honokowai park

at the beach with ben

I took the girls to the park on sunday and maya had her first day on the swing. Of course Kalia wanted to push her. It was really fun, I put maya down the lower part of the slide and in the red tube. It won't be long before she's really playing with kalia at the park. Kalia really liked being inside the red tube with maya. Later kalia's friend ben showed up and they tried to catch crabs in their nets down at the beach. Great day!

birthday

kalia made me a birthday cake in her kitchen!

i couldn't help but smile at kalia, she had the most excited look on her face!

cool river on the sand at flemings!

flemings baby pool!
this is one of the photos i will look at now and then to remember - life is good!

kalia's pre-school

Thanks for the photos kim & allie. Thank you also for making my birthday so special!
We still have the birthday signs up.

On my birthday Kim & Allie watched the girls down in Lahaina so I could do a little birthday shopping. Kalia kept asking if I wanted to open presents. When I opened one from tutu and grandpa she said, "mommy, that was nice of us to get that for you." There is nothing that kalia loves more than birthday cake (frosting only) and singing happy birthday. She had the happiest look on her face and helped me blow out the candles.

Kalia had a hard morning going to pre-school today. She was so excited to go to school yesterday, but this morning she really didn't want to go. The main problem is probably my fault- I have been picking kalia up after her nap at pre-school and a few times, I've gotten there in time to wake her up. But now she expects me to wake her up and last time Auntie Tamika woke her up and she was really upset. She keeps telling me that she wants me to wake her up, but since I can't guarantee the timing of her wake up or maya's nap, I need to just go late and let them wake her up. She's been pretty grumpy waking up there lately. She might get that from me, I've been pretty grumpy in the morning lately.

Maya is completely sitting up now. I finally got back to the gym yesterday and I just set up maya with a basket of baby toys and she sat there and played and was just fine. I also took the girls to napili park the other day and i helped maya go down the little slide, since it's a double slide, kalia went down one side and maya went down the other.

the hula girls

kalia, daddy & mommy surfing together!
So much fun, thanks auntie kim for watching maya!

post surf photo at olowalu
all photos in this post were taken by kim & allie

kalia and daddy on boogie board at kapalua bay

dress up

ready for bed

waiting for gazebo

the hula girls

miss maya

maya papaya

kalia

allie at allie's peak

allie & erik

allie on a wave at allie's peak

kalia playing in the sand

Let's see, thursday kalia had school and it was a very hard drop off. She really did not want to leave auntie kim & allie. We ended up sitting at home all day and just thinking about kalia (that was for kalia in case she ever reads this when she's older). Allie & kim went to the coffee store to see alana & get ice blended mochas, then we went to leilani's for lunch after waiting for the terminix guy. So really, it wasn't like we were having that much fun without kalia.

Friday we all headed down to olowalu to take allie surfing. We all had a lot of fun; allie caught some waves, erik, kalia & I got to surf together and even maya took a full wave in the face and didn't seem to mind. Kalia did her typical olowalu routine and played in the car and collected rocks. Maya did her typical thing and just cruised. I was pretty impressed with maya this week, she really just went with the flow and was really good!

Saturday we went snorkeling at kapalua bay. We all took turns snorkeling. When allie & I went snorkeling, erik took kalia out very far on the boogie board and we were really proud of her. Allie saw a humuhumunukunukuapua'a. Uncle greg dug a big, big hole for the hula girls. Maya obsessed over kalia's floatie and finally got to chew on it.

Sunday we all drove down to sandy beach (guard rails, aka allie's peak). Allie caught some amazing waves (see above photo) and kalia had fun playing by herself in the sand. We all got to surf a little bit and even erik & i got to surf a little together. Thank you again kim! oh, and greg too... and kalia for always letting mommy and daddy surf!

Sunday night kalia stayed home with auntie kim & allie and erik and I had a little date at the Mai Tai Lounge. Oh, I have a part time job doing promotions for the Mai Tai Lounge. The food was really good- amazing ribs! Then we did cruised around front street - it was fun being out at night and past our bedtime!

OK, enough for this installment. Maya awake.

auntie kim & allie's visit!

maya meets allie at the airport

kalia was a little excited - jumping up and down

maya and allie in kalia's room

the hula girls in sunglasses

cuddles on the couch

first day ironwood hike with uncle greg & alana

walking down the path to ironwoods

looking at a huge honu!

lava rock exploring - looking at the turtle up close

kalia's seat

kapalua bay

allie eating sandwich, maya eating floatie

big hole uncle greg dug for kalia

relaxing with dada

waiting for breakfast at gazebo

my allie

kalia & allie

kalia & auntie kim

We had a great visit with Auntie Kim and Allie. To say that Kalia was in heaven is a serious understatement. She was literally jumping up and down waiting for them to come down to baggage claim. She has not been lacking in attention, I'm afraid things are going to be pretty boring now. Fortunately for her she is in school today and will have her friends to play with. Let's see, it's been a while, I think I'll do the blog in installments.

