weekends are pretty much full of this...

And this ... 

Love watching them play sports.  It's easy to get swept up in the excitement of watching your kid play.  We try hard to keep it all in perspective.  I want KT and Mo to have sport in their lives.  I think it's important, and fun -- but, there is way more pressure on kids and families to play competitive sports then when we were young.

celebrating songer

43.

fools rush in

Upon waking up on April Fool's Day KT asked me, "How many jokes are you going to play today?!"

I attempted to tell her that you generally don't say, "I'm going to surprise you" before you surprise someone.

I got a blank stare in return.

It's always interesting to see what they think is most funny.  For example, they thought this was funny.

It opened a discussion on how Mo wishes Snoopy were a girl, that KT wasn't really like Charlie Brown, etc.

Mo thought this however, was hilarious:

KT has been obsessed with getting an allowance lately.  We've talked about agreeing on chores, and that Mom and Dad would need to have some discussions before anything is finalized.  

This morning I told her that we had finally agreed on the list.

This was her face as she got further down the list. 

(Photos are a little grainy, because she understands that when I get the camera out, there is going to be a April Fool's joke, so I had to be sly with my camera phone.)

This was her when we shouted "April Fool's!" at her. 

I switched their drawers around when they were sleeping, and put some "ha ha ha" notes in the toilet paper.

When they came out of their room in the morning they found this line to the bathroom.

I told Mo, "I'm sorry you're going to have to wait in line."

Mo replied, "But I have to go SUPER bad!"

After she cut in line and used the toilet I heard her say, "Okay Pluto, it's your turn."

For breakfast I put food dye in their cups and had them pour their milk own (I do this a lot anyway, because they think it's a blast).

KT laughed and understood what was going on pretty quick.

Mo was a bit more taken aback.

She didn't understand how it was working, she kept looking at the white milk in the creamer, and then back down at her orange juice-looking milk.

I flipped a bunch of pictures upside down in the house, and I also glued eyeballs on just about everything I could.  Mo got a kick out of this.

For snack, I put pudding in their cups to look like milk and placed eyeballs on top of the pudding.

Maybe next year we'll get a little "meaner," but for this year we just had fun.  Did you do anything fun with your kids?

the last 10 days of xmas

So I know December is a busy month for everyone, but this year it has seemed crazier than usual.  

First of all we have a lot of birthdays in December between our family and close friends -- Me, Kaitlyn, my little brother, both his kids, Grandpa John, Papa's best friend Chris, Chris' son Noah, Greg, a slew of Kaitlyn's friends (Hayley, Cody, Lia, Amelia, etc.), my friend Jeni, my cousin Lisa -- you get the idea, right?

The last ten days looked something like this (the photography is haphazard because that's pretty much what our life has been like)

We visited family up in the Bay Area.

Friday, 4:20 p.m. -- Me on the phone with a client sitting in the King City Taco Bell while looking at these two mugs, "No, I'm not going to be able to look at the document today."

While the trip was short (we drove back on Sunday) we did get to see some family and one of our favorite toddlers -- Miss Ariana.

We came back just in time for my birthday which was a nice little day with the family.

Then the next day we headed down to Legoland for Kaitlyn's birthday (she chose this over having a party).

We checked out the surf in Carlsbad.

Then, headed up to the O.C. to see our brand new two-week old niece -- Violet.

And yes, she's as little and perfect as she looks!

During dinner we hear over a police loudspeaker that Santa is coming outside.  And, sure enough there he was on a flatbed truck to visit the neighborhood kids 50 feet from Uncle Scott's door!

My thought:  score!  I don't have to take the kids to see Santa at the mall two days before Christmas.

But, they were so hurried they didn't have a chance to tell him what they wanted.

The next morning Mo had a tap performance, her blue sequined skirt popping quite nicely in a sea of red.

Some video...

And, fate would have it -- Santa was there too!  And, we had enough time for the girls to chat with him about all their lego wishes.  Kaitlyn also told him that she wanted a soccer ball with all the Galaxy player autographs on it (gulp!)

And, lastly tonight the girls sang at church.  Kaitlyn and Mo got up and did a little holiday ditty...

Whew!  Only one more week to go in 2012...

Merry Christmas everyone!

a final special monday

Papa has been fortunate enough to work a 9/80 schedule for the last couple of years giving him every other Monday off.

