Lucky Lucky

I'm lucky. I married a wonderful man. Want proof?

For a special treat on our vacation, Tyler arranged a sitter, made reservations, and took me out twice. Once for a couples massage at the Grand Wailea Spa (heaven!) and once for dinner at Mama's Fish House (yum!).

He also woke up with Naomi, who never realized we are two hours behind our normal time zone, every day.

I'm feeling rested, rejuvenated, spoiled, and loved.

The Most Perfect Day

Yesterday was seriously the most perfect day.

1. Morning walk on ocean path.
2. All day at the beach with the kids.
3. Enough reading time to finish a book.
4. Couples massage followed by dinner with my sweetheart.

I'm loving this vacation.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Me: Happy Thanksgiving girls! Do you know what sort of things we do on Thanksgiving?
Lilly: Go swimming?

I guess she's not totally wrong when you are spending Thanksgiving in Hawaii. I'm so thankful to be here enjoying paradise with Tyler and my girls. I feel like life has been so busy and stressful with all of our activities, obligations, and work, and the girls have all been sick with several different things over the last few weeks. It feels wonderful to have time to unwind, relax, and spend time together.

I'm also thankful that someone else cooked and cleaned up my Thanksgiving dinner - thank you Thanksgiving buffet! We ate turkey dinner while the sun set over the ocean and listened to two guys strumming their guitars and singing everything from Johny Cash to Sublime with a Jack Johnson vibe. Sounds strange but they totally pulled it off.

Birthday Spoils

Lilly is turning into a little firecracker more and more these days. I would say her two great loves in life are music & dancing and looking beautiful. She will actually forgo watching a movie in the car if it means listening to her favorite music, and she is always telling me to change the channel, turn it up, and stop talking so she can hear. Her favorite song is "Dynamite" which she calls "the hands up in the air song" or "diamond light." So for her birthday she got her own iPod nano loaded with all her favorite songs and will only take it off when we pry it away from her for the essentials, like bathing and sleeping. I'm not even sure she heard us singing Happy Birthday to her.


In her quest for girlyness, Lilly is always sneaking into my make-up and making herself "more beautiful." Once last week we were driving to preschool and she exclaimed, "Oh no! I forgot to put my lip gloss on!" Fortunately, her cousin and grandmother got her her own make-up kits for her special day. Now she looks glamorous wherever she goes and gets into my make-up a little less. She is thrilled to find that Barbie make-up kits actually have make up that shows up, unlike the Hello Kitty makeup kit I got her earlier, that is really just glitter disguised as lip gloss, eye shadow, and nail polish.


Lilly has also learned that it is fun to not only put make-up on herself, it's fun to make others equally beautiful. Case in point: she was having a play date with Calvin on her birthday and she helped him look extra pretty for the party.



All in all, Lilly got tons of girly spoils for her birthday - Barbies, princess canopy, sparkly suitcase, Ariel jammies, etc. I learned with Ava that one day her desire for all things pink and sparkly can end so I'm glad Lilly got to indulge while she's totally into it.

Happy Birthday Lilly! We love you!!!!

Party Under the Sea

Last year was Lilly's first birthday not being in Hawaii. Such a sad, deprived childhood - I know. She's already had 3 ocean-themed birthday parties, but mermaids are what she's all about, so we went ahead and had her 4th under the sea themed party for her 5th birthday.

Lilly dressed up in her mermaid costume and we had a visit from a pirate girl who twisted balloons, told ocean stories, performed magic tricks, and painted faces. We decorated for the party all morning, and Lilly kept hugging me and saying, "you are making my birthday so special," which makes it all worth it in my book. It turned out great, considering we had a house full of 4/5 year-old kids on a cold rainy day.

For now, I have to keep reminding Lilly that she's still 4 - her birthday isn't until tomorrow.

The Jungle

My kids love The Jungle. It's basically the biggest indoor playground I've seen, complete with a bouncy house, ball pit, arcade, and pizza parlor. I love The Jungle too, because my kids get worn out with fun and I can sit with a sister, friend, or book and refill my Diet Coke to my hearts' content.

When Ava had a minimum day two weeks ago, I surprised the girls with a trip to the Jungle and they played HARD for 3 hours straight. I didn't even have to buy them pizza or tokens to keep them going. Naomi was thrilled to go in the ball pit for the first time. It was a really big deal for her and she clearly felt like a big girl.

Beautiful Day

We had a lovely visit from Grammy & Paga this weekend. The weather cooperated wonderfully, so we drove to Tiburon for a delicious brunch on the bay, followed by dessert at Ghirardelli Square. YUM-MY!

After we got home, things deteriorated for the kids. Ava got a fever, which turned into croup, which turned into laryngitis (Lilly had this bug the week before). In the meantime, Naomi got a fever, stopped eating, and cried like she was in pain for hours. We landed ourselves in the ER in the middle of the night, where Naomi was diagnosed with herpangina. She had tons of sores in the back of her mouth, so she had intense pain. Poor thing is also cutting 3 teeth. Lilly now has Naomi's bug. The weather might be confused about the time of year, but the winter viruses are in full swing.

Needless to say, we spent the next day trying to recover at home. Despite the sick kids, it was still really nice to just spend time with Tyler's parents. I put Keith and Tyler to work. They moved a chandelier and hung my new chandelier in its place. I was very impressed with their electrician skills.

Which reminds me of something funny Ava said tonight. (Sorry - tangent!) Ava is becoming quite the reader. She was reading me a book tonight about jobs kids might have when they grow up. One was "a person who can fix a fan" (I'm guessing "electrician" is a little too hard for early readers). She stopped right there and said, "That doesn't sound like a very good job." If you describe it that way, I have to say I agree.

Anyway, my dining room and kitchen tables now look much better thanks to my husband's mad electrical skills.

Here are some fun pictures of our trip to the city:

Academy of Science

We have been enjoying insanely beautiful weather in these parts. I think we are finally getting the balmy days that never materialized this summer. Ava had no school for Veteran's Day, so I pulled Lilly out of school and we headed up to the city to visit the California Academy of Sciences. We had so much fun and topped the trip with a quick China Town shopping spree.

Trick-or-Treat!

We had fun trick-or-treating this year. Ava was a pirate (no girly costumes for this girl), Lilly was a mermaid, and to round it off, Naomi was Tinkerbell. The girls were adorable and had fun making the rounds gathering candy throughout the neighborhood. We finished the night at the neighborhood haunted house. Every year one of the neighbors sets up a surprisingly elaborate haunted house right in their front yard and holds a canned-food drive for admission. As luck would have it we arrived right at the same time as all the cousins. It was especially spooky and fun this year.

I have to say that Halloween lost a little bit of what makes it great this year by falling on a Sunday. What makes Halloween great, you might ask? Well, let me tell you. It's a holiday that brings together family, friends, and communities with good food, silly decorations, and all around fun. And it manages to do all these things while being totally low key. No pressure, no fuss, just all around easy fun. Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas, but it comes with a lot of expectation, pressure, money, and work. With Halloween at the end of the week, it felt like the festivities went on, and on, and... So I wasn't too sad to see it come to an end.

Annual Halloween Party

We had our annual church Halloween party the Saturday before Halloween. The girls had so much fun playing games with their friends and cousins, and they participated in their first trunk-or-treat, where they essentially went trick-or-treating in the church parking lot. People decorated their cars for Halloween and the kids managed to fill their bags with candy in very little time. Just what they needed, an EXTRA bag of candy, right?! Still, it was fun.

Pumpkin Carving

Here are our 2010 masterpieces. Enjoy!