We started out the visit with some play time at home, kalia showed allie her room and then was given a tinkerbell outfit that she wore around and a really cute pink tutu, which she wore on top of her tinkerbell outfit. After erik, uncle greg and alana came home, we all went to ironwoods to do a little hike. We ended up seeing two huge turtles in the water and hiking down onto the lava rock.

Oh, I mentioned the "hula girls" above in the photo because kalia was referring to herself, allie & auntie kim as the "hula girls". Actually, how it would all happen is that uncle greg would try to tickle allie and kalia would defend her by saying, "no, you cannot tickle the hula girls" and make the funniest mad face and shake her finger. Plus, she would say it in this really deep voice and pronounce it "hoooo -la", strong emphasis on the "hu".

Need to pick up kalia from school soon and maya still sleeping - more later.

school news

So we started week 2 at pre-school. For the first time, Kalia told me she didn't want to go this morning. But after I told her OK, she can bring her pink bear (they can bring a stuffed animal to cuddle with for nap), then she was fine to go. When we left the house it was just drizzling, so kalia had her rain coat, but maya and I just went as is. By the time I opened my door at the pre-school is was pouring rain. We were soaking wet by the time we reached the school! Poor Maya, i used kalia's pillow to block her from the rain. Anyway, by the time maya and I returned home, it was clear and blue skies! When I picked kalia up, i guess she heard us outside and started crying really hard. Auntie Tamika asked if she was usually like this when she wakes up from her nap and I said that maybe she's just holding it in all day. But Auntie Tamika said that she is running around and laughing all day, so I think maybe she's just being a little emotional when she sees us. It is an understatement to say that erik and I are thrilled to hear that she is running around and laughing. Scarlet's mom said that when kalia saw scarlet this morning, she smiled and waved (this is huge for kalia - she usually does not respond this way!) Plus, I did get a little more info. out of kalia today. Although, I really pushed my luck and kept trying to get more details. I need to learn to be a little more subtle, I'm just so desperate to know what goes on!

Tonight when I was getting maya's food cubes out of the freezer - they are in a ziploc freezer bag, she grabs onto the bag and we fight over it and I almost lose! Same at the grocery store when I'm putting produce in the plastic bag, she grabs on and it is so hard to get it away from her.

I used the Allie card tonight when kalia was going to bed. She seemed like she was going to try to play, she took elmo to bed with her. Of course, she had to make him walk on the floor all the way from our room. Anyway, I told her that she had to get good sleep tonight - we were picking up Allie and Auntie Kim tomorrow and if she sleeps well tonight then she can skip her nap tomorrow and play with Allie, but if not, she has to take a nap. I say this when I know perfectly well that she will not take a nap either way. "My friend Allie" is coming tomorrow.

kalia's 1st week of pre-school coloring

I just don't know if I'm going to be saving all her art work, so I'll document them on the blog. I'm trying to de-clutter my life.

So we've been using a new system for kalia's sleep. For a while now, when kalia takes a nap - then she doesn't go to sleep until really late (sometimes I hear her at 10PM or 10:15PM), but when she skips her nap, she goes to bed early, but is a wreck by night time and we can't go anywhere in the afternoon or she'll fall asleep in the car. So now we wake her up by 7AM, put her down for nap at 1PM, only let her sleep 1 hour and bed at 8:30PM. It seems to be working, she's been waking up in a good mood (not tired from going to bed too late) and she is ready to go down at 1PM and has been in a good mood after 1 hour of nap. Before it was 50/50 if she was going to be cranky after her 1 1/2 - 2 hour nap. And she seems ready and is quiet after we put her down at night, of course, she still has the sillies just before bed, but that can't be helped.

We went to the gym this morning and there was another baby about maya's age there when I came back to pick them up. This baby was happily sitting in her car seat sucking on her pacifier. Then there's maya, always refusing to sit in her car seat, refusing the pacifier and needing constant toy action. Kalia was my baby that would have happily sat sucking her pacifier, but not maya. Maya is quite content at home playing and explorer mostly on her own. But she is in constant motion, dragging her body around the living room, flipping around with blankets, taking all the dvds out of the baby einstein box (although we never watch them), tracking down paper and obsessing over plastic bags out of her reach, yelling from her exersaucer for something she sees on the coffee table. The way she does the military crawl is really funny too. She sees an object she wants, then she faces herself toward the object, then she takes both arms and throws them out in front of her at the same time, pushes off with her knees/ drags body, then throws out both arms again. It's almost like she's doing the butterfly stroke. It is efficient.

maya loves her bottle:(

kalia feeding maya a bottle

maya and the magazines

no, i don't want to take a picture of elmo!

come on...just one more where you are both looking at me!
I took so many and none really turned out!

