Poem and Ana are peas in a pod.

My oldest and youngest are the two most active and crazy of the bunch... Glad they have each other to rough house...

Things Poem Does

Just a quick list of things 13 month old Poem did today:
-tried to drop Ana's toothbrush down the hole in the floor
-escaped out the door and walked across the road to visit the dog through the fence, then walked down the road (I watched her from a distance to see what she would do)
-filled the microwave with Cam's pajamas
-dumped a whole cup of water on the floor
-peed on Ana's bed
-stole Cam's bag of birthday Doritos and had a private party
-unpacked all of her clothes onto the floor
-took a few balloons to the laundry room and popped them on purpose
-ate a whole adult sized bowl of steal cut oatmeal
-tool Cam's skateboard to the back stairs and sat on it and tried to go down the stairs

And we have only been home for three hours today.

I really lucked out with my other kids I guess, because I've never had such a busy baby.

Life Under Construction

I am not bragging when I say that Jonah and I have chosen to do some crazy stuff together. Every time I am in the midst of another self-made hurricane, I think, “Wow! This is the top of the crazy cake.” BUT, I really think this, what we are doing right now, tops the crazy cake. My favorite moment (where was my camera?!) was when I walked by the bedroom that we all share that was completely unorganized and disastrous and gross, and on the top of one of the piles of stuff was a big, lovely book entitled, Pottery Barn Home.  Ha!

Tonight I brought the kids home after swim team and Jonah was still out running errands, so I made the kids corn dogs and green peas. A friend had cleaned out his freezer and filled ours and so that was what literally fell out onto the sawdust covered floor when I checked to see what I could feed the increasingly hungry children. It was a sign!

I think what I keep trying to teach myself is how to have sanity and consistency despite the crisis. I know we all do this… I excuse myself out of things that should be consistent commitments because of what I think are extenuating circumstances. But honestly, life is one big extenuating circumstance.

I thought a lot about this during Elsie’s birthday party last week—I could have postponed until we had a proper and cute house or until my schedule was free, but really, when is that going to happen?! Might as well get it over with now.

I think about this too with the kids’ homeschooling—I’ll really be organized and involved in their education once we get settled… but then again, why not now!? Jonah and I are the masters of saying, “Well, we wanted to live in Hawaii some day, so why not now?!” but I’m still working on the smaller, more important things.

So, my New Year’s goal is to not have goals… it is to do it. Now. And to keep doing it.

The other New Year’s resolution that we have been working on as a family… because we are loud…

(from: http://mckensiesmith.blogspot.com/2012/01/sighs-in-relief.html)

Big Helpers

Don’t have much to post about, except that the two older kids have been so helpful this week, fetching tools for Jonah and doing random tasks and helping him build the front deck.

 

Camden will never just give me a smile for a photo unless I trick him.

 

Look who is picking up his habit…

 

 

Poem playing with her bath toys one last time before I dump the bath water. We don’t have  a shower or bath yet at this house, but she prefers plastic bin baths anyway because none of her siblings can crash her party.

 

Happy Chinese New Year!

Elsie’s Birthday!

Out of the frying pan and into the fire! That’s how I feel about January with all these birthdays piled up right after Christmas. Between Jonah’s family and my family and our own kids, there are only a few days in January without birthdays. I feel like I don’t get to properly celebrate everyone.

 

But man are we excited that Elsie turned FIVE this year!! Five years ago I was getting my pedicure and eating sushi, not realizing that my laziness in getting to the hospital meant that Elsie was going to be crowning in the car and born about 7 minutes after we screeched into the hospital parking lot. Her easy delivery was a prelude to her easy going attitude. And she is super cute. She talks, walks, and breathes cuteness. We all adore this girl.

All the crew was excited for the big day and all got up early so she could open her first present. It was from Ana; Ana had bought it two months ago at a garage sale and it had been patiently wrapped and waiting for the big day. It was a big bucket of Littlest Pet Shop toys. Yay. (I say that with the utmost sarcasm that because I’ve already stepped on them about twelve times. Elsie loves them though. So does Poem).

 

Po was very excited about all the present opening and bagels for breakfast and all the other festivities.

 

Elsie had a nice simple birthday. She went to Joy School then came home, had mac’n’cheese and chocolate milk, and watched the same Barbie movie two or three times in a row then had pasta for dinner and a chocolate cake with ice cream. It was her day, her way.

 

Here she is opening a cool art kit from Grammy and Grandfather.

 

Elsie was lucky because her birthday spanned two days—on Wednesday, she got to have her friend birthday party.

 

As much as I love parties and birthdays are the one day a year I love to completely indulge and spoil my kids, I get a little overwhelmed with throwing four kids’ birthday parties a year, so the kids get to choose every year—cool trip with hotel stay with the family, cool activity (like a waterpark or fancy dinner) with just parents, or a birthday party with friends with a very limited budget. Both Cam and Elsie chose parties this year, which is hilarious since we are basically camping out in a construction zone in a new town where they have hardly any friends. If it were me, I would choose the hotel. But, whatever. Their choice.

 

So Elsie decided on a RAINBOW BIRTHDAY PARTY and she made the cutest little invitations all by herself, complete with suggestions what each kid wear to the party (but Tai Tai decided to not dress up as a lightbulb). I found some great ideas on Pinterest for rainbow birthday party stuff, narrowed it down to the 2% of stuff I could actually pull off with my crafty handicaps, then narrowed that down to the 1% that we could actually do at the house in the state it’s in (i.e. bad oven, no kitchen, no room, piles of lumber everywhere). Ana and I stayed up late and decorated the one room in the house that isn’t cluttered and hoped to have the kids in there and out on the lawn. BUT, with perfect timing, the morning of the party was the day the plumbers and carpenter decided to finally show up to get going on their projects. Perfect. We (meaning Ana and I) quickly scrambled and hoped for the best.

Here we are making rainbow pasta necklaces on the 200 s.f. area of lawn that wasn’t taken over by contractors.  Thank goodness for Maui’s daily weather perfection.

 

 

It was followed by some impromptu games, like “duck duck goose”, “catch the ball with the towel”, and “toss the fallen Surinam cherries into the bucket”.

Then we went inside for some rainbow snacks…

 

 

…And to play “pin the tail on the rainbow appaloosa pony”….

 

Then the kids did a treasure hunt out in the yard.

 

 

And finally got to have some cake.

 

We love our Elsie!! Happy birthday wonderful girl.

Try again...

Still living in the midst of chaos... yet, we're in Hawaii, so it's never that bad. We are trying to get it to a significantly improved livable state by February 1st. We just have to survive two kids' birthdays between now and then...

Happy New Year!

After blogging so well for so long, I did have to take a ten day break to celebrate the New Year and to move!! With one day's notice, we moved out of our rental house and into our new house (which we bought on December 16th and have been working on non-stop since then). I say new "house", but it's actually right now more like a construction site. Which, with a 13-month-old, means I haven't gotten around to blogging or doing anything, really. I mainly just make sure she drop stuff into the hole in the floor where the toilet used to be. Don't worry though, there are no more safety hazards than in a normal house. It just doesn't look good or have any furniture like in a normal house. Basically we just live out of suitcases and sit in camp chairs.