horse ride at deveraux's party

Ok, I know, there's so many photos of this horsey ride. But you don't understand, kalia was soooo brave and wanted to ride the horse and just got up and rode the horse! I was so proud of her and she had so much fun!!! She even wanted the little cowgirl hat. Kalia has definitely made a huge breakthrough in independence and school has definitely helped her to learn to be more social and make an effort to play with friends. She played with a little girl at the playground the other day for an hour and it was so great to see her interacting - "come on let's go over here". The other night I left her at our neighbors house for two hours to play with the kids because she wanted to stay. This is huge! Yesterday at Deveraux's party she went to say goodbye to her friend Scarlett and Scarlett said back to her, "tomorrow in school, do you want to play?" So cute!

tutu & grandpa's visit

swimming pool with grandpa

maya & tutu

hanging out at home

So tutu and grandpa arrived last saturday very late and then sunday mom had a craft show on at War Memorial, so we drove over to see them. They had left some luggage, so kalia was asking all morning if we could go and see them, since she noticed that they must have come while we were sleeping. Kalia picked out a very special outfit to go and see them - she put her blue tutu over her clothes, asked for two piggy tails and had a neck full of beaded necklaces. Of course, tutu took her around the craft show to buy her a couple things - oh, she got her this really pretty plumeria hair clip and maya tore off one of the petals this morning and kalia was so upset that she said, "maya, I am not going to be your big sister any more!"

Oh, Maya took 2 steps to me today! But has since then just been taking maybe one step then launching herself at me.

Mom has been working on projects on the house - recovering the lanai furniture cushions - I sewed a pillow! Also recovering maya's high chair cushion - the cutest fabric- pears. Dad has been cleaning my kitchen - deep cleaning the stove top and mom cleaned my microwave. I have seriously not done the dishes since they got here...life is good!

Mom and Dad are staying at Noelani, right in front of s-turns, so erik & I both got to surf wednesday and thursday - it was so fun. Erik really does love me because he gave up epic Honolua Bay on thanksgiving to surf s-turns with me! It had been 8 months since we surfed together and I caught my "wave of the season" - so fun! It was definitely a lot of work both days and I needed a nap afterwards, constant paddling. Wednesday erik & I traded off and everyone got to watch my session from mom & dad's lanai, it was pretty cool, since they have really never watched me surf. We also got a date night last night - we went to Pineapple Grill & Maui Brewing Company, it was really fun!

So I officially have a new job - marketing for the new Duke's Beach House at Honua Kai. They are willing to work with my schedule and I'm excited!

sunday

checking "churches" in waiehu

family shot at iao

our picnic spot

kalia eating tomatoes

erik & girls by the river

a little hike

kalia & mommy

kalia loved this hale

Ok, before I forget to mention it, a little story: This morning I went to wake kalia up and it looked like her eyes were open and when i looked closer, i realized that she had sunglasses on. She was still sleeping and had slept the whole night with sunglasses on. So I went and got erik and he came in to see and when he woke her up the first thing she said was that the sunglasses help her to go to sleep.

Sunday we had an adventure day and it was almost like old times! After a relaxing morning we headed to the otherside and met woozer to check the surf spot "churches". We had fun by the little river - watching the waves. Then we headed to Iao Valley for a little picnic and hiking. It was really fun - kalia was having a blast, she is definitely a good cruiser.

saturday

maya playing at flemings

the girls playing

erik about to paddle out

maya all sandy
3 mouthfuls of sand! i keep waiting for her to figure out that it's yucky,
but i think she just puts everything in her mouth!

kalia just cruising - playing

kalia just played and collected shells and put sand in her bucket

letting them cruise the beach

the house kalia and i built
we collected sticks and were attempting to put up a roof,
since kalia said it wasn't officially a house without one.
i totally felt like my mom, i was getting a little too into building this house,
I almost had to cut myself off.

