A little brother

Caroline might not play dress up any more, but Lottie, the next door neighbor, does. She has taken Eric as sort of her little brother. Lottie is 5 and has a 7 year old brother.  Lottie loves it when Eric is out playing. She will take him in her house get him water ( in a cup with a lid and straw) and feed him a snack!  It's so cute to watch her with him. Eric loves the attention!

Eric all dolled up with Lottie in the background.

Eric loved twirling the dress and then they were quickly back inside changing because it was itchy.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas!  The kids woke up after 6 am and we got started opening all the great gifts that had been piling up!

Happiness!

The aftermath!  Lots of paper and boxes.  And that wasn't all of it.

After opening gifts, having breakfast, and playing with all the new toys we got dressed to go to the Hale Koa hotel in Waikiki.  It is a military hotel and we had made reservations for a buffet at 1:30.  After eating a great meal with some traditional and Hawaiian fare we went to the pool.  The kids had a blast swimming.

All dressed up in our new dresses!

The view from the pool.  The kids didn't even want to go to the beach!!  Just the pool for them.

Will is in the black suit and Caroline the pink one.  The boy in the blue suit was a friend they had made.  They make friends everywhere they go.  It is neat to watch.  

We left the pool around 5:30 and headed home.  A dinner of leftovers, grilled cheese, or pb&j rounded out a great day!

Merry Christmas everyone!  We missed being with our extended families.  Come to HI next year!!

iTrampoline

Friday after school we went to a trampoline place to have our last Girl Scout meeting of 2013 and to give out the badges they have earned thus far.  It was SO MUCH FUN!!!  The girls had a blast as did my boys.  

I'm hoping to upload several videos to show just how much fun we all had.  I enjoyed watching but did not jump.  1. My back can't take all that compression (I'm so old sounding!) and 2. I would have wet my pants and needed to wear a depends!

 There are several videos of Caroline almost landing her front flip.  As soon as I stepped away, (most likely to take Eric to the potty) she landed several of them!  

Will cracked me up trying to jump off the side tramps.  He had such a great time and didn't want to leave!

Will isn't too bad at his flipping either!  Eric tries too!

Red-checked and happy!

This is a screen shot of an accidental 2 second video.  I loved how it caught her completely upside down!

I tried to get her to grab her shins and then push her arms back up to try and land on her feet.  She ended up over-rotating and landing on her face!  At least she was in the foam pit trying it!!

Pretty School Christmas Program

Eric had his preschool Christmas program Friday morning.  Will, Justin, and I went to see his performance.  My camera ran out of batteries before the song was over but you get the idea!  So very cute.  His teachers love him and are always telling me he is the model student.  He is one of 2 kids that attends 2 half days.  The majority of the kids are there all day.

The view

Walking out of the commissary this afternoon, this is what we saw. 

It that not just incredible?!  The views just don't disappoint or get old. 

What's (been) going on?

I am glad last week is over!  Eric woke up Monday morning not feeling well and didn't start feeling better until Friday.  No fever and didn't throw up until Thursday.  But was clingy, lethargic, and just wanted to sit in my lap and cuddle.  I helped Will with his school work from the lazy boy!  Caroline threw up tuesday or Wednesday (can't remember now!) but again no fever.  It was a work-from-home-day for her so it worked out ok.  Will started complaining of his stomach hurting at some point late in the week and didn't throw up until Saturday night.  He did play football Saturday morning even though he was having stomach cramps.  The other team was having to double team him when he was playing defensive line!  Justin woke up Friday not feeling well, went to work and was home by lunch.  He threw up Saturday morning and finally felt better Monday.  What about me?  I'm knocking on wood!!!  I have escaped so far!  I have wiped everything with clorox wipes and sprayed lysol around the house.  Only time will tell!

Otherwise things went on and we got the tree up and decorated.

The neighbor told Will about St, Nick leaving treats in your shoe.  So Will  told Justin about it and this is what landed in his shoe the first night.  A dog treat.  Will thought that was funny but not what he was expecting.

The second night he got a q-tip!  He didn't leave a shoe out after that!!

Standing with their stockings.

Decorating our fir tree.  We (I) really wanted to go to a local tree farm and pick out a "Hawaiian" Christmas tree (norfolk pine), but when you are given a certificate for a free tree from Home Depot that's where you go!!

My sick boy!

 The house directly across the street from us is getting renovated.  Lots of noise and walls being replaced.  The houses don't have any insulation or drywall.  What you see on the outside is what you have on the inside!  One single board!

Replacing the termite damaged boards.  Eventually they will wrap the whole house with giant tarps to treat for termites.

Doesn't everyone play in a sand box with Santa hats on?

Over the weekend we also decorated a gingerbread house.  But the ants found it and I had to get rid of all the candy and icing!

Eric enjoyed making/eating the candy!

