Can't Keep Up

I find it to be more difficult trying to keep up with two kids.  Not with them getting into things, but with how fast they grow.  It seems like everyday there is something new happening with both Riley and Hadley.  Hadley is now officially crawling.  I have actually been waiting for her to crawl because Riley was crawling just before she was seven months old.  I'm not really sure what the average age is for a baby to start crawling.  I have just been going off of when Riley did things.  Of course Riley was early with everything, so I should probably not be doing that.  Anyway, I'm so excited for my little Hadley who has reached another milestone in her development.  Now it's time to get the baby gates up and make sure things are put up and away.  

Riley is now repeating lots of things that Trey and I say.  It's pretty funny to hear her when she is mimicking us too.  My mind has just drawn a blank on what she repeated the other day that Trey had said, but take my word for it, it was funny!  Now Trey has to seriously watch his sailor mouth around Riley.  The last thing I want to her come out of her mouth is foul language.  Riley can now open every door to the house, including the heavy door leading to the garage.  There is no more leaving Riley inside for a second while I take the trash out because the second the door shuts behind me, Riley is opening it to follow me.  Riley now gets herself up from her naps, opens her bedroom door and just comes walking downstairs.  It's like she's a big girl, but she's only 2!  Normally in the morning she calls for me to get her out of bed, but this morning Trey and I heard her door open and she went walking down the hallway.  We both agreed, our little baby girl is growing up.  I wish I could just bottle them up and keep them babies forever.  Since I know I can't do that I'm just trying to savor every moment.  

PS-  Riley is opening the front door as I'm trying to blog!

Missing My Sleep

I remember when I was the mom who bragged about how well my children slept at night.  I'm so spoiled with both the girls being great sleepers.  We did hit a rough patch with Riley for a bit, but she's been doing wonderful sleeping at night.  However, she does like to wake up at the butt crack of dawn!  Whatever, I can deal with an early riser.  But for the past week Hadley has been waking up more times than I can count every night.  I mean, she is seriously worse than when she was a newborn.  When she came home from the hospital she was only waking once a night.  I literally am up at least four times during the night now.  At least for the past week I have been.  I'm pretty sure it's due to her teething.  I've tried everything to get her to sleep through the night from teething tablets, baby tylenol, baby orajel.  Nothing is working.  And the baby orajel does not make Hadley happy.  The second it hits her gums she screams and starts trying to spit it out of her mouth.  I'm guessing she isn't a fan of the orajel.  I've been told to rub whiskey on her gums at night, but I'm not a fan of putting alcohol in my eight month olds mouth.  As a matter of fact, I don't even have any whiskey in my house to think about using.  It's just so funny how different two babies can be.  Riley wasn't a bad teether, but she sure was a slow one.  Hadley has gotten her teeth much quicker than Riley did, but it appears to be more painful for Hadley.  I'll be glad when she's done teething and I can get back to my restful nights.  Look at this face though.  How could I ever be mad at her for keeping me up all night?!?!

Little Gymnast

Riley has definitely been flourishing in her gymnastics class.  She gets so excited every Monday morning when I mention that we will be going to gymnastics.  Riley is literally ready to leave the house as soon as I say gymnastics class.  I learned my lesson not to say those words until it is time to leave the house.  Yesterday Riley was ready to leave and we still had an hour before we had to be there.  It doesn't help that Riley can now open every door in the house and kept trying to go "bye-bye."  It makes me happy that Riley gets so excited to go to her class.  Riley still isn't a big fan of participating in the songs and dance in the beginning of the class, but she normally joins in on the last song.  That surprises me too.  Riley is always dancing around the house, I thought for sure she'd be dancing during the class.  I think she just might be shy to do it in front of the other people.  All in all the gymnastics class is going great.  Riley has expanded her horizons past the ball pit and now likes to do everything except the rope swing.  I'm very proud of her!