at home watching word world - look maya's totally into it.
i had to strip the cushions the day before since "somebody" decided
to draw a picture on the couch cushion!!!! But maya loves it like this,
she can climb on all by herself and get down. We looked over at one point and maya
was laying with her back on the couch, head hanging upside down off the couch
leaning on the cushion on the floor. She is sooooo funny!

maya loves daddy's guitar

saturday we had a fun day with daddy! we relaxed in the morning and headed to flemings - daddy surfed and we had fun on the beach. kalia cruised, found shells, filled her bucket & built a house with me and maya explored and dug in the sand. everyone had a great time and it was nice to be out in the windy/ little bit rainy, winter weather. the home for play time in the living room, afternoon jam session with daddy and then outside for rides in the wagon - kalia pulled maya and i a couple of times!

our "thanks" and "giving" trees

kalia gluing on the trees

cut out letters- waiting to be glued

finished trees

kalia putting her leaf with what she is thankful for on the "thanks" tree

I saw this idea online and fell in love with it. So the other rainy afternoon, I took a piece of poster board which i meant to be a potty chart and cut out two trees - a "thanks" tree & a "giving" tree. Each day if we have something to be thankful for, we write it on a leaf and put it on the "thanks" tree and if we have been kind or giving, we can put it on a leaf for the "giving" tree. I'm really trying to work on kalia being kind and feeling good about giving/sharing. It is definitely a work in progress! We are going to keep our trees up until Thanksgiving and then I'm going to take the leaves down and keep them to look back on and save the trees to use again next year. So far kalia has been thankful for making pumpkins, going to school, planting food (our carrots & corn). Kalia has been kind by sharing snacks with maya without being asked and sharing her toys today. Maya is thankful for her big sister playing with her (guess who thought of that one).

So maya climbed onto the coffee table yesterday and was crawling around on it! She used the dvd box that kalia used to use as a chair as a step to climb up. She also crawled out the front door - erik went outside and had closed both the door & screen, but i guess neither was completely closed, she opened both and crawled outside! Erik was right there, but I looked up, the door was open and maya was gone!

A couple times this week, while I was making lunch, kalia would go to her room and set up her tea picnic and make lunch in her kitchen. One of those days she came to me in the kitchen and said, "I only have leftovers today mommy and the cupcakes were in the refrigerator, so they are a little hard." I laughed so hard over this! She really picks up on everything! I immediately called mom and we had a good laugh.

daddy's girl

kalia making her princess crown

sitting on the mini furniture

we pulled out the tube and maya was having so much fun!

especially with kalia chasing her

kalia dressing up - a daily event

the dress she had to wear to lunch at daddy's work

i've been sewing a little - mini tote i made kalia

dress up

kalia's drawing yesterday - practicing letters,
she made a boy & girl with crown

the pre-school at kapalua song, sung by kalia morgan hendrickson

So today we were trying to decide who was going to take kalia to the park and who was going to put maya down for her nap - but kalia didn't want me to go!:( She only wanted daddy to take her and she was not changing her mind! I guess she is a daddy's girl!

The day after maya almost fell off the bed, she was on our bed and she crawled to the edge, then looked back at me, then turned back and slowly started leaning over the edge...

Kalia has been all about dressing like a princess - every day she says she going to dress like a princess, then comes back in a different combination of play clothes.

We had deveraux over to play the other day and for a little project, i made them some princess crowns out of cardboard & foil and had little sticky jewels to decorate. Kalia carefully picked out each jewel and placed it in a specific spot and deveraux pulled each one as fast as she could and stuck it on-- two totally different personalities!

