Friday, August 26, 2011

Zui hits the big 3-0!


Happy Birthday to my true love! Zui turned 30 on Friday. I've been planning his party for a few weeks now. I wanted to throw Zui a surprise party but it stresses me out too much--trying to keep secrets from him. I threw him a surprise party for his 25th and it just about killed me. So I just went ahead and told him I was gonna throw him a party. It was mostly just family that came, which still made for a pretty big party considering the size of his family :)

In the morning Zui slept in while I made him waffles with sauteed apples and fresh whipped cream--yum. Then he watched the kids so I could go get my hair cut. Yes you heard me right, Zui watched the kids so I could get pampered--is that fair? Not really, but I'm glad he was okay with it ;) I wanted to look decent for his party and I knew they were going to style my hair (how vain am I??)
Later that day Zui took a nap, then played basketball with some friends. Dad and Yvonne watched the kids from 5-7pm so we could clean the house and get ready for the company. I started to feel really stressed about 6:30pm when I started making the pizzas. Mostly because I spent too long doing this:



see that cute sign? I really REALLY wanted to get it done before the party so there I was, 5:30pm sticking those vinyl letters up on the wall (p.s. did you guys know this is SO easy to do? Buy vinyl from Walmart, borrow a friend's Cricut, and 10 minutes later you're sticking them on your wall). I love hosting parties because they inspire me to get things done in the house: deep clean, organize the toys, touch up paint...you know, finish the list of projects I've been meaning to do for forever. I never get them all done, but at least I make a dent in my list. So anyways, that sign was one of them--phew!

By 7pm as guests started to arrive and I was still making pizzas and melting by the 500 degree oven I thought "why didn't we just do Costco pizza?" Seriously, what was I thinking?? Luckily some angels came by (Amy Kim and Joy Yamada) and started cleaning my kitchen and making more dough for me so I could go feed the baby. I seriously felt so overwhelmed with their generosity, how they just jumped in and took a load off my back--big Mahalos!
Dessert was simple: brownies and icecream. Do you like my haircut? I cut off about 5 inches (tired of the Mom-do: hair in a ponytail EVERY day).
Anyways, back to Zui: We didn't really do anything at his party. Everyone ate and talked story, it was fun, nice and laid back.

Sheena, Kapono, Tiff and Brian
Yvonne, dad, and the Morden's. Yvonne held baby Jaz the whole night (thank you!). See those bandages on Dad? He tripped outside in his garden and landed face first on some bricks. Zui took him to the ER. Luckily he's okay.
Jenna, Amy, Lindsey, Lehua
The kids had a great time playing together. I had no ideas my hangars made great guns but the boys loved it.

The girls dressed up over and over again--switching outfits, changing tiaras..so cute. Kaila and Kyra with Anjuli.
Zui scooped icecream cones for all the kids. That was a great idea, the kids loved it and it was super easy.I'm so glad it didn't rain, it was nice to have the kids outside on the deck.
Everyone had a really fun time, and it was great to see all the family and close friends over to support Zui. Happy 30th Birthday, Babes!

Monday, August 22, 2011

The secret behind our Greatest Family Picture

The secret? Photoshop. Or if you don't want to pay for Photoshop like us, we used Photoscape (free!). Getting a good family picture with everyone looking and smiling is next to impossible. The above pic was the best we could get, but of all things, I was blinking! Zui fixed that, copying each eye separately from a different pic and pasting it on top of my closed eyes. Voila! Perfection at last!


Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Zion and his Jacket

Zion loves this ridiculously small jacket. He's always tells me he's "freezing" (is that even possible in Hawaii??) and insists on putting it on, with the hood up, of course. He's even slept with it on a few times! So I decided this boy needed a bigger size. I went out and bought him a 3T jacket. Do you think he wears it? Uh, no. He loves this small jacket! So now the little jacket has magically disappeared...



Sunday, August 14, 2011

Baby Jaz pics


So we (meaning I) wanted to get Jaz's pics taken professionally because she is so darn cute and I wanted a good camera to take a nice clean picture. Well I got the sharp picture but baby Jaz screamed the entire time. I tried everything: nursing, bouncing, the works. It would calm her down and then as soon as I would set her down to get the picture taken..."waaah!" So these are the best shots we got. I settled for "no smiles but not screaming" after an hour of hopeless picture taking... And funny, about the JAZ sign, I don't actually have a Jasmine sign up yet so I used a J from Anjuli, A from Izaiah and Z from Zion's names :) It works!



Saturday, August 13, 2011

Jasmine at 3 months


We tried these at-home shots today. Zui's holding up a curtain in the background :) Can't believe Jasmine's 3 months old already!!!




Saturday, August 6, 2011

The Latest

Finally catching up with the latest going on around here...

A few days back I found Zion doing his chore, putting the silverware away,
one piece at a time with his tongs. p.s. He LOVES his pirate pajamas :)


The kids join in for some exercise time with Zui!

All the kiddos on my neighbor's swing.
July 25th: Anjuli and Zion's first day of preschool!

Still best friends :)



Zion's teachers: Miss Juanita and Miss DeeDee with Miss Ellen

Anjuli's teachers: Miss Christina and Miss Noe


Baby Jazz has become everyone's favorite play toy. Zeya thinks it's soo funny to put the burp cloth on top of her head.



Anjuli joins in the fun...

Poor baby Jazz, she looks so helpless!
Last but not least, here's our FHE lesson on temples. For our activity we all helped build the walls of the temple out of TP. I said it looked like the Kirtland temple. Then Chris started laughing because it really is the "Kirkland" temple (Kirkland signature)!