Christmas Card

We are so slow, that I doubt we are going to get to mail any cards this year. But I wanted to share our Christmas card with everyone. My friend Jess helped us put this together, unfortunately she is too far away to actually take the pictures for us but she did put what we had together nicely!! Thank you again Jessica!
Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas! Hope you have a wonderful holiday as you celebrate Christ's birth!

We went to Ho'omaluhi Botanical Garden today. I have been wanting to take the little ones for the preschool nature program, thinking it'd be fun and we could wander around and play outside afterwards. We arrived a little late but did enjoy the story and looking at some seeds(which was the theme today) There was another homeschooling family with older kids so that was a bit exciting too. They also had 4, 3 boys and one girl-same birth order-how fun!
Before we could get to the lake we had to walk around some tree cutters. I think the little boys could have stayed here all day, they were cutting some tall trees.

My little helper boy. I was opening the oven to clean one night and this little guy grabbed a napkin and started going right to work for me. I thought it was the funniest and sweetest thing! So glad I have such joyful helpers! (although must note it isn't always so-we are all working on that)



We had another birthday this week. Our girl is 7!! She was very disappointed to find out we were still going to do school on her day. She complained "Why can't I have a summer birthday too!" (Note: all the boys are in June/July) Well the thing is we had a fun day dispite having to do some 'school'. Had great morning at the beach-now when we can't go to the beach in September I think we'll have to move her birthday to the summer;)

Ever since we had our pictures taken she strikes a pose, silly thing:)



Can I say that I love fall? Yes, I am talking fall Hawaii style but it is a nice cool evening. Perfect for the pot of potato soup I have simmering on the stove, which will go lovely with the freshly baked bread that we worked on this morning. Yum, the smells of fall. So what if I'm cool because it got a little cloudy and I'm sitting here under the fan in shorts. I'm going to enjoy this fall where we can eat out on the lanai. Who knows what the next fall will bring.

Speaking of food, I am oddly excited to share that our little guy, #4, will now eat salad. I've always give him a piece or two but he is finally at the point where he will eat a real serving of salad! Hip Hip Hooray!!

This week in pictures

The plumber was here all week, most of it anyway I think it took him about 18hours to install the tub. But the tub is in and is a huge monster. We picked out a big soaking tub-which is great when you want a soak. I found out this morning that when you are half awake you don't remember that the side is a little higher and you need to pick your feet up a little more to climb in LOL! Whack!

I received a free sample of Teeccino in the mail this week. I've been wanting to try it so last night I finally pulled the coffee pot out and started brewing. I found out that the new carafe we picked up does not work with our coffee maker. Big mess, but we were able to salvage exactly a cup of my drink and James thinks he can fix the coffee maker. The drink was lovely! I do want to try some more. You can pick up a sample from the website and try it yourself. I chose the Vanilla Nut flavor, as soon as I opened the package I knew I was going to like it, the smell was heavenly. Here are the ingredients: Roasted carob, barley, chicory root, dates, almonds, figs, natural vanilla extract and other flavors. To borrow a term, Yum-O!

Kids and pets

This was my new kitchen helper. He had been around for about a week. I decided he was too cute to worry about but the little ones caught him today and lost him in the living room. I had directed them to take him to the garden but they wanted to show him to me first and got sidetracked. Now he's on the loose-he better hope the cat doesn't notice him!




We drove around today and stopped at a beach park to walk/play around. I had three children who were happy to pose for me and one little rascal whom I caught anyway.

Shave Ice and Ponies

I think these were the favorites of the night. #3 rode the ponies 3 times. #2 rode them 4 times. #4 would nod his head wildly with a huge grin if asked if he rode the ponies. #1 got too busy playing in the bounce house to stand in line for the ponies.
I think #4 had 2 shaved ice-I saw #2 with 2 different ones also. I was helping serve food so everyone was in care of dad, running from place to place. All had a great time but were ready to come home and crash into bed, I heard not one word of protest.