Maya has been sooooo cute! She is really starting to have her own personality and communicate and I'm so having crazy love fits over her. She has been dancing a lot lately and claps when the music is over. She gets the biggest open mouth smile on her face when she knows you want her to clap and then she claps! She get so excited that sometimes after clapping, she'll attack her own hand with her mouth. She gets so excited sometimes and attacks your face (her form of kissing?) with her mouth. It scares me and kalia a little, maya gets a little shark attack like. She is so different than kalia, so much more aggressive. She throws things, slams things around, loves to throw everything off of the coffee table and will hold her own against kalia. It is impossible to change Maya's diaper, it's soooo frustrating. The minute she hits the changing table, her entire body flips - even if i have something for her to play with- it needs to be something she doesn't usually get to play with- like a zip lock bag. Some times I change her and her entire body is vertical - she's hanging upside down by her legs, because she's twisting with such force that it is the only thing i can do to keep her a little in place. Erik changed a diaper yesterday and declared her impossible - I guess it's been a while since he changed one, since i've been saying this for a while! Kalia literally used to lift her legs for us - I didn't realize how easy I had it with her! We will be done with the changing table soon - it's so much easier to wrestle her on the ground! Same with the bath, Maya is twisting while you lower her into the towel.

kalia has been earning pennies by doing different things around the house. It started because she wanted to add more pennies to this water bottle rattle that we made for her when she was a baby. Now maya has one, since she loves kalia's and was shaking it like crazy today. 3 pennies in an empty water bottle - they love it! But now Kalia will clean her room for a penny, erik gets kisses & hugs for a penny, today i used it for a quick get dressed, wash face, brush hair and brush teeth this morning. I guess it's sort of like an allowance. When the bottle is pretty full, we will count and then she can buy something with her money.

Oh, i need to take some updated photos of the vegetables plants, the corn and carrots are really growing, still waiting on the peas and wildflowers.

halloween 2009

kalia as snow white for harvest festival

harvest festival
waiting in line for horse ride

opening gift from auntie kim, uncle jay & cousins

google eyes

google eyes

carving pumpkins halloween morning

maya and her pumpkin drum

kalia was so into drawing little faces around the pumpkin

full concentration

now adding stickers, while daddy carves the other pumpkin

keiki parade with cousins shannin & sophie

parade

kalia as rosetta

here come the fairies

kalia & daddy

maya flower

with shannon, deveraux & anderson

happy maya

kalia was sooooo excited after trick or treating

she asked me to take a picture of her stash

end of the night

Friday night we went to the harvest festival in kapalua. It was really fun - horse rides, bouncy castle, games & food. Erik was able to go on the horse with kalia, so she was very, very excited - and you know Erik was too! When we were going to bed that night he said, "I got to ride a horse today."

Saturday - Halloween we really filled the day. In the morning, we opened the halloween packages from Auntie Kim, Uncle Jay & cousins and from Tutu & Grandpa. We had fun trying on the googley eye glasses, looking at stickers, books & eating treats. Kalia was also really excited to get the new tinkerbell movie from tutu & grandpa! That morning we carved pumpkins and I actually roasted the seeds this year and they came out really yummy! Kalia spent the day practicing what daddy taught her, "trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat." Oh, when we were carving pumpkins, since kalia saw me draw a face on the pumpkin before carving - she wanted to draw faces on the pumpkin. She spent the longest time, drawing faces all around the pumpkin and then carefully putting stickers on it - it was really cute.

Then we headed down to the keiki parade in lahaina with cousins shannin & sophie. The parade was really fun - kalia walked the whole way and was happy to get some candy! Kalia hadn't taken a nap, so she actually fell asleep in the stroller on the way back to the car! After a couple late naps for the girls, we headed to Pohailani for our mom's group halloween party and then home to get maya to bed. Erik took kalia trick or treating around the neighborhood and 8 doors later she had a full basket and was so excited, I can't even explain it! I got to take her to our neighbor Martin's house and she just walked up to the door and said, "trick or treat!" She was really into it! Then we got home and I was really into showing kalia how to sort her candy (i know, she gets her craziness from me). So far, she really hasn't been asking for her candy. She ate one that night and didn't finish it - ate it the next day and one today after her rest time, but I had to remind her. Halloween night we stayed up really late and watched the new Tinkerbell movie and ate popcorn. It was so fun! Kalia did the most amazing dance for us at the beginning and end of the movie with the music.

Erik is on Oahu right now for a training meeting and won't be home until tomorrow night! Miss him!