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Sorry for the scare of me not blogging anymore.  I was writing out of hurt and frustration.  I find that my blog is a nice way to vent my frustrations instead of letting them just boil inside of me.  I would never punish my family by not blogging and sharing the stories about my girls and our life.  I have realized that people take what they want out of the way someone writes.  You can't hear my tone or perhaps the sarcasm that I try to write with therefore things are taken way out of context.  I am guilty of this too.  I have read things that I take completely different than what the author meant.  Going forward, if you don't understand my way of writing than I'd rather you not read my blog.  It is meant for pure entertainment and not to hurt anyone's feelings or spark up a reaction where you feel the need to call people and talk about what I've said.  And if you are that person that doesn't understand me than this blog wasn't intended for you to read.  My blog is a happy place, sometimes filled with the frustrations of being a parent.  I love informing my family about the recent happenings of my life.  I'm not going to be using caution when I write either.  So once again, if you don't understand the way I write or think I do a good job getting my point across than don't read my blog.  Feel free to start you own!  Thank you and goodbye!

Misunderstood

Apparently my writing on this blog has lead to persons getting offended.  It is never my intention to offend anyone by the things that I write.  I actually try to be very careful in my wording so that I don't upset anyone by any of things that I talk about.  But if you don't understand how I'm expressing things through my writing then perhaps you would get offended.  Let me clear things up.  My children are not perfect by any means.  I have written plenty of entries about wanting to pull my hair out due to the frustration I have felt as a parent.  I am not perfect.  Obviously.  Nor am I the perfect writer.  I didn't major in English so maybe I don't write things the way I mean for them to sound.  I do my best to keep everyone updated on my life because we live so far away from family and friends.  Now, I feel as though I'm not doing a very good job.  My blog isn't meant to hurt any ones feelings.  I just try to write about my life experiences as honestly as I know how to.  With how I'm feeling right now I think that I may just be taking a break from blogging.  I'm really hurt and frustrated that I am offending people and other people are taking what I write the wrong way.  I apologize to everyone that I may have offended over the past two years with my entries.  When I do decide to start blogging again it will probably only be about my family and nobody else will be mentioned.  I wouldn't want to leave anyone out or make people uncomfortable.  My apologies to all, especially to those that I am misunderstood to.

Farewell Friends

Diamond Head was our last excursion with The Carter Family.  Monday was their departure day and Toni spent the whole day washing all their clothes and getting everything packed up and ready to go.  We literally stayed at the house all day.  Riley and I did leave for a bit for her gymnastics class.  Hadley was sleeping when we left and was still sleeping when we got home.  She took a three hour nap that day.  Hadley was one tired little girl from all the running we had been doing.  It was nice to have our friends come and visit us.  And it was great to get to meet my best friends little boy.  But I was looking forward to having my house back and getting the girls back on their schedules.  Not to mention I wanted to rest for a bit.  I now have to re-energize for my mom and Aunt Terry's visit at the end of August. 

Diamond Head

Sunday, we tackled something that I definitely wanted to do before we left the island, Diamond Head.  We have never attempted it because it's really not the most child friendly trail to go on.  There is absolutely no shade and it's quite a hike with kids.  But this is something that Toni wanted to do while she was here, so we got everyone packed up and headed to Diamond Head.  Diamond Head is said to be the most famous volcanic crater in the world.  Diamond Head is a volcano that has been extinct for 150,000 years. The crater is 3,520 feet in diameter with a 760-foot summit.  The trail is paved the entire way but can be steep in spots. I had read that there are two set of stairs, one with 99 steps and the other, 76 steps. Let me tell you, there are more than just two sets of stairs. There is also a 225-foot unlit tunnel.  By the time I got out of the dark tunnel I thought I was going to pass out.  Note to self: next time bring a flashlight so you don't get dizzy from walking uphill in the dark! 

Okay, so BJ carried Harry in the Baby Bjorn and I carried Hadley in the Baby Bjorn.  Toni carried a backpack with some water, because Lord knows we were going to need it.  Trey was in charge of Riley who wanted to walk, but we knew she wasn't going to make it the whole way.  Trey and I were slowed down a bit with Riley's pace, but with me carrying Hadley I wasn't too upset with Riley's pace.  I was super proud of Riley who walked up the first set of stairs.  I'm pretty sure it was the set with 76 steps, but I wasn't counting.  I was praying that I had the strength to make it up with the extra 20 pounds strapped to the front of me.  I don't think it helped that we didn't start the hike until 1 o'clock in the afternoon.  Hello heat!  Next time I'll be there bright and early!  The hike was well worth all the pain and sweat.  The views were breathtaking!  It was so pretty up there that I wasn't sure I wanted to come back down.  The hike down was much easier than the hike up.  I had to feed Hadley once we had gotten to the top of Diamond Head.  Then she fell asleep so I just carried her in my arms on the way down.  Trey had put our exhausted Riley in the Baby Bjorn to get her down safely.  Riley was much too big for that thing, but she was also much too tired to hike back down.  Riley hiked about half way up and Trey carried her the other half.  It was a great experience and I'm glad we got to do it with some of our best friends.

