Monday Funny

A friend of mine shared this video and I cracked up! Maybe because I knew some girls like this growing up in L.A....but seriously, watch it and please someone else find this as amusing as I did. :)

Bon Qui Qui at King Burger...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkdcYlOn5M

Why Do They Have To Grow Up?

How cute is this picture? Seriously? I wish I could just freeze this moment in time when my kids genuinely like each other and aren't old enough to fight yet. I really, really, really love these guys.

Frosted Window Panes...

I know, I know...my posts are becoming few and far between, but my excuse is that its the holidays and I barely have time to do my laundry let alone blog. :) I'm trying.

So the frosted window panes are NOT here in Hawaii, but they are in Las Vegas! How crazy is that? My parents had flown out this past Sunday to go to my sister's graduation (she just completed her Master's in Health Promotion at UNLV...congrats Kelli!) and on Monday my mom calls me and says, guess what? Um...what? Its snowing! Now I know that its quite uncommon for snow to fall in Vegas, but I do know that it HAS happened once before since Kelli's been there. Still, fairly exciting...didn't have the heart to tell Kaytin since she's been talking about playing in the snow for who knows how long!! A few days pass and then Kelli texts me on Wednesday (my parents were scheduled to fly back early early Thursday) that its snowing again! Apparently it was the start of Blizzard 2008 in Vegas. I kid. Seriously, though, people who live in the desert are pretty much NOT prepared to drive or survive in snow! The airport started talking about shutting down, school was cancelled, people were advised to stay off the roads. Ca-ray-zay. For real. Not to worry, my parents made it back to Hawaii in one piece after only a 30 minute delay. phew.

On the home front, we actually got our Christmas card out on time this year! Woo hoo! As opposed to last year when, sick as a dog, I didn't even want to think about them. I ordered cards that said "Merry Christmas" on them on Dec. 27th..no joke. hahaha...at least we sent them out, right? I'm sure all of you with kids and/or animals know that it was no easy feat to get a good picture with everyone looking in the right place and smiling...all I can say is thank God for dog treats and candy! :)

We're well on our way to Christmas insanity here. Kaytin is asking...daily...if she can open her presents. Um, no, not yet. Kelli & Eric arrive on Sunday and I've been telling Kaytin that she can't open her gifts until after Aunty Kelli & Uncle Eric get here. I'm sure she'll be mighty bummed when she finds out that it will still be a few more days after they arrive and then she can open them. I guess all that calendar work that I attempted to do with her hasn't really taken yet.

If I don't get around to posting again before Christmas, wishing you and yours a very merry one!

No Turkey For You

We've returned from our annual Thanksgiving trip to Oahu unscathed! It was a fun filled week and although a bit crowded, it was just what my in-laws wanted...pure, unadulterated family togetherness. heheh...

Wes (the lucky dog) left a day early with his dad to go watch the UH football game, so my adventure started on Sunday when I had the privilege of flying with TWO children. (OK, so I wasn't totally alone...my mother-in-law flew with me) Kaytin is quite the seasoned traveller and has never had a difficult flight...no ear problems or anything of that sort...and I had been hoping for more of the same from Caleb. Unfortunately, no deal. He fussed a bit and was pretty uncomfortable for the whole flight. Good thing it was only 20 minutes! ;) Thankfully, on the way home he fell asleep nursing and we arrived back home unscathed.

Kaytin absolutely loved waking up to built in playmates via her cousins. They watched HSM and danced and sang their little hearts out. I'd say her favorite part of the weekend was probably when Grandma Ruthie took her and cousin Anna to Claire's and let them spend $5.00 each. All of you who are familiar with Claire's Boutique (the ultimate girly girl store of trinkets that I really don't need around my house) know that five bucks is like a million bucks with their dollar bins and what not. OMG. I think they spent like a half-hour in that teeny tiny store only to emerge with *gasp!* pink purses and wallets and all things girl. Katy was SO sad on Sunday when the Burkman's flew back to Kauai early in the morning while we didn't leave until later in the afternoon. We think she even fabricated a story about her neck being sore so that she could cover up the crying that ensued. Crazy.

We, of course, hit the Honolulu Zoo again this year! Luckily there was no animal porn going on like our experience last year. phew. Apparently the tiger had some cubs which were pretty cute to look at. They weren't out and about yet, but if you strained your neck and stared through the bars of the enclosure, you could see them. hahah...there was one particularly loud one that made sure everyone knew that there were cubs in there even if you couldn't see them.

My father-in-law, tradition bucker/not a turkey lover extraordinaire, decided that our family should go against the grain for Thanksgiving dinner this year, so instead of following suit with most likely every other family in America and having turkey, we had steak and crab legs. No complaints there! Tyler, Wes's brother, who has friends in all places, made a delicious marinade for the steak and a yummy "broth" to cook the crab legs in. To keep with some tradition, we had mashed potatoes and a sweet potato dish to accompany the dinner...then bucking tradition again, I made cherry pie for dessert. :) We also got to meet the newest Ishimura cousin, Carly Mei, that was recently adopted from China that evening.

My shopping adventures with sis-in-law Shannon were curbed this year (tear) since I had to have a baby boy in tow wherever I went. (oh the woes of a nursing mama) We attempted to go Black Friday shopping...as a family...and I'll give you one guess as to how much I actually got done. It sort of just isn't the same with a husband following you around, a daughter complaining about sore feet and a son strapped to your body. Not to mention the fact that it was irritating me that there were so many people at Ala Moana breathing on me and cracking poor Katy in the head with their bags. Ugh.

The UH game was fun...Caleb's first...and he did great sitting up in the nosebleed section of Aloha Stadium. The first time I tried to sit up there I was pregnant with Katy and promptly got dizzy and nauseous. This time around it went well...not to mention protected us from the consistent drizzle that fell the entire night. It might not have been the prettiest played game against Washington State, but a win is a win is a win, right? Here's what Caleb thinks...

All in all, it was a fun weekend. We have much to be thankful for this year...hope you all enjoyed the same.

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....