balloons~i ♥ faces

i know it's been WAAAAYYYYY too long since i've posted.... i've been taking a blogging break and don't know when the break will be over. but i just wanted to post one of my favorite balloon photos for the i ♥ faces challenge this week.

this was back on the fourth of july in bayfield, co. kawena was watching the "pet parade". i love how she got down on their level to watch them go by. isn't the shadow from the balloon cool?

hopefully, i will be back soon to blogging, but don't hold your breath.....

on a hot summer day

back at the beginning of summer, i was out running errands with all four girls, something i have since refused to do (unless in an emergency), and they were being well behaved. so, i decided they needed a reward and because it was a pretty warm day we went to uptown albuquerque to the ball fountain.  if you don’t have one of these fountains near your house, kids love them, at least mine do!

 

when we first arrived the girls were trying to avoid getting wet, but as you may guess, that didn’t last long! here are nani and kawena when we first arrived (for some reason kale’a observed from a distance, at first):

 

nani stayed mostly dry by trying to cool off with the steam coming out of the vents,

 

while kawena stopped the water by stepping on the hole where it came out.

 

however, as i mentioned before, they didn’t stay dry very long…

they just couldn’t resist walking through it and standing in the middle while the fountain shot water balls all around them!

finally, kale’a saw how much fun her sisters were having without her and she joined in in a big way:

 

oh to be young again….i love the happy squeals of children!

oh baby i love your ways

do you remember that song from ub40? i loved that band back in the day! great memories! well, that is how i feel about our 1/2 year old baby. i love her ways!

what “ways” do i love?

• i love her smile
• i love her easy-going, happy disposition
• i love how she rolls around the den to get to her toys and remains content for a good hour doing it
• i love that she loves being held by other people
• i love how much she splashes in the bathtub

• i love that she is ticklish
• i love that she doesn’t stay upset for very long
• i love her little fingers and toes
• i love that she hangs out with her big sisters
• i love that she is still working for those abs of steel doing daily crunches

• i love how she blows bubbles before she gets really upset
• i love her “energizer bunny” energy
• i love that whenever you give her any sort of attention she grins from ear to ear and lights up the room
• i love how she has discovered her toes and sucks on them
• i love how she gets excited when she is laid down beneath any moving fan and she kicks and swings her arms and makes happy noises
• i love how she sucks on her bottom lip (a definite teething thing)

• i love those big, deep, brown eyes
• i love that she only wakes up once at night, but am looking forward to the time when she sleeps through the night
• i love her curiosity for things around her
• i love that she has chunky baby fat
• i love that she finally had a tooth break through on saturday just in time for her 1/2 birthday today
• i loved feeding her avocado today for her first solid food experience
• i love that she snorts when she laughs
• i love her laughter
• i love that when she gets up on her knees she leaves her face on the floor and pushes herself forward (i’m surprised she doesn’t have a rug burn on her forehead yet)

there are so many ways of hers to love!

 

happy half birthday, mahealani (she’s an actual age now!)

touching the temple

 

as most of you know, i am a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints (l.d.s.). as a member, i serve in my ward, or congregation, in whatever capacity i am needed. currently, i am a teacher in the relief society, or the women’s organization, and this sunday i am giving a lesson based on these two talks, here and here. they are excellent talks if you have a moment to read them!

 

the topic is temple worship and how to make our homes a sacred place. 

 

in preparation for my lesson i have made a greater effort to “attend” the temple.  when i say “attend” i don’t necessarily mean within the walls of the temple, though i am doing that as well. but this week i have taken the opportunity to visit the temple grounds with our girls. so far, we have been twice this week. our prophet, president thomas s. monson, once counseled, “as we touch the temple, the temple will touch us.” so, i decided to take the girls to the temple so they could “touch” the temple.

