Our first zoo trip, finally

Well, I'm now an official dad: I took Lucy to the zoo. Grandma has taken her twice before and is always talking about how much fun it was. So last week when all 3 MINIs were out, Lucy & I packed a lunch and went to the Honolulu Zoo.

It didn't stink as much as I remembered from when I was little. We saw flamingo's and Lucy practiced standing on one leg. We saw crazy loud Lemurs, but they weren't singing "you've got to move it, move it." The monkeys put on a good show, and Lucy informed me that she wasn't scared of the dark when we entered the reptile tunnel.

We finally made it to the African section way at the back of the park just in time to sit on some boulders and eat lunch. While we ate we got to watch the giraffes, zebra & rhino hang out together. We saw the lion, tiger, elephants & gorillas, but they were all being really boring & stayed asleep. Like her dad 20 years ago, Lucy enjoyed hiding out in the enormous Banyan trees. She even learned how to drink out of a camalback (and hasn't stopped trying to drink out of it since we got home).

Of course, the highlight of the park was the playground at the end, where she got out the last few kilojoules of energy and I gave my old-man feet a rest. I think we'll go back again soon.

Roughing it in the wild jungle

OK, it wasn't really a wild jungle, but compared to all the other camping I've done in the past 4 years (none) it was great. Lucy and I joined up with a bunch of our friends from the ward over at Ho'olamuhia campgrounds over in Kane'ohe. We both had a great time.

We ate McDonalds on the way and then sat in the parking lot and got yummy ice cream Drumsticks all over the place. Lucy ran around with her friends for a few hours while I sat around the campfire and talked with the other grown-ups. We had smores when it got dark. Lucy didn't understand why we were putting the marshmallows in the fire on a stick. She usually loves marshmallows, but spit this one right out. So, like her dad, she enjoyed the chocolate & grahm crackers by themselves. You should have seen the look on her face when I told her we were going to sleep in a tent. She was so confused. But after an hour of "dada, come in the tent please!" she finally went to sleep.

The next morning we ate pastries & fruit for breakfast before we took a walk to the lake with all the other kids. They climbed on fallen trees, threw rocks in the lake, and looked for bugs & fish. I forgot my camera, so these both came from my cell phone, and I had to use a flashlight as a flash. Next time I'll remember my camera (and my wife!)

Slip N' Slide!

• Okay, for those of you who haven't seen a Slip N Slide since the mid 80's, you're in for a real treat: they're back! Or maybe they never left... but I sure haven't seen one for like 20 years. We went to a birthday party at our little condo's park and they had a Dora Slip N Slide. Lucy had not brought her bathing suit, and really none of the kids were on it so I thought we would be safe. Lucy watched the little 2-year-old birthday girl running back and forth on it (she didn't get the slide part), and decided that she really wanted to go home and get her bathing suit. So after a little pleading, I took her back and got her swimsuit. Well she was right, she knew she would like it. Talk about sweet retro party entertainment!

Sitting Up??

Okay, so most of us "seasoned" parents know that babies generally sit up at about 6 months, right? That's what I thought too. Lucy sat up at 6 months exactly. Well little Katie Consuela does not want to sit up for some reason and she is approaching 7 1/2 months. She can, but she will for about 2 seconds before she either arches her back or drops her shoulder and slowly dips down onto the floor so she can roll around to her heart's desire. So I got her to sit up for 2 seconds in this picture... and then caught her in action. She doesn't cry when she falls, just cringes a bit.

Happy St Patty's Day

Okay, so it's a little late, but the girls look so cute in their shamrock headbands... I couldn't resist. These were included in my birthday package from Auntie Tiffany along w/ a pack of green necklaces that Lucy had fun wearing and giving to her friends. You gotta love Target's Dollar Spot (but lets not talk about that anymore since it's a sensitive subject for me w/ no Target in Hawaii).

Auntie Kellie

I know, we got a little spoiled when Auntie Kellie came out 4 days after Andy left. Boring that they didn't overlap at all... Kellie's was more of a last minute trip for her Spring Break (I guess it's good in a way, because we don't have the biggest place out here). We had lots of fun with her (of course) too! Her main objective here (besides hang out with us) was to get tan... oh wait a second. Let's just say she misses Wahoo's fish tacos a LOT out in Bloomington Illinois, so we did our Best to get her there as much as we could. We live about 30 minutes from Wahoo's (it's in Honolulu), but we managed to get her there 4 times in the week she was here. Yeah for Kellie!!

Uncle Andy

Sooo.... we got to have "Uncle Andy" come out and stay w/ us for 10 days at the end of February! Yes, that was a month ago... but you know how it goes. We had so much fun with him here. We mostly just hung out, went to the beach a few times, ate lots of treats (and more treats), and watched Smallville at night. We are big fans of Andy.

Katie thinks Lucy is FUNN-NNY!

A few weeks ago I was doing my hair in the bathroom, and heard all sorts of laughter coming from BOTH of my girls. Lucy is the only one who can get Katie to really belly laugh. Hear are some clips of them.

Sunday Bloggin...

