Almost able to breathe!

We are meeting the renters tomorrow for the lease signing. It will be a long night of finishing up cleaning/painting etc, but since we've got these two great helpers we should be done in no time! Ha, they are the reason we aren't finished yet! :) Bedtime at 7 can't come soon enough...thankfully we've moved literally across the road and the baby monitor can reach to the old house so we can get them down and get back to work!

Hailey's 1st Dream

For the first time that I know of Hailey remembered one of her dreams...she was sleeping in our room early one morning and muttered something in her sleep to me about a bear taking her camera. I muttered something back (probably "go to sleep") but when I asked her in the morning if she remembered her dream she looked at me kind of funny and then said, "YES! A bear took my camera!!" :) And that was all she could remember...

The Old Ladies

Leila has been living at the Buelows house since our move last week. She and Marley girl are best friends! They are both such mild tempered dogs who put up with so much from the kids!!!! I love to see them wrestle and romp all day (they are only a few months apart...6 yrs old) Hope this month together doesn't put them into depression when we move apart.
Taking in the view
Soaking up the sun and trying to get a quick snooze before a kid pops around the corner
And a video from Steph's blog when they watched Leila over Spring Break while we were at KoOlina http://buelowsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/old-ladies.html

THE MOVE!!!!!!

I haven't blogged in over a week because we've been moving! I'm mentally exhausted and we've decided this is (better be) the most challenging move we'll ever have to do. Our brains are mush...physically it wasn't too hard (the moving company did most of the work), but the mental prep has been draining. We put our house on the market early to hopefully guarantee renters by the time we left...which worked, a military couple moves in May 1st. We are now staying with a neighbor right across the street until the end of May when we officially move to Germany. For the prep we had to sort things we want to ship to Germany now, things we don't want to take to Germany at all (the military will store it in California), and things we still need at our neighbors' that will go in a second shipment to Germany at the end of the month. Doesn't seem too too hard, but when you throw in working full time and a 4 year old and a 19 month old, things get complicated real fast! We didn't have room to create our "piles" of junk because Kailee would turn them into her own "piles". It left a lot to do at the last minute (like the night before!!). We are somewhat settled in across the street...we have plenty of room (two bedrooms), but a non-childproofed home with minimal toys leave two tired parents at the end of the day. The movers for our Germany things came on Thursday and the movers for the storage things came Monday (we had to store most electrical things because the voltage is different over there and we also stored some large items because we don't know yet where we will be living). Leevi will be working in Heidelberg, but we are hoping to live in Mannheim...both posts' housing were built in the 50's (ughhhhh!), but the duplexes on Mannheim are much larger than the stairwell flats on Heidelberg. There is so much we don't know about Germany and we are pretty blind going into this move. I suppose that adds to the stress level. We are assuming this will be our hardest move ever for the main reason of the girls' ages...when we leave Germany they will be 7 or 8 and almost 5 or 6 (how scary is that!!!) and we probably won't be stressing about finding renters, prepping the rental or transitional moving for just a month. Say a prayer for us on May 31st as we travel across the world logging 20 something hours of flight time alone (don't know how long our layovers are) with a 4 yr old, 20 month old, and a dog! Our hair might be gray by the time we arrive in Europe!

Since we are living with a friend I didn't want to completely take over her house, so now I'm working out of Gavin's house during the days. The Buelows are sooooo gracious to open up their home to us and everyone seems to be adjusting.

Gavin, Kailee, Brooke
Kailee the escape artist...she's the youngest of the 5 but has managed to teach them how to sneak out under the fence and also showed Brooke how to climb out of her pack-n-play during naptime!! (The boys nap in a room together and the girls (not Hailey) in the other. I barely ever hear a peep from the boys room, but the girls act like they are having a sleepover!)Checking out the dogs


What a view...

Memories

When the girls are teenagers and fighting over clothes or hairbrushes, we'll have these fond memories to fall back on! :) Kailee LOVES this animal book and knows a lot of the sounds thanks to help from Hailey

She was actually yawning here when I snapped the pic

Snuggling watching Little BearHailey was spinning them in the desk chairThey lay like this often when watching t.v.

Thank goodness for non-toxic crayons

Hailey: "Mommmmmmm! Kailee is eating a crayon!" Me: "Kailee, open your mouth"

Cousin Will

Leevi's sister, Naomi, and her son Will passed through Hawaii from Guam on a military Space Available flight on their way to visit family in Washington. Although their layover was brief it was fun to see them and maybe they'll do the same on their way back.Our attempt at a "cousins" photo went as well as the ones in the past! :)

And a link to past pictures with Will...
http://themacdonalds-alohafromhawaii.blogspot.com/2009/08/long-layover.html

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

Her new favorite place to eat a snackShe's like a cat that needs to be perched up high

Ridiculous, I know

She will climb on anything!