 

on both occasions, we have had a great experience. on one of the visits we sat in the shade of a tree and talked about and sang the children’s hymn “i love to see the temple”. i asked the girls what we can learn from the lyrics of the song. here are some of the things we came up with:

• we are children of God
• families can be together forever when sealed in the temple
• we go to the temple to pray, to listen, to feel the spirit
• the temple is God’s house
• we make promises in the temple
• the temple is a place of beauty
• we must prepare to enter the temple

on another occasion we sat in front of the fountain and talked about the significance of the water and how it represents the “living water” of Christ of which we can partake of to never thirst again.

 

on both visits, we walked to the back of the temple and touched the walls of the temple just outside of the celestial room. i told them about the quote from our prophet about touching the temple and asked them what it meant to have “the temple touch us”.

 

during both visits the thing that struck me was how quiet and reverent they were the whole time we were on the temple grounds. i know, i know you all think that my children are always well behaved and never yell or whine, but sadly they do! ;-)

 

if you live near a temple, i highly recommend taking your young children to walk the temple grounds with you. it is a great place to teach them about the importance of the temple and to help them prepare, while they are young, to enter the temple. it is a wonderful place to feel the spirit and let the peace of the temple touch you.  our girls, along with myself, look forward to our next visit.

our fourth

(warning: this post contains LOTS of pictures!)

 

for the fourth of july we drove up to durango, co to stay at the cabin and spend the holiday with the grandparents. it was a change from our oregon tradition of spending the fourth with our good friends the dimit’s, but  because they were too far away we started a new tradition!

 

mitch’s parent’s spend the fourth at the cabin most years so they had things planned out. they woke up early that morning and went into the town of bayfield to save us seats along the parade route. i had never been to a small town parade so i was pretty excited to see what bayfield had to offer.

 

we arrived a couple hours later and found them saving our seats. so, we sat down to wait…

on the left side of the picture are mitch’s dad, mom, and grandma.

 

first, they started with the “pet parade”. it was very interesting to see what people do to their pets…

 

first, there was this pair of dogs pulling the radio flyer wagon with the little girl…

then, there were the dogs that were dressed up by their owners….

  if they only knew, i’m sure they wouldn’t stand for it!!

 

but kawena was sure fascinated by them..

i tell you, this girl needs a dog! whenever she sees a dog or a puppy she immediately wants to go play with them. someday, sweet girl, we will get you a dog!

 

and then there was this dude riding his cooler!

now that is the way to travel! he was whizzing back and forth on that thing…it was awesome.

 

after the pet parade, the real parade came through town with horses and tractors and military cars and floats with bands and all the rescue vehicles…

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it was a pretty cute, small town parade. i was sitting next to this old lady and when the fire truck came by spraying water out the back she covered her gray hair with her hands and said, “no! no! not this way, my hair!!” it was pretty funny!

 

the kids got lots of candy and beads handed and thrown to them. i would venture to say that they had a good time, too….

they were all smiles and looked pretty happy at the end of the parade, don’t you think?!

 

after the parade we drove back to the cabin and i took a nap with the baby while mitch tried to get the other three to nap, to no avail. then, it was time for dinner. we had hot dogs and hamburgers. my favorite were these…

that mitch brought from our garden at home and grilled on the barbie! he even let the girls help season them…

and nani got to be the taste tester…

 

after dinner the girls entertained us with a “show” of sorts, which involved big sticks…

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we were all convinced that someone would get hurt, but they surprised us and we all survived unscathed!

 

after dinner and the show we took the girls to get some ice cream at the country store. then it was off to wait for the fireworks over the lake.

 

unfortunately, we parked by a bunch of crazies with beer and fireworks…not a very good combination as they clearly demonstrated. they had a campfire and had lined up all of their “illegal” fireworks in front of it. they were shooting them off while their kids threw the small fireworks INTO the campfire. at one point i guess one of the “illegal” fireworks either tipped into the fire or one of the kids threw it into the fire and we were lucky not to get  impaled by it!  the girls were a bit concerned…

 

so, after that close call we moved our chairs to the other side of our car to provide a safety barrier between us and the crazies and anymore exploding fireworks!

 

then, the REAL fireworks began…

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and i actually remembered my tripod and got some cool shots! then it was off to the cabin for some much needed rest!