We call them "Special Mondays" in our house.

Unfortunately, Special Mondays are going to be put on hold starting this month.

On our final Special Monday we were treated to spectacular 80 degree weather, so we celebrated it at the beach our favorite family place.

We picked up a pizza and then KT up from school and headed straight there.

KT loves boogie boarding right now.

The water is pretty cold now, so Mo opted to stay mostly dry sans wetsuit.

KT at sunset sporting her new grin minus yet another tooth!

A day after we set the clock back, sunset came early.

Bye for now Special Mondays.  Sniff, sniff.

drowning

... in fun, that is.  

That would be body surfing ladies and gentlemen even though the particular shot above may look otherwise.

We've been keeping busy with friends and family, parades, fireworks, camps and a short road trip this summer, but we've still managed to clock the minimum requisite beach time for our family (which is admittedly lot).

The other day we didn't have enough boogie boards for all the kids, so they decided to go back to the old standard of bodysurfing. 

We hit the beach one day with our out of town cousins.

This little guy won me over that week.

Another day Katie finally braved getting on Papa's stand up paddle board.

Papa said she was white-knuckled holding onto the board.

She was quite proud of herself afterwards.

Man, I love summer.

summer o' football

Little Wickie reaction upon seeing players' kids on the field after the championship game this weekend.

Mo:  Ooo!  Sparkly!

KT:  I wish I could be there with all that confetti.

Not "I wish I could meet Fernando Torres," or "I wish I could be at the final Euro Cup game."

I suppose it's kind of good thing, throwing metallic confetti on them is way more do-able than meeting Fernando Torres or attending a final Euro Cup game.

Next up: Olympic soccer and other Olympic sporting events.

What are you watching with your kids this summer?

uke school

Halmoni was gracious enough to give us some spending money for our vacation last month.

With her permission we decided to buy ukuleles -- one for Katie and one for me and Papa Wickie.

Ironically, we bought our ukes from this guy (below middle) whose picture we saw at the nearby Kaliua music store.

Later we bought his album which is pretty good!

We purchased a soprano uke for Katie and a concert uke for the grown ups.

We have been having a ball with them.  We've been trying to get Katie to strum with her pointer finger, but she's intent on doing it her way for now.

Our friend Will has promised to give us some actual lessons soon which we are looking forward to immensely.  But until then...

shave ice, noodles, rice and tofu

All Little Wickie favorites -- and in our favor, all mainstays on a vast majority of menus in Hawaii.

Okay, I've been to Hawaii at least a half a dozen times and have to ask:  Did they always offer ice cream under your shave ice?!  How could I have missed that before?

No one cared for my green tea and lychee shave ice, which I personally thought was delicious.  More for me.

Papa Wickie was most happy at the Kaliua Farmers Market which I have to say was outstanding.  A great mix of prepared food, baked and locally packaged foods and fresh produce.  

He is STILL talking about the Ahi appetizer and Ahi entree he had that night.

In fact, later in the week the draw of food was the only reason he agreed to go to the flea market.

Mo loved the plethora of frog instruments to play with at the flea market.

We let Papa Wickie do a bit of shopping as well.  He keeps talking about getting a SUP now.  I'm not entirely sure where it would fit in our garage with the current bevy surfboards and bikes that already claim residence in there, but we'll see.

And, of course there was plenty more water play.  We checked out the lagoons at Ko'Olina.  The whole place was eerily man made and perfect (the Disney resort is one of the resorts adjacent to the lagoons).

But, there were fish to see and the kids really did like the lagoons.

On the North Shore we saw a ton of fish at Shark's Cove by just wading in the water.

And, after a good hike, we took a dip in the falls at Maunawili.

At the airport on the way home we had a celebrity sighting that went something like this.

The guy checking in our luggage:  Hey, you see that haole over there with the yellow hat?
Me:  Yes.
Guy:  You watch the cooking channel?
Me:  Not anymore, it makes me too hungry.
Guy: He's some famous guy from that channel.

Not to leave you in suspense, it was Guy Fieri.  I, in fact, had no idea who he was (my culinary-trained sommelier brother did of course).

The plane home while less exciting for the girls went very smoothly.

Man, I can't believe our vacation is over already...