I am clearly the only person that is sad that Maya is weaning. Erik and Kalia are pretty happy that they now get to feed maya a bottle and maya - she's in love with her bottle. From the first moment they met, she wants to hold the bottle herself. Erik has figured out a way to tuck her arm so he gets to hold it. Anyway, still nursing her 5 or 6 times a day and some days, like yesterday, she actually wants to a little bit. But I don't regret giving her the bottle at night, I needed some sleep.

Both girls actually sleeping at the same time today, but need to do some cleaning around the house. I finally told Kalia that Auntie Kim and Allie are coming on wednesday and she is very, very excited! I also told her that we were going on the airplane to go to california after they leave and it was going to be a night plane (red eye) where we sleep on the airplane. I think she was a little confused last night, she wanted to go get on the airplane to go to sleep right after dinner.

Kalia has been waking up dry and this morning, when I woke her up, I said, "you woke up dry again!" She said, "it's easy!"

So I have a new best friend- one of kalia's classmates is scarlet and she is going to be the class gossip (or so her mom told me - well, they're from australia and I don't know what the phrase was, but that's what I gathered). She remembers everyone's name and she knows what everyone is up to. I got the full scoop from her mom on what her and kalia did at school. Kalia wouldn't even tell me that she played with scarlet! And here I find out that they chased some boys around the little house in the school yard! Her mom asked her if she ate lunch with Kalia and she said, "no, she ate with the boys". Erik heard this and thought maybe we should reconsider home school.

We booked our flight to california and will heading to LAX on a redeye on Allie's birthday - Sept. 9th and leaving on Sept. 20th. We will be in San Diego fri - tues for the koga family reunion and stay a little with lo and vere. A little nervous about the redeye, but hopefully they will sleep a little. Plus, the thought of having maya awake during a day flight was a little scary! She is definitely going to be challenging on the plane.

I know I have more to say, but can't think of what it is right now. Maya waking up.

kalia's 2nd day of school!

Just a quickie note. I picked up kalia today and she was still waking up from her nap and she was cuddling with this little stuffed puppy - it was really cute. All the kids were sleeping, even the ones that I know usually fight their naps. How do they do it? I wonder if they spike their apple juice or how do they get all the kids to sleep? Anyway, on the way out i asked kalia if she wanted to stay next week longer and have snack and play and she said yes! Then on the way home she said, "I can't wait until my next school day!". I should feel happy, this is what I wanted, she loves school, but I don't feel totally happy. I feel a little sad. I have issues.

Uncle Mike said that Kalia observes a lot and takes it all in, but is starting to participate. This is great! I didn't expect her to jump right in because that's not her personality, but she's starting to participate- yea!! She also gave me a leaf that her "friend" - a boy gave her to give to me. Still very few details about her day...it's very frustrating!

kalia's 1st day of pre-school!

kalia in her 1st day of school outfit with backpack on
(her backpack that carries baby, but it's the one she wanted to take)

dinner time!

give me more food!

Erik has been claiming the second best invention is the bowl with suction cup at the bottom. Unfortunately, sometimes they don't stick as well and Maya has been testing this! Erik looked over his shoulder last night for a few seconds and there was pear all over the floor!

So kalia had her first day of school on tuesday! She was ready, she got up and was excited, i made her banana pancakes and had her hello kitty lunch box packed. Erik took the day off so he could be there to take her and pick her up with me and maya. We all drove over and she put her things in her cubby, looked around, we introduced ourselves to the aunties and she kissed us good-bye and didn't even look back. We took her at 8AM and didn't pick her up until after nap time at 2:10PM. They said she did really well. When we picked her up, she was just getting out of the bathroom and as soon as she saw us she just broke down. I think she was being really strong all day and when she saw us, she just let is all out. I think she was prepared to go to school, but maybe didn't realize how long she would be there and what it entailed. She told me later after bath that she had fun and played a lot. One of the aunties told us that she and Ben were together for most of the day. It's funny because, she has known Ben since she was 6 weeks old, but never plays that much with him. But I guess he was familiar and it must have been comforting to have someone familiar. We were looking at some photos on the computer yesterday and she saw one of her and Ben from a year ago and she asked to see it again. I was a little scared about dropping her off today, but she was a big girl and went right in, put her things in her cubby, gave us kisses and went to play and didn't look back. WOW! I told her I would see her after her nap and I'm looking forward to it!

Maya is having mommy day today and she's been giving me some kisses! Maya loves magazines and has found my stash under her highchair. She can crawl over quite quickly to them, while I do something for kalia and destroy one in no time! She's also become quite a fan of tags and of course books. Kalia loved tags too, I don't know what it is about tags!