 

 

from the waking up early in the morning to the staying up late at night, we had a wonderful fourth of july! it was not like any other fourth of july i had ever had, but it was very good one!

late night “conversation”

 

last night kawena got up at 12:08 because she was “stauy-ving”. i was actually just about to get into bed, so i thought i could “quickly” give her a few crackers and get to bed.

 

well, i got her 7 ritz, or “circle crackers” as she calls them and sat down at the table across from her. she began to talk to me in a whisper as she slowly ate her 5 crackers.

 

as i sat there listening to her chatter on, i was amazed at how easily she could go from one subject to the next without having a lull in the conversation. i use the term “conversation” loosely because all i really did was interject a “uh-huh” or a “really” every now and then. after sitting with her and listening i realized that i should write some of these things down as she spoke because they were so random and funny.

 

so, this is what i could scribble on a scrap piece of paper as she rambled on late last night. this is not all-inclusive because i only started writing about have way through her “conversation”, i wish i had gotten it all:

 

k: “i am growing this tall. will i still be kawena when i am tall?”

me: “yes, you will always be kawena.”

k: “yay! i get to be kawena when i am tall! i am growing tall so that i can clean the toe-let. when nani wakes up i want to tell nani and lala that logan (her cousin who is 5) can grow taller to come to our house and we can clean the toe-lets! (apparently, only tall people can clean toilets in our house and it is an exciting thing for “little” people to grow taller so they can do it!) i want to clean lala’s toe-let and logan can clean your toe-let!” (won’t logan be excited!)

 

k: takes a bite of her cracker and continues…..”when the sun was going down there was a bug in my eye. they were like bees and i grabbed one and put it in my milk cup (she motions holding a bug in her hand and putting it in her cup on the table), but we can’t drink them.” chuckle.

 

me: yawning, “can you eat your cracker, please?”

k: takes another bite, “i was naked and lala was having clothes on, but me wasn’t having clothes on (she was telling me about dinner because i was not there). daddy asked me, ‘why you don’t have clothes on?’” chuckle, chuckle, “that’s funny!”

 

me: becoming more tired by the minute, “can you eat your cracker?” she only has one more left on her plate.

k: looking at her ONE cracker and holding it up,  “but me don’t like these crackers!”

me: “you’ve already had 6 of them!”

k: takes a bite, “i got some salt in my eyes.”

 

more chattering about more random things that i didn’t write down….

 

me: “can you eat your cracker, please?”

k: “okay.” picks it up, “but it’s like a boat. it’s like a tiny boat.”

takes a tiny bite, “it’s like another boat, mama.  lala was touching that light in the living room when she was standing on the chair.”

 

k: taking her last bite, “i’m done!”

me: “thank goodness!”

k: “what? did you say ‘good’?”

me: “yup!”

k: “oh”

 

i look at the clock and it reads 12:54am! who knew it took 46 minutes and A LOT of chatter for a 2 year old to eat 7 crackers in the middle of the night!! who knew? it surprised me!

 

though i was exhausted, i really enjoyed our whispered “conversation” and she still blows me away with her constant chatter and how well she speaks for such a little lady! i love her little, sometimes too loud, voice and i will miss it when she is older.

 

 

thanks little bug for entertaining my exhausted little brain last night! it was an unexpected ending to a very long day! i love you!

“lemolade 4 sale…”

 

anyone thirsty on this hot summer day? well, i have just the cure for your dry, parched mouth……

i happen to know 5 very cute, entreprenurial girls selling lemonade (“lemolade” if your name is kawena) right on our street.

 

in fact, they set up “shop” right in front of our house….

don’t they look excited and eager to sell you their sweet, delicious, thirst-quenching lemolade??

 

how could you pass up these sweet faces?

 

as they were setting up, their first customers arrived before the girls were even ready. you should have seen how quick they were to provide their product with a smile and a “have a great day!” that first customer blew a lot of wind in their “sales” and they were ready and determined to make a fortune!