When we were eating lunch out on the deck today #3 told me that the trees were moving because they were thirsty. #2 tried to explain that no they were moving because the wind was blowing them. nope says #3 they are thirsty. I guess they were trying to wave to the rain clouds 'come here and give us a drink please'

Most of these pictures have been stuck in my camera for the last week so I thought I'd let them out;)

updated:
#1 & 2 found these scooters by the dumpster a couple weeks ago. So exciting as this was to be gifts for them this year. I bought some elbow and knee pads yesterday as #1 has many many owies from falling. They are quite the stunt devils, #2 must have a bit more coordination because she is not as scratched up as #1 but believe me she's probably the more darish of the two.
We watched some boats leave as RIMPAC kicked off last Monday. I think we saw 2 destroyers and two subs. We watched some leave at the channel by the park and then watched some more leave by the beach, where we cooled off in the water for a bit.
When #3 saw the first sub leave he says "Bye Daddy". So I guess he really knows that daddy works on those but silly boy-doesn't he think we'd give him more notice when daddy leaves!

The last pictures are from the park up the street. We walked to it the other day-good sweat equity in the exercise!

Keeping busy this week. We have VBS at night and this weekend is an Anniversary Celebration at our church. We are also working with one car again as are 'new' car is not starting. This is James last week of school for the semester. We have another birthday on the horizon-the big number 8!

I'm not sure if I mentioned but we are tying to grow an edible garden again. We have 2 upside down tomato plants. Bought a strawberry jar and have about 6 plants in that. Lots of lettuce growing and trying to get some cucumbers and squash(or eggplant-think we mixed up on that one) to grow vertical.

another fun day of shopping

I had a doctors appointment this morning and James was able to stay home with the little ones so was able to go to my appointment and grocery shopping all by myself. It was fun!! I managed to wow the cashier and baggers with my savings(I honestly didn't feel I did that well but was excited with what I did come away with) on the way to the car I told my bagger to check out the grocery game and gave her a quick talk about it. My favorite savings today was a package of cheese(16 slices) and 3 cans of nuts(11.5oz each) I only spent 30 cents on each of those items!! The cheese coupon was from the paper, you can still find the nuts online(planters) The nuts were $3 off if you bought 3 items(from certain brands-excluding single serve) someone clued me in to the fact that you could buy packets of kool aid. The nuts cost$3(so free with coupon) the koolaid was 10 cents a packet!! Now we don't drink kool aid but someone else suggested making play dough with it-so we'll be making a lot of good smelling play dough this year:)
Honestly, I am having so much fun with this coupon savings thing;)

We lost the trade winds over the weekend so it's been super hot and humid, thus not much posted lately. Too hot to do too much. The jelly fish were here over the weekend too, I think they said over 2,000 on Saturday-lots of people stung. Makes me hurt to think of it.
We had a fun day for the children at church on Saturday. Last year our theme was Fun in the Son So this was like a little mini VBS kinda thing to get the word out about this years program. They got to sing songs, hear about the word, make some projects and play some water games(and it turned out to be a great morning to do that!)
Monday the older kids went down the road to play with another church group. It's at a park so me and the younger ones were able to get some time to play together while the others did there thing. I thought for sure that #4 would be nice and ready for a nap when we got home but it still took him awhile to fall asleep.
Well, there is a quick update for those that want to be in the know:D

We've had another fun filled day, with normal cleaning and caring of home and children aside.We went swimming before lunch, which was quite interesting. There were 3 other children in the pool, I never quite understood how to pronounce their names. Very ethnic sounding. Then I overheard all the children talking and the "others" were telling mine they had a brother that lived "somewhere" mine said 'is that another country?' This had me laughing to myself as I realized it was a town next to us but they hadn't recognized the name. Really they love geography, always studying maps--maybe we should work a little more diligently on local geography!
As some were still napping I realized that in order to use a coupon I had for a free train we needed to go to toysrus today or else it would expire. This is close to the mall, where they are having a lego exhibit so I figure we can combine the two even though this time of the day that is not a direction I'd usually desire to go.
So we made it to the store and there is a notice that coupons gotten on June 19th are no longer valid. I got mine today but inquire inside to double check that mine is good. All is well so we go to the train section. The have a train table set up with tracks and trains so everyone starts playing while I try to find a train this coupon is for. There are 4 choices on the coupon but seems the store only carries one of them and they are sold out. We are all disappointed but I let the kids play a bit more before we go. Another associate comes by and asks me if I'm finding everything ok. I say well I have this coupon but it seems you don't' have what I need. He is very apologetic about the situation. We talk a bit. Seems that first coupon I had noticed on the sign had a lot of problems with it-including someone scanning it on the computer and making fake ones that were used. I said that it's too bad that people would chose to do that because not only does that affect the store/manufacturer but then they may choose not to offer online coupons anymore which would be a disappointment to the general public-who love to get these great finds. Anyway the COOL thing was: He offered to let us pick out any train that was $12.99 or less!! So we still came home with a new FREE train. My children love trains:) #3 especially loves Thomas.
So off to the mall we went to look for legos. The munchkins took all the pictures. #1 is inspired to build great lego designs. We picked up Free apple slices from McD's that the children had earned from the summer library program on the way out and we rode the tram from one side of the mall to the next(did I mention they love trains!!)
So great fun day for us. Now every one is off to bed and I'm looking for a good foot massage:)

