Weekly Review - April 18-24

Sunday, April 18 - After having a nice day at Sunset beach on Saturday we decided to head over to Bellows Beach after church and spend some family time on the beach. When we got there the weather wasn't as cooperative as we had hoped. It was a little cooler outside and pretty breezy. We played for an hour or so and then decided to head for home. Gabby made an excellent sand angel.

Monday, April 19 - Gabby found a wizard hat and a horse...So, for a while we had a wizard cowgirl running around our house. My life is full of adventures.

Tuesday, April 20 - My funny fashionable kids like to pose for the camera, carry around purses, and be all around fashionable...

Wednesday, April 21 - The flowers, trees, bushes, and plants are in full bloom in Hawaii this time of year...my allergies are really feeling it, but the flowers are so beautiful that it's so nice to see all the flowers and greenery.

Thursday, April 22 - Gabby has been quite the little fashion trendsetter lately. She has had some very loud and original fashion statements recently. She has really liked wearing tutus the past couple weeks, ths time she put a blue shirt, green tutu, pink knee high socks, and running shoes together to make an...um...well, interesting ensemble.

Friday, April 23 - For Earth Day this week we made pudding dirt cups with chocolate pudding, oreo crumbs, and gummy worms...yum. Then we went to the new Disney Nature Oceans movie at the theater.

Saturday, April 24 - My Cousin Allison and her husband Brian came to Hawaii for a vacation. I picked them up from the airport and took them to their hotel over in the Waikiki area. Before heading to the hotel we came over to my house for a bit and visited. It was so nice to see my cousin again. I haven't seen her in quite a while because they live in Texas now. I am looking forward to seeing her more while they are here.

Weekly Review - April 12-17

Monday, April 12 - Paul and Kaylee found a tiny lizard out on our back patio. There are bigger geckos in our garage that hide but we can never catch them. Today Cinderella and her dad caught the tiny lizard.

Tuesday, April 13 - Kaylee fell asleep sitting up and kinda hunched over. I don't know how she fell asleep like that.

Wednesday, April 14 - The plumeria trees have been blooming lately. They are the most beautiful trees, and amazing flowers in all different colors. We went on a walk and the girls put flowers in their hair, and I took some pictures of the trees.

Thursday, April 15 - Kaylee really wanted The Old Spaghetti Factory Mizzithra Cheese spaghetti for lunch...since she knew that wasn't an option she decided to make her own version. She even found a cup from Old Spaghetti Factory to drink out of. I made some spaghetti noodles for her and she put butter, mozzerella and parmesan cheese on the noodles.

Friday, April 16 - We walked to the library for storytime and to get some new books. I think it's funny that the library that is near our house is the Salt Lake Library.

Saturday, April 17 - We went to the Dole Pineapple plantation to get my little sister some more pineapple candy, and then we decided to head up to the North Shore to find Ted's Bakery. We had heard of Ted's bakery from a few people that it's the best bakery in Hawaii....WOW!!! It really is yummy. We got the Chocolate Haupia Cream Pie (we found out that Haupia is Coconut Pudding). That is the best pie I have EVER had. We also went to Sunset Beach which is the longest sandy beach on Oahu. It has been added to my very short list of favorite beaches here. The waves were amazing, the sand was nice soft sand, and they actually had a parking lot instead of attemping to find a spot to park along the side of the road. Okay, mostly it's the waves, beach, and sand that made it a fave, but the real parking lot was a definate bonus.

Sunset Beach and Ted's Bakery

My cousin's wife emailed my a few weeks ago about an assignment that her son was doing for school. He had to send "Flat Stanley" on a vacation to visit a friend/relative and get some pictures. We got Flat Stanley in the mail and were deciding where to take him. My sister Marla had requested some chewy pinapple candy from the Dole Pinapple Plantation so we figured that would be a good place to start.

Since we were already more than half-way up to the north shore we decided that we really wanted to go find a bakery that we kept hearing was the best bakery. So, we headed further north in search of Ted's Bakery. They are famous for their Chocolate Haupia Pies. We learned that Haupia is Coconut Pudding, so, it's a Chocolate Coconut Pudding Pie. I have one word to describe it: DELICIOUS!!!! That is THE BEST pie I have EVER had.