Back to the Beach

Saturday was a beach day.  We headed back to the Bellows as requested by Toni.  We got everything set up and all settled in and the guys went and grabbed us lunch from Subway.  We were all enjoying the nice afternoon and the beautiful view.  Then we noticed some dark storm clouds heading our way.  Trey reassured everyone not to worry because the rain would probably last five minutes.  And from our experience that is a very true statement.  Then we all start to feel the drizzle come down.  That drizzle turned into a full on downpour.  That downpour lasted much longer than the five minutes Trey said it would.  The storm probably lasted about twenty minutes or so.  It felt much longer though with the cold rain pouring down on us.  Trey was under an umbrella with the girls.  BJ did the same thing with Harry.  Toni wrapped up in a towel because she was freezing.  I on the other hand grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.  I thought it was funny and it was even more funny to see how miserable BJ was sitting on the beach in the rain.  The picture below doesn't really do the rainstorm justice, but it's the best I could do with my non-professional camera!  Let's just say you can normally see the mountains in the background which are being blocked by the downpour.

After the rain passed it turned into another beautiful day here in Hawai'i.  Riley played in the water and the sand.  Hadley fell asleep on me which lead to me falling asleep on the beach.  Ahh, that was a super treat to nap on the beach listening to the ocean.  It turned out to be a successful day at the beach.

Time for a Hike

Friday we enjoyed a nice lunch a Kona Brewing Co.  Oh, how I love that place.  The food is great and the atmosphere is fabulous.  My favorite thing to get is the Pepper steak, but with it being lunch and the activity we were getting ready to do, I opted to just order some pizza.  It was still a delicious lunch even if I didn't order my favorite!  After lunch we headed to the Makapu'u Lighthouse Trail.  This trail offers some absolutely beautiful views.  And you get to enjoy the wonderful scenery of the ocean for the entire trail.  It was really hot on this afternoon so we were all getting nice and sweaty!  Once we made it up the first, steep, hill Trey decided it was time to take off his shirt.  Riley decided that she was going to get out of the stroller and hike the rest of the way with us.  She told us " I want walk."  Well if she "want walk" then that's what she got to do!  Who are we to stop our little adventurer??

Walking this trail really makes me appreciate where I live.  I mean, seriously.  I am so lucky to be living in such a gorgeous place.  It's fun hikes like this that makes me not want to leave.  Who knows, maybe we'll stay for another tour. 

Here is a group shot at the top of the trail.  It's stinks when you have a stranger take your picture and they zoom in way too much.  Not to mention you can't see Riley!  But I think it's pretty good shot of me and you don't get to see much of me on here! 

Eventful Day

We took Toni & BJ to Pearl Harbor on Thursday morning.  This is a must do for everyone visiting the island.  They have totally redone everything leading up to the boat ride over to the USS Arizona memorial.  We got our tickets for the boat ride which didn't leave for 2 hours.  That was a lot of time to kill, especially with having three little ones with us.  So we decided to walk down to Schooner's and grab an early lunch.  We had never eaten there before and it was rather yummy!  Plus it had a beautiful view of sailboats and the harbor.  It's definitely a spot that we plan on hitting up again.  After lunch we caught our boat ride and visited the USS Arizona and paid our respects once again.  BJ was all excited that his name was on the wall, B.L. Carter.  Riley did really well at the memorial.  You aren't suppose to talk while visiting the memorial but nobody seemed to pay attention to that rule.  But I still wanted Riley to be respectful and stay as quiet as possible.  And she did!  Riley just kept by my side and stared out at the water.  At one point she put her head between the rails of the fence and I thought her head was stuck.  I calmly pulled her head out of the bars and sternly warned her not to do that EVER again.  That would have been my luck for her to get her head stuck!  Hadley passed out on the boat ride over to the memorial.  It's exhausting getting toted around everywhere!

