pretty crazy...thankfully no one was severely injured and only minor damage was done. I hadn't even thought about posting this news on my blog until I saw a youtube video clip on a friend's facebook page. You have to watch it! The tornado footage itself is pretty good, but the guy filming was cracking me up! It seems as if he was just sitting in his car randomly filming, listening to oldies on the radio and then realizes there is a tornado in front of him! The profanity is horrible, so if kiddies are around wait to watch this later. That's another reason I'm actually posting this to show how bad the language is out here. I was in big shock when I went from teaching 8th gr. in VA to 8th gr. here in Hawaii! Horrible potty mouths! Anyway, here is the link...(you may have to cut and paste it into your browser)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCjWd-Yg1LQ

A Valentine Visit from the Stampfer Boys (and Rylee!)

We arranged a Valentine's play"date" with the Stampfer kids for Vday morning. The kids had a blast and we took full advantage of the Hawaiian sunshine and played outside (Hailey is actually still out there with our neighbors...she'll sleep good tonight!)

Colin and Hailey (6 months apart)

Kailee and Mason (1 day apart)

Hailey and Rylee going for a stroll

Playing a little football

Drawing with chalk

Wagon rides

Kailee sitting up like a big girl!

Leila sunbathing

Valentine snacks from the Iverson Aunties

A visit from a praying mantis!