aloha run + zoo day

President's Day means there's NO school.

I spent the morning of Presidents day doing this:

Yes, I ran the Aloha Run, and got my best time ever!

And then afterwards, gathered the kids and met up with some cousins and hit the zoo.

 It doesn't seem to matter to these kids that they've seen all the animals 50+ times, they still love coming here!  Well, technically, it could have something to do with the fact that we usually come with their cousins...

 Here's Kaden with Lani Moo.

Er...I mean, a replica of Lani Moo.

 And here they are with the "real" Lani Moo (3rd or 4th generation, I'm sure...)

Oh, did I mention it was just Elika and I?  With 11 kids?

And since I was coming off running 8 miles that morning, needless to say, I was beat afterwards!

first beach day of the year

Well, the weather seems to have finally warmed up enough to hit the beach once again!!

Here we are...at our favorite beach: Magic Island.

 As always, with our cousins, the Daley's.

Kaden...loves to splash anyone who comes within a 3-foot radius of his person.

Kashus getting quite adept at balancing on the boogie board!

 Apparently McDonald's was out at the beach making a sand sculpture to advertise their new "fish nuggets!"

Cool sand sculpture...but no thanks to McD's fish nuggets for us.

 Here's the kids...and Mitch discreetly trying to avoid the camera.  

 A hot day for February! : )

 Kaden trying out the boogie board.  He's so-so on it.

I think her prefers just splashing in the water and playing in the sand.

Me and baby Nixon...who happened to be enjoying his very first beach day ever!!

Here's looking towards many, many more beach days to come!!

happy birthday to us!

There are some advantages to having birthdays so close to my sisters....we can go out for one birthday lunch date and cover ALL three of us!

Or, wait...maybe that isn't quite a benefit.  It'd actually be nicer to spread out our lunch dates over THREE separate days, huh?

Either way, it was a nice and relaxing afternoon with my sisters to celebrate getting one year older! 

Happy Birthday to us!

gymboreeeee!

Tuesdays and Thursdays are Jolee's Gymboree days.

I get to drop her off for an hour (two hours on Thursdays!) for some art and play time.

We brought Anna here when she was 4 years old so she could get some exposure to art and play time with kids her age.  Since she didn't attend an actual preschool, this was our compromise.

The same goes for Jolee.  And she LOVES it!

She loves her teachers, and they seem to love her too!

What's great is that I also get to bring Kaden for some open play time after her class.

Kaden LOVES Gymboree as well.  Everything is padded, there's things to climb on, slide down, and run around in!  Plus, there's balls EVERYWHERE!  

And every now and again, when I find myself babysitting Luke, I get to bring him along too.

I think Jolee and Kaden will miss their twice-weekly Gymboree playtime when Jojo starts kindergarten this summer!!  

our smell-tester

For some odd reason, Kaden as an obsession with smelling things.

Usually, if we give him something new to eat or drink, he likes to smell it first before taking a bite or drink.

This is probably not too unusual, since I think many adults would probably do the same if given something new to try.

However, Kaden not only likes to smell food...he also likes to smell--everything!

Whenever I take him to the store, if I hand him something to hold or put in the cart, this is what he will do first:

 Is this normal, I wonder?

Should I be concerned?

Because...he literally smells EVERYTHING!

putt-putt

Our friends invited us to go putt-putt golfing after school and we just so happened to be free AND had some free-play coupons, so decided to hit the links.  :)

Mitch was flying so it was just me and the kiddos.  Oh, and our friends, the Lau family.  

Which, you'll notice, I got ZERO pictures of.  Sorry Lau's! But in my defense, I barely got these pictures since I spent 90% of the time chasing Kaden from one hole to the next and making sure he didn't run anyone over or hit anyone else's ball!

We are not avid golfers...so it ended up being about whacking the balls up and down the greens, but they had fun anyway!  And that's the most important thing, right?

that pesky nursemaid's elbow

Jolee has tiny, little arms.  They're very skinny, and very frail.

A few months ago, she twisted her arm and got a nursemaid's elbow.  At that time, I managed to wiggle her arm a bit and it popped back in quite easily.

This night, we had the missionaries over and with a bit of jumping around, she managed to get it again.

However, this time, I couldn't seem to pop it back in.  We started worrying that maybe it was something worse! So, despite having a church meeting (actually, the "It's Gr-eight to be 8" program that I was in charge of!) I left the program in the hands of our Primary President and Mitch and booked it to the hospital with Jolee.

Here we are after checking in...still worried it's something worse than a nursemaid's elbow.

And then...after 30 minutes or so of waiting around, the ER doc walked it, took her arm and twisted it back in place, and it was all over in a matter of 15 seconds. 

Turns out, it WAS a nursemaid's elbow after all! 

She was almost immediately her happy self once again.

 Boo for long waits, but Yay for doctors! 

And Jolee was very brave throughout it all!

She's also been to the ER more times than all of our other kids COMBINED, but that's neither here nor there.

Hopefully, this will be the last time for a LONG time.