We got home around 2:30pm and only had an hour and a half before we had to leave for our Luau.  We were all really excited about the Luau.  I was the only one who had ever been to one and that was at Justin & Sara's wedding reception five years ago in Kauai.  Once everyone was ready we headed to Paradise Cove for an exciting evening ahead of us.  Tickets to a luau aren't cheap.  Luckily we were able to get a military discount which saved us $50 off of each ticket.  Since it was such a big savings we bought the premium tickets.  With the premium tickets we got a fresh lei greeting, we were escorted onto the premises, got a mai tai when entering, professional picture taken, and we were escorted to our private table so we didn't have to sit with any strangers.  It was fabulous!  The best part was the fact we didn't have to go stand in the buffet line, we got dinner served to us!  That in it self was worth it because we had the kids with us.

We got to enjoy watching plenty of Hula dances and watching them take the pig out of the ground, all while enjoying the gorgeous view of Ko'Olina.

I do have to admit that one of my favorite moments of the evening was watching the sunset from our premium seats.  I felt like I was on vacation and then realized that I am lucky enough to live here!

I'm not going to lie, I did enjoy a mai tai while at the Luau.  The taste brought back memories from being in Kauai and having mai tai happy hours everyday at the hotel!  We all had a really fun time and the kids were all pretty well behaved.  It was a late night for them.  We didn't get home until 10pm.  Yikes! 

I love this picture!

Dole Plantation

Wednesday we headed back up to the North Shore to visit the Dole Plantation.  It's always fun to go here and smell the pineapple sweetness!  We started in the ginormous gift shop where I thought Toni was going to buy the whole place.  The guys both picked out Hawaiian shirts for the Luau we would be attending the next night.  We finally made out of the store after about 30 minutes.  Then we hit up the Pineapple Express Train for a little tour around the pineapple fields.  There are speakers that give you a history of the Dole Plantation which is fun for those who have never heard it before.  Hadley and Harry both got to experience their first train ride.  Both of them were angels on the train. 

During the middle of our train ride Riley decided to start swinging her feet around and kicked one of her crocs off the train.  "Oh no," Riley yelled.  My response, "oh no is right."  I was annoyed that she kicked her shoe off, but even more annoyed that it had to be her $30 crocs.  She couldn't have been wearing a pair of $5 flip flops.  When the train ride ended Trey went to ask if someone could retrieve Riley's shoe.  Luckily there was an employee sitting on the back of the train that saw her shoe fly off and had already sent someone to retrieve her shoe.  Thank the Lord!  Riley was devastated about her croc.  She has an obsession with shoes and was thrilled when she got her croc back!  The day could continue in peace now.

We all decided to tackle the Pineapple Garden Maze next.  This maze was the World's Largest Maze in 2008, so I knew it would be fun!  As we were paying to enter we found out that there were 8 stations you had to locate and you had to get your game card stamped at each spot.  They tell you that the maze normally takes about an hour.  BJ & Toni teamed up against me & Trey.  Let the games begin.  Trey is pretty awesome with direction so I was letting him lead the way.  But then he wasn't doing so hot so we decided to split up.  I found probably half of the stations and he found the other half.  We were still looking for the last two stations when we run into BJ & Toni who have finished their game card.  Trey decides he's finished with the maze and doesn't want to do it anymore.  We were all hot and sweaty and it was time for Hadley to eat.  So as I'm feeding Hadley, Trey went and got us some well deserved pineapple ice cream.  Ahhh, just what the doctor ordered.  I didn't want to quit the maze, but I wasn't going to keep playing by myself.  We found out that Toni & BJ had a map of the maze that showed where the stations were located.  No wonder they finished before us.  We were going through the maze blind!  Trey & I became confident, once again, that we would kick their ass in Amazing Race.  Of course I told Trey he wouldn't be allowed to give up on any of our missions or detours!  Here is Hadley after we exited the maze.

We tried for a family photo, but we can't ever get the kids to both look at the camera!