He did that roof all by himself!

This week is another full week.  Swim team twice, football practice twice, a football game (last one), a basketball parent meeting, and a Girl Scout meeting.  Caroline's last day of school is Friday and Justin starts a half-day holiday schedule on Thursday.  Justin is taking a spear fishing class Saturday and Sunday and we go to see the Hawaiian Ballet do the Nutcracker Sunday afternoon.  In the evenings Justin and I will be wrapping presents.  Friday night is hopefully a date night to make up for last Saturday when we were supposed to go to the Jimmy Buffett concert.
Hope everyone else is having a great week!

My garden!

Will and I planted a garden a few months back and it grew!!  Like I grew things from seeds and ate some!!  I am really not good at growing things so this is huge.  I noticed the other day when I went to put the fencing up that there were green beans to pick. So we ate them that night. Today I noticed the limas are getting ready and the okra is doing its thing too!  The peas aren't quiet ready but hopefully will be soon. The squash died. It was doing beautifully and then all if a sudden was gone. Oh well. 

It's hard to believe it is December and I'm harvesting from a garden!!  Love it!

Always a good time

I started this last week!  Then this was filled with sickness and not much happened.
Two weeks ago was a full busy week.  I had Girl Scout training on Monday and Tuesday night, a GS leader meeting Thursday night and a GS troop meeting on Friday.  MOnday nights meeting was after we had dropped the Morris's off at the airport.  The big kids cried all the way home and occasionally Eric would join them.  Then dinner was mom of the year material that consisted of instant oatmeal, brown sugar cinnamon toast and a smoothie!  Most of it eaten in the car or at the meeting.

The girls planting sunflower seeds!  Caroline's have sprouted already.

We also had some fun riding a neighbors skateboard after the meeting Friday.

Then more fun with pizza, popcorn, and The Sound of Music Friday night!!

Doing laundry

Yesterday I found a pile of Will's dirty clothes stuffed between his dresser and the wall. So since he decided to not put his dirty clothes in the basket with the other dirties, he is washing, drying, and folding his load today.  As he was folding he said he didn't want to do it again. He was going to put his dirties with the others!  I hope so but if not he sure will get good at doing his own laundry!

He folded the stack of shirts that are sitting beside him all by himself!

Office party

Last night, after Wills football practice, we went to a Christmas party with people justin works with.  We had lots of fun, ate well, saw Santa, played games, and as Will said everyone was laughing and smiling!

Second round of musical chairs. 3 of the 5 kids that played were Redferns so odds were in our favor!  Eric made it past the first cut but went out second. The final 2 were Will and Caroline. Will just edged his sister out to win the game!  

Eric hasn't been feeling great all week. He hasn't wanted me to set him down and complains that his stomach hurts. He didn't nap yesterday and was feeling pretty puny when we were leaving so I didn't even grab shoes for him as I was sure he wasn't going to want down. He played this game and was done. Head on daddy's shoulder the rest of the evening. Didn't eat anything either. It was a rough night but that's another post! 

We had a great time at the party!

Great kids

I know I'm their mom, but I think my kids are pretty awesome!

Driving home from a great day at the beach.  Caroline was rubbing his hand and blocking out the street lights.

The boys were trying to corner some small fish.  They never caught any but were great teammates! 

Caroline wanted to read a bedtime story to her brothers last night!

Walking home from getting Caroline at school today, Eric asked to walk Miles.

Oh, how my kids love their littlest cousin!

Pearl Harbor

Friday morning we headed off the plateau to Pearl Harbor to see if we could get tickets to see the Arizona Memorial.  We got tickets to see the USS Bowfin (submarine) and the USS Missouri (battleship).  Susan and Graham went to the Arizona Memorial while Justin and I took the 4 kids to the Mighty Mo.  We figured it would be best if the kids didn't do the memorial.
Ryan wasn't tall enough to go on the sub so we did some split ops.  The girls (me, Susan, Caroline, and Ryan went to the little museum area associated with the Bowfin while the boys did the sub tour.  Then we left Ryan with Graham and we did the museum.  My big kids really enjoyed both tours because there were audio tours to go with each place.  You had a hand set to press different numbers at different locations and it would tell you about what you were seeing.  There were kid numbers and adult numbers.  I enjoyed switching between the two audio versions!

She would tell us to wait because she wasn't done listening!  She really loved it!

The boys playing around.

The kids in front of the Mighty Mo!  I told them stand on that line and put your hands on your belly button!

Cartwheel time on the deck!

Site of the end of WW2.

Title of this picture is "Feed the Birds"

Susan handing out snacks.

After our tours we headed home and took some naps and snacked a little.  Then we went to Hale'iwa to see the big waves.

Playing in the little pools was big fun too!

Then home for a dinner of Thanksgiving leftovers completed another wonderful day!