So here's the latest about Monkey Kai...after the morning of the first time she made it out of her crib we weren't sure what we were going to do (i.e. make it a toddler bed). When it was time for nap that day, she didn't want to go down and immediately climbed right out (I think her transition to naptime was poor...she and Hailey were pretty wound up playing and then I just plopped her in bed) She was out in two seconds and while I ran to get the camera she walked right into the bathroom and jumped in the bath with Hailey. Leevi had to rock her to sleep to get her down for her nap. But....that night she went down easy as pie for bedtime and then the next morning walked into our room at 7am! :) Other than that one time of resisting naptime she still seems to go down easily and not attempt to get out of her crib until she wakes up. And then this morning she just called for me..."momma! mommmmmma! alldone" :)

Daddy Date Night

The dads got together Friday for a University of Hawaii baseball game and took the big kids...Leevi and Hailey; Mark and Gavin; Jim and Colin; and Matt and Makaela. They met up with some of our other single friends or dads that got off the hook because their kid was too young! :) All I asked for from Leevi with this camera was a group picture of the dads and kids....hmmmm....didn't happen, but from what I've heard (and I haven't had a chance to talk to the other moms and get their stories) everyone had a great time. :) Hailey goes to these games pretty often, but this was the first time with her friends there. Everyone made it home in one piece and the moms had a nice quiet evening AND Hailey slept in until 9:15am the next morning!!!!

Colin and HaileyUmmmm...clearly there were no moms around...

Gavin, Hailey, Colin, and Makaela

Gavin and Hailey (her shirt was on backwards...clearly there were no moms around!)

Ice cream sandwich...

And CLEARLY THERE WERE NO MOMS AROUND...my main concern when watching this video was the fact that they nearly hit the other fans in the stands.....(sigh) :) that and poor Makaela who got in the middle of their battle! :) (and I should add that these clapper sticks didn't make it home!) :)

Forgotten Tidbit...

I just remembered this from Hailey....

She still will sneak for Kailee's wawas (don't know how they can still provide satisfaction) but if I catch her with one I'll say, "three more sucks and then let me have it". One particular night she didn't want to give it up and said...

Hailey: "this wawa is really sucky"
Me: "what??!!"
Hailey: "I like this one...it's really sucky"
Me: "ooohhhh! So 'sucky' is a good thing?"
Hailey: "yes"
:)

Tidbits from Hailey Part XVI

Oh Hailey girl...I can't believe she's 4!!!!!! Somehow four seems soooo much older than three! She is still the best big sister ever and so helpful with the babies. We are trying to nip some 4 yr old sass in the bud, but maybe it's inevitable! :) Here are some recent ramblings....

*Her latest terms of endearment for Kailee are "Darlin' and Precious"

*Kailee got yogurt on her clothes during lunch one day and Hailey exclaimed, "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! She got gogurt all over her gorgeous dress!"

*Hailey asked me why Aladdin doesn't button his shirt (ha!)...and why the dragon from Sleeping Beauty has green fire instead of orange. "Hmmmm" was my reply

*Me:"Hailey, I wouldn't do that if I were you"
Hailey:"But you aren't me, Mom"
Guess she doesn't get that figure of speech yet! :)

*Leevi brought home the new Disney movie "The Princess and the Frog" and Hailey's response was, "Ohhhhh! I was wishing for that!"

*Hailey seldom gets irritated with Kailee, but sometimes when Kai is messing with something Hailey is playing with she'll say, "I don't think I want to be a big sister right now" :)

*And these pictures...I had just gotten home with new shoes for Hailey (mainly for Germany...I think this is the first true pair of lace up sneakers she has owned...it's all "slippahs" in Hawaii...aka flip flops (she thinks that name is soooo funny) So we were trying on her shoes and she decided to keep them on. She was actually fully dressed to begin with but transformed into a super hero (with fast shoes!!! and swim googles, an oven mitt and her dish towel cape)

This Day May be Coming...

I wrote the post below last night and had it scheduled to publish this afternoon, but now I need to amend it...guess who walked into our room at 6am this morning....yes, the monkey climbed out of her crib!!!!! I could hear her on the monitor that she was awake, but was ignoring her and hoping that she'd go back to sleep (usually she's down until after 7am and the night before we were running errands so she was up past bedtime) We keep a baby gate propped up on her door so Leila won't push it open during the night and this morning I heard it knock down and in walks Kailee saying, "Shhhhh" with her finger over her mouth. Ha! Obviously, if this continues we'll have to convert the crib to a toddler bed because of safety reasons, but I'm hoping we can solve this problem by just going in her room after she wakes up before the attempt to climb out occurs...so much for wishful thinking of her going back to sleep. We'll see....

The girls are going to share a room after the move this summer. We haven't decided on bed situations (I'd like to keep Kailee in the crib as long as possible), but Hailey is dying for Kailee to sleep in her full-size bed with her. I guess we'll see....but new sleeping arrangements may come sooner than we think because I caught Kailee-Monkey straddling the top of her crib rail this week during naptime! Ughh!!!! She was crying and not wanting to nap (which is odd...she is sooooo easy to get to bed) and I had already been in there once to make sure she still had her wawas (which she didn't because she had thrown them on the ground) and I went back for a second time to try to rock her to sleep and found her stuck on top! Hmmmm....I've since tried to get her to do it again, but she hasn't shown me how so hopefully it was a fluke. Her crib does convert to a toddler bed, but I'm not ready for her to have the "freedom" to get out on her own! :) (Pic is of Kailee at 2 months and Hailey at 2 1/2 yrs)

The Rascal

The little monkey is causing a raucous...if Kailee follows Hailey into the bathroom, Hailey typically wants her to stay. In the past she has only messed with the toilet paper, but recently she has been playing in the water. Not too big of a deal (until today!) Hailey was screaming "help! help!" from the bathroom and I walk in to find this....And since we are speaking of bathrooms, Kailee girl had her first poop on the potty this week! We aren't potty training her yet, but occassionally I will put her on the potty just for fun. This time she tooted and a tiny turd popped out. Hailey screamed that Kailee had pooped and Kailee seemed pretty impressed with herself so the girls got Leevi to show him! :) I figured this tiny little poop wasn't too gross to put online...nothing compared to Hailey's 1st poop on the potty (at 22 months) way too disgusting, but the picture is really funny. She is posing with the poop like, "mom, what the hell are you doing?!"And poopy #2!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Again, a poot pushed this one out, but I guess you have to start somewhere. She did this one this morning and I saved it in the potty for Kailee to show Hailey when she woke up! :) She was proud! When she isn't playing in the bathroom, she does do cute things like play ring-around-the rosie with her baby! Getting ready for a night of shopping with Momma

Easter 2010

We had a fabulous Easter starting with finding hidden baskets and eggs from the Easter Bunny, then off to church with a egg hunt afterwards, and then home for naps and cooking and then to the Stampfers for Easter dinner.

Kailee wasn't too productive with her egg hunt once she discovered there was a jelly bean in a few of them! Moving on after finishing a jelly bean... Finding the pennies in the eggs
Checking out the loot again downstairs
The best I could get of the two of them...ughhh

Her first chocolate bunny...she had been eyeing these in the stores for weeks now!!!!!It was Kailee's first bunny tooNot too much damage after the first day...I've instilled the fear of belly aches in Hailey! :) Too much of a good thing isn't always good! :) Egg hunt at churchThe amount of eggs was ridiculous! Again, Kailee quickly found the candy inside...note the empty egg in one hand, candy in the other, and looking for an adult to help her! Hailey moved onto Kailee's basket when hers was full! Mason and KaileeThe only picture I got of the girls together in their dresses...I loved these dresses, so maybe I'll put them in them again just for the sake of a good picture! At the Stampfers getting ready for dinner

Mason and Kailee

The guys...must be nice to sit on the couch without a kid in sight and have a beer! Just kidding...they each sprang into action when needed...even for the poopy diapers! :)

Kailee and Jackson

Kailee and Miracle...the two cats stayed hidden until dinner time, but once they came down Kailee was OBSESSED!!! She kept meowing and asking in a mumbled phrase "whereditgo?" And then I spent the next half an hour chasing her from upstairs looking under the beds until she finally forgot!

After dinner Easter cookies! And on a separate note I should add that I h-a-t-e (the implus to s-p-e-l-l inappropriate words in front of children transfers to my typing!) our girls' easter baskets...they are cute and simple and personalized and I got them last season because of the cool feature that the handle can fold flat for storage...well, that cool feature is really c-r-a-p-p-y because it can't stand up on it's own and the basket swings and flips over when you are carrying it! I was on a quest for a cute after Easter replacement and I do believe I've found them....a friend on FB posted these cute baskets for her two girls, Finley and Laci. I LOVE them!!!!! She bought them at www.thepalmgifts.com they are currently sold out, but obviously I'm in no rush to order (and these particular ones aren't on there), but I am sooooo in love!

And lastly, a video of Easter morning...I tried to edit it some, but it still ended up pretty long...