Am I on a role or what? Two Sunday Blogs in a row. This is going to be a quick one though... you know kids to take care of and what not. In the first picture, Lucy laid her princess dress on top of the baby, and said "Look, now the Baby is a princess!" The second one is just cute... because Katie is cute. The third one is of our matching girls. The other night I put a sweatshirt on Katie (I know... even in Hawaii-- it was a chilly 70 that night) with the hood on and commented how cute she looked. Lucy looked very displeased and said "Hey, where's my pink sweatshirt w/ a hat?" So I took out her only sweatshirt like that (stained and size 18 months) and gave it to her. She was thrilled to be matchers w/ Katie. I guess I should buy her a new sweatshirt.

Sunday Dresses...

Just another blurb about the sisters in their Sunday dressess. I guess I like taking pictures of them on Sunday, since their both actually dressed on Sunday (at least for a few hours anyway). Aunt Kellie sent the girls these for Christmas. Thanks Kellie and a special thanks to Target for making the purchase possible. For those of you who don't know this, sigh, there is no Target in Hawaii. I can't talk about it though... it's a sensitive topic for me.

Consuela in Blue?

Many of you mothers of girls may identify with me on this one... Girls in blue. We all know that some people have a hard time telling baby boys from baby girls. For instance, I've had people ask me what gender Katie is when she's in her carseat with a pink head support, pink carseat strap protectors, pink clothes and a pink blanket. I know, some people aren't so smart. I guess this has started to rub off on me just a tad, because the other night I was hesitant to put Katie in blue pajamas, because I didn't want her to look like a boy... even though she was just going to bed. So I put her in the pajamas (someone gave them to me-- I usually buy pinks and purples) and then took her pic because she looked so dang cute. Maybe she looks like a boy in them, but the next morning Lucy said in her most high-pitched, excited voice, "Oh, I like her cute pajamas!"

Now we're good parents...

Kenric & I felt like mediocre parents this year at Christmas since we really didn't do too many Holiday activities. Lucy decorated cookies once w/ friends, we went to the Ward Christmas party and 1 other party-- but not too much besides that. We wanted to do a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve again like we did last year, but who would have known that every store in Hawaii sells out of the things weeks before Christmas. So in an effort to redeem ourselves as good parents, we took Lucy and Consuela (that's Katie's nickname for now) to see the Honolulu Christmas lights.... AFTER Christmas. I know, lame, but at least we finally did it. We went last Sunday evening and boy was it a hit! They were both big fans of all the lights.

Christmas Videos

Happy New Year! Okay, I know it's not Christmas anymore (that would be fun though)... but I have two videos from Christmas morning that I meant to put up. The first one is of Lucy doing her Dora Dance video from Uncle Andy. It's a dance along video complete w/ the Dora outfit, maracas (if that's how you spell it), and a Dance mat. This was one of her first time. She's pretty much gone pro by now. The second one is of Lucy w/ her new Polly Pocket race to the mall race track. She still loves it (2 weeks later) and plays w/ it every day. The only trick is that the only flat surface big enough for it in our house is the kitchen table. So we just use the other half for eating.

Merry Christmas!!!

I thought I should hurry and put some pictures up from today, since it might never happen if I don't do it right now. We had a great day. Presents, happy (and crazy) kids, beach, more presents (Lucy helped Katie open hers in the afternoon since Katie took a nap part way through the morning present session), Becky's homemade pizza, and as soon as I'm done... some Dryer's slow-churned light eggnogg ice cream. Thank you everyone for your awesome presents and spoiling our kids (and us).

Christmas Cheer

This is the four of us at our ward Christmas party. Kenric sang the first verse of Silent Night in German (a solo!) as part of the Christmas program. We had some neigborhood kids over to decorate Christmas cookies a few days ago. Lucy would frost a cookie, eat a cookie (actually just lick the frosting off) when I was baking more of the cookies in the kitchen. We also finally put up our mini tree a week before Christmas. Lucy thought it was Christmas because she was playing with all the ornaments like they were toys. She loved the Nativity set and told me the next day while getting in the car "oh, I forgot to bring baby Jesus"

Katie's first barrette

As some of you may have noticed, Katie's hair is slowly leaving us.... that is all except for the little patch on the top of her head, which is getting longer. So we thought we should put a barette in before it's all gone since it might be a while before we see hair again.

The Sisters

Here are just a few fun pics of the two sisters.

Katie Talks

Finally, our little babooshka can tell us what she really thinks about life outside the womb. She's coming up on 4 months!

Some more pics...

I'm just trying to make up for lost time real quick... I never do blogs during the week because lets face it-- if I ever get a second to myself I'd kind of rather sleep or... sleep. Which I don't know why I'm so tired. Katie is a little helper and has been sleeping 9-11 hours for weeks now. So here is some pics of Lucy and Katie in their Sunday dresses on 3 different occasions. You have to Love Katie's double chin in the second picture.

LOST...

For those of you that are obsessed with Lost (as are Kenric and I), here are some pictures of Lucy in some spots where Lost clips were filmed. Oh and... yes we've seen a few of the characters around since we moved here. I saw Evangeline Lily out walking while I was on a run in Kailua a few days after we moved here. We saw Jin (whatever his real name is) out in front of his house a few months after we moved here. We're excited for when the show finally resumes next year.