Turning 30

On November 21st I turned 30. It was a pretty fun weekend, aside from feeling like my young days are behind me :( Zui was kind enough to let me have the whole weekend as a birthday celebration.
Friday night we got a babysitter and went out to eat at the Cattle Company. They give you your birthday dinner and dessert for free. So nice to be able to eat dinner with two hands!Saturday Zui watched the kids so I could get together for 4 hours with my friend Teressa to do some cardmaking. I rarely have time to make cards nowadays, so it was really fun to do.
Sunday was my actual birthday. Zui made me my favorite breakfast: homemade waffles with sauteed cinnamon apples and fresh whipped cream. What a treat!
Believe it or not there was actually no church on my birthday! Instead was the Laie temple rededication. The Hess' watched our kids so we could attend. Again, a treat.

Sunday dinner, again my favorite: Roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy.

We were so stuffed from Sunday's dinner that we decided against dessert. Instead on Monday after FHE we stuck a candle in some peanut butter cup icecream and called it good. With Thanksgiving just around the corner I didn't want to have a bunch of leftover dessert in the house. The kids loved it, and it was so easy--no mess! We didn't have a '0' candle, so Anjuli likes to tell me this picture is when I turned '3.'
Thanks to everyone who helped make my birthday so special!

p.s. This is the only picture I have of Thanksgiving Day so I thought I'd tag it on the end. We got together with the Hess' and had a really fun time. I cooked the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, and chocolate cream cheese pie, while Micaela cooked the yams, cranberry jello, chocolate haupia pie and pumpkin pie. It was a feast for all of us. Unfortunately we never got a picture of it all happening! So Zui insisted he take a picture of the cooks :) Between the two of us we've got 6 children, so you can imagine how busy it was feeding everyone and changing diapers. Happy Thanksgiving!

Surprise Surprise

Guess who's pregnant yet again! Baby #4 is expected to arrive on May 17th.

Four carseats won't quite cut it in our Toyota Camry...time to start looking for a minivan...any suggestions?

Just Du-et!

On November 6th we had our winter recital entitled "Just Du-et." I love the name, it was Zui's idea :) The recital was ALL duets.

Most students played with a sibling, some played with a parent, and a handful played with me or Zui.
It was really a lot of fun. The students played really well. Recitals are always so rewarding for me as the teacher. It's finally my payoff for a semester of hard work :)

All 35 of my students! Phew! Congrats to the Linda Kim Studio, Linda would be proud of you!

Snowing in Hawaii

My visiting teacher asked if I could use a bunch of these popcorn mailers. I got a great idea and said yes.
We blew up the swimming pool and filled them inside. Then we all played in the snow in Hawaii.
We had this up for a week. The kids would spend hours in the pool. It was great entertainment for them.
Anjuli loves to pretend cook with them :)
After a week the house was covered with little bits of "snow" everywhere. It was a mess, and I was glad to see us throw it all away. But, I've come to learn that for kids, the funnest things in life are always the messiest. So go with the flow and get used to it :)