 

the heat of the day didn’t even deflate their spirits! it was nothing a piece of ice couldn’t cool…

 

at the end of the 2 hour work day, they did pretty well! $10 was the take home (divided by 5) and the girls couldn’t have been more thrilled! i was so grateful for wonderful, generous people, for example….

• the girl who had a handful of quarters (at least 10 or more) and said, “this is all i have.” and handed them all to the girls
• the lady who said, “now, how many of you are there? one, two, three, four, five.” and handed over a quarter for each girl
• the numerous people who gave a dollar for a cup

what made me even happier was the example of these people that taught my daughter to be generous, too.

 

just now, a neighbor was just out walking her dog and had no money. so, kale’a came to me and whispered in my ear, “can we just give her a cup for free?” of course, i said that was a wonderful idea. after the lady left with her dog kale’a said, “mom, i want to have my own lemonade stand where the lemonade is all free. that way more people will stop to get some.”

 

thanks all you generous lemonade buyers for teaching my daughter to be generous!

 

as i type this, my three are at it again selling more lemonade.  so, if you are in the area, stop by for service with a smile and the most refreshing cup of lemolade you have ever tasted!

the little girl who loved to sing

 

there once was a girl who loved to pick flowers…

she loved to wander the meadows and find lovely flowers. it made her very happy…

but as much as she loved picking flowers, there was one thing that she loved even more. that one thing was singing. she loved to sing more than anything else.

 

one day this little girls mom wanted to take some pictures of her in the beautiful meadows of the colorado mountains (aka outside of  grandma great’s cabin). she was very happy to be outside in the meadow full of flowers. her mom thought she could get some beautiful shots of the little girl as she picked flowers. the one thing, however, that the mom didn’t take into consideration was her love for singing. for as she was snapping her photos, the little girl began to sing…

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and each time the mom asked her to stop singing for just a moment so she could get some “normal” pictures of the sweet little girl, she would get sad…

 

so, the mom decided to let her sing…

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because that was when the little girl was most happy….

and when the little girl was happy….the mom was happy!

camping in villanueva

last weekend we took our beloved cougar out of hibernation and took him to villanueva for a fun camping adventure! it was our first time camping with mahealani and she was a camping rock star! she made camping with four little ones seem like a breeze! she napped a total of 6 hours the first day, broken up in two naps and then slept through the night the second night!

 

this was our first time camping in new mexico and this campsite was great. it was a short hour and a half drive and there was a little river meandering through the campground! so, before we left we grabbed some inner tubes and life jackets from the store. boy are we glad we did! while mahea was napping we floated down the river as a family:

 

 

we called it the lazy river because it was so slow and relaxing. apparently, kawena took it literally and fell asleep while floating down it! i tell you, now that that girl doesn’t take naps she can fall asleep just about anywhere!

when did she grow up and start looking so old??

 

as part of the camping trip we celebrated the girl’s counsin, logan’s, 1/2 birthday, a very interesting tradition in their family (i guess you can do that for your child when she’s an only child!)! this is their cousin, a very sober child, with frosting on her mouth:

she is 2 months younger than kale’a and was celebrating her 5 and 1/2 year birthday!

 

the cupcakes were a big hit with all of the 27 kids there, and a big mess!

 

i just love little buns in swimsuits!

 

 

it was a fun family trip and we are excited for more camping this summer!

 

now we are off to the colorado cabin for the weekend. no internet, no cell reception, just fun relaxation with the family….have a great father’s day, i know we will!

 

i won’t be back online till next week….

 

we need to leave in 30 minutes so i better pack up the car so we can head out……

week 23: sepia toned

 

we had a great weekend camping, of which i will post pictures soon.

 

until then, i captured this gem on our trip and am entering it in the i {heart} faces challenge for this week:

 

 

i’ve always thought that kids eating cupcakes make for great photo opportunities. i believe this is because there are few kids who can eat a cupcake without getting frosting on their face.

 

i especially like this one of kawena because you can see that she is anticipating her next bite of frosting deliciousness! i love that i can capture these precious moments and freeze them in time forever!

go check out the other fun entries: