Entertainment Taba Style

We regularly have dinner on Monday nights at Wes's sister folks house. This past Monday she had a friend from college visiting that knew Wes's cousin, Matt, as well, so they joined us at our dinner. Its always a riot to see the kids playing out in the yard together and the games they can create using swings, a slide and a trampoline, but what was even funnier are the things that can happen when there is a box of dress up clothes lying around...

So Kaytin and Aliyah are the only two girls that live on the compound full of boys. Somehow their inner girl has emerged and princess dresses are high fashion. They were too cute.And we have the flapper, princesses x two, batman, and a pirate. (aka anna, aliyah, kaytin, hans, and cole) It was quite a show. I think Cole tried the Batman costume first, but found it to be a tad snug. :)

Just so Caleb doesn't feel left out, here he is...

I swear he was smiling two seconds before the shutter snapped. He's now four months old and weighs 16 pounds. Holy smokes!

Distractions

Oops...looks like I have been neglecting this for awhile. I blame facebook. I know I mentioned before that I'm completely addicted to social networking sites and now that I've reconnected with a bunch of friends, I seem to be constantly on and catching up and laughing and everything else. So here's a sorry to all two of my readers. hahaha. You know I read somewhere that to really be a blogger you're supposed to write something everyday. Yeah, like that's ever going to happen.

Anyway, we participated in our first craft fair last Saturday selling Wes's gyotaku artwork. The fair was at the local elementary school and we sold two prints! Yahoo. Gave out a bunch of business cards, as well, which has also proved fruitful seeing as Wes did a print last night for someone who called after picking up his card on Saturday. We're planning to do another fair before the end of the year that will hopefully provide us a little extra Christmas money.

Faithful blog stalkers will remember that last year we spent Thanksgiving on Oahu which we'll be doing again this year. :) Here's hoping that I'll be back with another entertaining monkey story...and pictures to go with it!

Halloween's Done...On To Thanksgiving!

So I wouldn't be an official mommy blogger unless I posted Halloween pictures and here they are....

Careful followers of this here blog will remember that a few posts back I mentioned that Kaytin was going to be Tinkerbell for Halloween. Well, for some reason, in my sleep-deprived haze, I never tried the costume on her once we got it in the mail. Around rolls Halloween morning and I think to myself, hmm...maybe we should open that costume up and see how it looks. Much to my chagrin, it was SUPER small!! It fit, but barely covered up her booty and she kept saying, "mommy, its hurting my tummy, its soo itchy!" Woops! While my mind raced with panic thinking I'd have to run to Lihue and scavenge through whatever was left to find my poor baby girl a costume for that very same evening, a light bulb flashed and I remebered that she had recently come into a huge bag of dress up dresses from her cousin, Anna, who just so loves to be a princess. Found the above which worked like a charm and she still got to wear her Tink wings. (which is the only thing she wanted in the first place.) Phew...crisis averted.

Wes, the master costume creator himself...who has dressed as a kissing booth and Vili the Warrior in the past...created this:

All of the younger kids kept saying, "Cool, Uncle Wes, you're Bumblebee from the Transformers, right?" And he'd be like, "Um NO." For those not in the know, he's that thing from Aliens that Sigourney Weaver used to fight the aliens. (Does that mean he's dressed as Sigourney?) I believe its called a power loader or something to that effect. It was quite the contraption and all made out of the styrofoam stuff that protects your computer while its being shipped to you. Pretty crazy. After Halloween I'm always left in awe of my husband, who can make costumes himself spending less than $10. What a guy.

It took me forever to decide what I wanted to be and finally came up with this:

Ugly Betty. :) And I'm holding the cutest little ninja in the world, Caleb. So fun. So fun. We had a great evening. Kaytin was super excited to go trick or treating and then was over it after just like 6 houses. (haha) Now I'm off to dream up costumes for next year....

Yo Gabba Gabba!

As promised, I have to take a moment and send up a shout to the TV show Yo Gabba Gabba. Fellow parents out there, if you haven't taken a moment to check out this amazing creation that airs on Nick Jr. and Noggin...dude, you're missing out. Especially if you're in my age range! So the basis of this show is that there's this guy:

DJ Lance Rock. (Trust me, it gets even better) He carries around his sweet boom box in which live an imaginary world of these creatures:

Muno, Foofa, Plex, Brobee, and Toodee. (Yes, I realize what Muno looks like, but that's not the point) At the beginning of each show, he brings this little munchkins to life by yelling out, "yo gabba gabba, yo gabba gabba..." (which explains why you hear Kaytin yelling this all the time now) Anyway, the show is basically the Seinfeld of the children's television world. There is absolutely no point to this show, but it is HILARIOUS! There's a bunch of regular segments including "Biz's Beat of the Day" featuring none other than:
Mr. You Got What I Need Clown Prince of Hip-Hop himself, Biz Markie. I kid you not, he teaches kids a beatbox technique of the day and tells them to go home and practice. I just about died laughing the first time I saw this. There's also "Dancey Dance Time" where celebs appear to teach kids a few little dance moves. (during which Kaytin looks at me and says, come on mom! its dancey dance time) The other day it was:
Seriously, I think this show is waaaayyyy too funny. So if you have a pre-preschooler at your house (and even if you don't) go set your DVR's now and start beatboxing and dancey dancing along with me! Yo Gabba Gabba....yo!

I've Been Tagged!!

I'm usually not one for surveys, but a great friend (and apparent blog reader of mine! hi margo!) tagged me, so here it is...

Four Random Things I Like About My Husband:
1) He makes me laugh...even when I don't want to.
2) He is a great husband and loves me even when I irritate the bejesus out of him.
3) He is a wonderful daddy.
4) He works hard so that I can stay home and raise our children.

Four Jobs I've Had:
1) Salesperson at JC Penney
2) Alumni Affairs Assistant in college
3) High School Teacher
4) Mom

Four Movies I've Watched More Than Once:
1) High School Musical
2) High School Musical 2
3) The Little Mermaid
4) Dumbo (these are all of Kaytin's choosing)

Four TV Shows I Watch:
1) Grey's Anatomy
2) One Tree Hill
3) Top Chef (when its on)
4) Yo Gabba Gabba (this one is for Kaytin...and deserves a whole other blog in itself!)

Four Places I've Been:
1) camping on the beach
2) camping in the mountains
3) swimming in the ocean in the winter
4) all here on Kauai!

Four of My Favorite Foods:
1) Pasta
2) Sushi
3) Chocolate
4) Tacos

Four Places I'd Like to Visit:
1) Okinawa
2) Thailand
3) the Alaskan cruise thing
4) New Zealand

Four Things I am Looking Forward to in the Coming Year:
1) Kelli & Eric moving home!
2) Watching Caleb turn one
3) Kaytin preparing for preschool
4) A possible girls trip somewhere?!

Four People I Tag:
1) Holly
2) Elki
3) Kirstin
4) Kelli

Costume Craze

Hard to believe its been nearly a year since I started my life as a blogger. I think the first picture I ever posted was of my family last Halloween. And now, speaking of Halloween, here I sit trying to figure out what I'm going to dress up as this year. Gone are the days of family themes for awhile with a headstrong 3 year old in our midst. She has insisted that she wants to be a butterfly this year. Well, unfortunately, she was a butterfly a couple of years ago, so that's not happening. Since I'm a smarty-pants I have convinced her that this:

is a butterfly. I'm sure I've thoroughly confused her since everyone else will be referring to her as Tinkerbell all night long, but I'm sure she will correct them. Maybe I'll make her a nametag that says, "I'm a butterfly, okay?"

Since there's no way I'd convince Wes to dress up as Peter Pan (just take a moment and picture it) the rest of us are just going as whatever we want. Here's Caleb's costume:

He's going to be a ninja. Awesome. Now there's the question of me and Wes. And at this moment, just weeks away from Halloween, I still have no idea what we're going to be. I wanted us to be the Spartan Cheerleaders from SNL, but that got a no. He wanted to be the GEICO cavemen which I rejected. Who knows? Granted, a couple years back Wes made his costume the night before Halloween and it was pretty much the funniest one of the night.
He is the kissing booth. Check it out. It was pretty hilarious.

Exercise Entry Take Two

Remember my post about starting up an exercise routine again? Well, last night Wes and I pretty much committed ourselves to really trying to get back in shape and feeling healthy again by ordering...

the P90X exercise and nutrition program. Hot bodies, here we come!

If you haven't already heard of P90X, its an exercise routine that was created around the concept of muscle confusion. You pop in a differnt DVD each day and work on certain muscle groups. Apparently specific targeting and switching it up every so often makes a difference. All I know is that we know someone who did the workout and followed the nutrition guide and it worked. We saw the results. I looked it up online and have seen some posts by some nursing mothers and according to them, I'd need to tack on an additional 500 calories per day to account for breastfeeding, and I should be good. I guess we'll see. In 3 months I'm hoping to feel like a whole new me.