Afternoon Minus Getting Sandy

The boys went deep sea fishing on Tuesday so Toni and I were left with the three kids once again!  Actually it was only the second time, but still.  Toni wanted a break from going to the beach so I figured it would be fun to go and walk around Waikiki and all the fun, touristy shops down there.  We strolled through the shops at the Hawaiian Hilton Village and Toni did some souvenir shopping.  Then we walked down by the beach so Toni could get a glimpse of Waikiki beach.  Surprisingly, it wasn't crowded on the beach at all.  But it's always nice to take a stroll with the ocean air blowing on you.  We walked down to have lunch at a restaurant called Duke's.  It was nice because it was a nice beachy atmosphere and had an ocean view.  It was a pretty hot day so we got seated before any of the kiddos had a breakdown.  You can see Harry's head is all sweaty from his hat!

Toni and I both enjoyed a delicious drink, the lava flow.  I had a much better experience with the lava flow than with the margarita I tried to drink a few weeks back.  Probably because it only had a little rum in it.  You couldn't even taste any alcohol and it didn't give me a headache. 

Hadley seemed perfectly content in the stroller so I was debating on whether I should leave her in there or put her in the highchair.  I decided to go with the highchair because I had a feeling that as soon as my food came she'd start flipping out.  Plus she'd have to go back in the stroller after lunch, so I figured I'd give her a different view for a bit.

Riley was being extremely well behaved.  Then again, she normally is for a two year old.  She was having fun coloring and watching all the birds that were walking and flying around Duke's.  Lately she hasn't wanted her picture taken at all so I think I should get an award for this shot!

Hadley was having fun sitting in her highchair.  She was just looking around at all the people and loving all the attention she was receiving.  I think it's the fact she has blue eyes because everyone is always going gaga over her and always complimenting her eyes.  That's right, she gets them from her mama!!

After lunch we walked through the International Trade Market.  They had some pretty jewelry and other little shops in there.  It was cool to walk through and another first for me since I've lived here.  Then we headed home because Harry was tired and Toni had a blister.  It was a fun afternoon in Waikiki.

Monday Madness

Monday we were planning on going to the lagoons at Ko'Olina.  Riley had her gymnastics class that I wasn't going to skip because we paid good money for her to go.  So I told everyone we would meet them out there after class, but they decided to just wait for us to get home.  When I got home I was expecting everyone to be dressed and ready to go.  Too bad nobody was.  Harry was still napping and everyone was in the pj's.  So I cracked the whip and got everybody moving.  Once I got both girls dressed and myself ready to go I made some sandwiches for everyone so we could enjoy a full day at the lagoons.  Ko'Olina is a good 30-40 minute drive from our house.  Parking can be difficult to get there because there isn't much of it and it's a popular place.  Of course we don't get there until about 12:30 which is when everyone is getting to the beach.  Needless to say there was absolutely no parking and the fact that we had to take two cars to fit all of our stuff didn't help the situation.  It was time for Hadley and Harry to eat so we went across the street to a shopping center so we could feed the babies.  Then we decided to hit a beach on the North Shore instead of waiting behind the tons of cars waiting for a parking spot.  Traffic was rather nasty once we hit the North Shore.  It's only a two lane road so it's not like we could go anywhere.  Hadley and Harry had been in the car for two hours and were letting us know they were sick of being in the car.  Toni was having a meltdown because she couldn't take the screaming anymore.  Riley and I were just taking in the views as we crawled along in traffic.  We finally made it to a beach, Waimea Bay.  Ahhh, so beautiful, right?  Well as soon as we got all of our stuff unloaded and set up the lifeguard makes an announcement over the intercom and here is what he said: "Just a reminder that the swimming conditions today are deadly.  You are swimming at your own risk."  LOVELY!  I just started laughing.  Of course after our 2 hour escapade to get our guests to a nice beach and enjoy a beautiful we wind up somewhere with deadly swimming conditions.  I didn't care, the view was well worth it.  And it was a beach we had never been to before. 

I'm not sure if you can really tell from the picture above, but there is a line of people up on the rocks(on the left hand side of the photo) and they were jumping off into the water.  Trey and BJ wanted to do it, but chose not to with the water conditions.  Of course that didn't stop all of those people!

All of the kids still had fun in the sand and sun!