Ted's Bakery is right next to Sunset Beach. We decided to go to the beach for a while to play. I LOVE Sunset Beach! I have decided that it's my favorite beach along the north shore. It was lots of fun!

Weekly Review - April 5-11

Monday, April 5 - Kaylee went outside to play in our backyard and came back in yelling "Gabby! Come look at this! You're not going to believe this!" Of course, that got me to come look to. There was a turtle wandering around in our backyard. It came in under the fence, wandered around a few minutes, and then moved on.

Tuesday, April 6 - One of Gabby's chores is to wash the bathroom mirrors. She loves this chore, and she has excellent fashion.

Wednesday, April 7 - Since moving to Hawaii I have been doing homeschool with K & G. It has been a very educating adventure (in many more ways than I could eve have imagined.)

Thursday, April 8 - Kaylee let Gabby borrow her CD player while Kaylee was still doing her school work. Gabby was really jamming out...singing, dancing, leaping. It was very entertaining.

Friday, April 9 - Paul got off work early and wanted to get out of the house. We took the girls to "How to Train Your Dragon" and it got over right about time for rush hour traffic. We decided to wander around a few stores and grab some dinner before heading home. While we were wandering around one store Kaylee found a soap dispenser that she was sure her aunt Marla would love! It was a duck, and Marla loves rubber duckies.

Saturday, April 10 - Gabby went upstairs to get dressed and came back dressed head to toe in pink...not just pink, but pink shiny pants, pink slippers, and all. When we went shopping she traded in the pink slippers for some pink cowboy boots.

Sunday, April 11 - Since last Sunday was General Conference and Easter the girls decided to wear their new Easter dresses to church today. When we came out of church it was pretty breezy.

Weekly Review March 29-April 4

Monday, March 29 - The palm trees in front of our house have been dropping a lot of leaves/branches lately. The kids think the branches make excellent brooms, houses, fans, etc. They think they are really fun to play with. (Until the landscaping company comes around on Tuesday and cleans them all up).

Tuesday, March 30 - Since moving to Hawaii I have been homeschooling my kids (Because of the poor quality of schools, etc. There could be a whole post on this subject) Lately we have been learning all about the oceans. My kids have been LOVING learning about the ocean since we live right in the middle of it.

Wednesday, March 31 - For our science experiment we made Groovy Lava Lamps. K & G were so mesmorized they wanted to keep making it bubble. This is their favorite science experiment we have done.

Thursday, April 1 - It was the last day of swimming class. Kaylee was sad but had tons of fun. Gabby was so happy that it was finally over. We only convinced Gab to get in the pool 4 out of 8 days of swim class. Kaylee now wants to go swimming everyday so she can practice some more.

Friday, April 2 - For our Easter treat the girls helped me make No-bake-cookie nests. They love cooking/baking. They each chose how many eggs were going to be in each nest and what color eggs might belong in each nest.

Saturday, April 3 - The kids really wanted to dye Easter Eggs all week. I told them we would do it on Saturday so Paul could dye eggs with us. Saturday came and they pretty much hopped out of bed and asked to dye eggs. They did their chores so fast I had to check to see if they were really done...they were!

Sunday, April 4 - Happy Easter! Gab was so excited when she discover the treasures left by the Easter Bunny, she went running upstairs in a high pitch top-of-her-lungs voice to wake Kaylee up and see what was on the table.

Happy Easter

This morning I woke up to the sounds of a very high pitch scream of Gabby coming running up the stairs...it went something like this: "Oh Kaylee!!!! It's Easter!!! The Easter Bunny came! Come look, Hurry!" I really prefer not to wake up to high pitch screaming. A nice whisper in my ear works quite nicely. I pulled myself out of bed and went downstairs to see what the kids discovered.

First they found this:

Then they saw these:

Then they found these:

Easter Eggs

K & G have been begging ALL WEEK to dye Easter Eggs. I told them that we would dye eggs on Saturday so that Paul could do it with us. Pretty much the first thing out of their mouths this morning was asking if they could dye eggs since it was "finally" Saturday. I told them there were a few things that needed to be done including the chores on their list for the day. Wow! I have never seen them rush through their chores like that, even when we offered to go to a movie yesterday they didn't want to do chores...but when it comes to dying eggs the chores were done remarkably fast.