N

savings

My favorite savings for the day was:
*free cat food from Purina(4# bag)
*free chex mix plus 11 cents(this is my 5th free bag they all went into our emergency stock as it's not something we usually eat but occasionally snack on)
*yogurt-I got a pack of 6 for $.69 not a brand I usually get and it was hard to find a yogurt in that brand without corn syrup and other junk, just yogurt please.
*yogurt in 4 packs for $.45
*V8 juice-46oz for $.15

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#3 was crying or whining the whole trip out today. I hope he's not trying to get sick. #2 has her follow up ultrasound tomorrow. I think I have childcare arranged for the others. She has the US and then 4 hours later we meet with the doctor to get the results. I fully expect the second appointment to be about 5 minutes with the doc just releasing us from her care.

Roasting Deer

Sounds like a strange title for me. Let me explain a bit. My plan today was to go to bible study then take the kids to a park and have lunch and play around since we'd be out anyway. Good plan. While I was talking to the ladies at church about different things I'd like to do this summer and what I was doing after class someone mentioned that we should go to the park up the hill. No, I said we're going to go on base, they have lots of nice parks(playgrounds) there. Then I decided that sounded boring, who wants to go to a playground when you could go somewhere to explore! So up the hill we go. Usually when we go to this park we go hiking-that's not on the schedule today- so we eat our lunch in a camping area(no campers) and I tell the children they are free to play as long as I can see them. They start building 'fires' in the pits and hunting in the woods. They designate #3 to kill the deer and then the others roast it. Grandpa Tony, they ate the deer fur and all-I told them that they'd have to talk to you about how to dress a deer.
They found big stick that made good bows, tromped up and down the hillside inspected all the moss and fruits that have fallen from the trees and let there imaginations guide them.
This was so much more fun then climbing on play equipment and sliding down slides. Here there were built in slides when the hillside is covered in fallen leaves! #4 had his share of falls-he begin to have fun with it! Although if he was going a big distance he'd ask to hold my hand.
It was a good day-tiring but a good reminder of all the things that this area has to offer us and not to get stuck in a rut of the same ole easy stuff.
Btw, we don't really have deer in Hawaii(I believe they have been introduced but I have never seen one) so I'm not sure why they thought to pretend about deer today. Find that quite interesting!

our new van

We have a pincher in the family. a biter too. He only seems to do it to his siblings and only when mom and dad aren't looking. But I've seen the evidence, it's not pretty. A good time to use his weapons of choice is in the van, where he is seated right next to his brother(#3). So we've been debating on how to rearrange the children to keep this nonsense down. We have a 8 seater van, but we decided the best thing to do was make it a 7 seater. This seemed this simplest solution but where would we store the seat? We really lack the storage out here. James found room in the shed and we will work on "geco proofing" the chair so it's not covered in poo next time we need it. We removed the middle seat in the middle row so now no one is sitting next to each other. It seems so roomy now! Like a whole new van!

Now to work on that little guy. He must learn to use words not action and the others must learn to listen to him and not ignore. He is very cute and sweet and loud and into everything!

Our days.....

The little one and I went to get the mail and when we came back we found #2 & #3 gathering some flowers. They were having such fun picking which ones they liked. They'd drive their cars along the sidewalk and stop at different places to pick a few.


We went to the beach today! It's been awhile since we have gone, it was good to be there again! #1 and #2 spent most of their water time getting water in their noodles and blowing it on each other. #3 swam around in his tube and collected shells. #4 spent alot of time playing in the sand, then finally wanted to play in the water. It was chilly! He is loving the water, we've been using the water wings in the pool and he will float around and have a grand ole time. Then he's tired and will lay his head on your shoulder until everyone is ready to go.