Somersault

Tonight, Ella was extra hyper before bed and after I had cleaned up the kitchen, found her doing somersaults in the living room...

A Week? Really?

Well, as you can see from the lack of posts, it's been a busy week. Last Friday we met with Diane (my Mom's best friend) and her sister, Carol and took them to Ko Olina for the day. It was another beautiful day at the beach and as always, it was wonderful to see them and catch up. I spent the weekend cleaning and doing laundry and preparing for a busy week.

Monday I had a meeting in the morning and caught up on errands with both girls (Ella and Lahrissa) in tow. Tuesday was off to gymnastics and then a doctor's appointment for Ella and I to see about this nighttime coughing... we were both given inhalers to help our congestion and should be all mended within a week. Ella, is learning so quickly, so many things, she continues to amaze me. She has a mask and tube for the inhaler medicine and will hold it to her face, breathe in and out (shoulders rising and falling) for the 6 breaths. Such a grown-up little girl!

And finally, this morning I took the girls back to the YMCA on base for the morning playgroup. I'm busy enough, might as well take advantage of the free energy burning they get to do. We also half-heartedly started potty training today, I put Ella in some underwear and let her watch the "Potty Power" video a few times. I'm not worried, I'm going to let her initiate the interest (though the whole removal of poopy diapers in the crib is getting on my nerves!) She asked for the potty as I was getting her pj's on and sure enough she went into the bathroom, on her own while I cleaned up a bit, and peed! YEAH! Ron predicted she would walk before her first birthday - and she did, do we dare say potty trained by 2???

Me Ka Aloha, My Friends

We took Stephanie, Matthew and Oscar to the airport last night after a day at Ko Olina trying to soak up as much vitamin D as possible. I am so sad to see them go and it's been a very quiet (and lonely) day today as Ron also went back to work. We hope their flights went okay especially after the initial 4 hour delay they had once they arrived at the airport and were through the gates. Our fingers are crossed that everything else went smoothly. We miss you already! Here are some pics of Ella's new swimsuit and our day at Ko Olina yesterday...

Kailua Yesterday

After Ella's gymnastics yesterday, we headed out to Kailua Beach - GORGEOUS!

Pictures From the Last Few Days

Here are some pictures from Steph and Matt's camera from the last few days. Hanauma Bay on Valentine's Day; the Dole Plantation on Sunday; and, a North Shore sunset on Monday night....

Gymnastics

Ron has had time off since Stephanie, Matthew and Oscar have been here so today was the perfect opportunity to have him see Ella in her gymnastics class... and it gave me ample video footage....

Happy Valentine's Day

South Side

Today we headed out to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling. Ron stayed at home to do homework so it wasn't ideal with the babies. We had a nice lunch and some ice cream in Kailua and saw the beach.... gorgeous as usual so we'll head back Monday for the day.

Aloha Market

Today, while the boys looked after the babies, Stephanie and I hit the market at Aloha Stadium. Here's some pictures of Ella's new Chinese outfit...

Sunday

We hiked Kolekole Pass to let Ron get some schoolwork done yesterday morning and then hit the beach on the western most part of the north shore. There were some fantastic body-surfing waves but we were a bit chicken and didn't spend too much time in the water, just enough to eat enough sand and salt water to clean out the system. The babies of course were kept well away from the surf... not that the pictures do the surf any justice. It has been proven that Stephanie is much braver than I.

Exhaustion

Ella has been sick with cold the last couple of days. I spent Thursday night up with her all night and then again last night. I slept maybe a few hours total each night and last night, caved in and let her sleep in my arms in our bed... Ella has been in bed for almost an hour and a half and she's still crying, playing, grumpy. We've gone in a few times but once we leave she's back to hysterics. I'm exhausted and going to bed. I don't know if she's just out of sorts from being sick, or she wants to stay up and be with the adults. I'm worried that she could have turned a corner and is now going through the stage of fighting bedtime. I'm giving it one more night before we switch rooms with Steph and Matt and we sleep in Ella's room with her.

We drove around the north part of the island today and the North Shore...

Highs and Lows

Stephanie, Matthew & Oscar arrived without incident and we are so happy to have them here. Oscar, as everyone raved, is as cute as ever!! Ella isn't so sure about him. She likes babies, but apparently only ones who are too young to use her toys. Oscar may be "overstepping" his boundaries and *gasp* using her things. LOL :) Let the sharing lessons begin!

The weather was beautiful yesterday so we headed to Ko Olina with the babies. It was a nice day and if you read Stephanie's blog, you'll get Oscar's prospective on the whole beach thing. Ella of course loved it! Here's some pics.

Our day started off on a high note with great friends and a beach. At dinner, Ella fell off the back of the couch onto the floor with a giant thud. Of course hysteria broke out, do I take her to the ER??? When she calmed down, it didn't seem to be much damage so we let her be. By bedtime she was hysterical and wouldn't go to sleep. So not like her, so we took her to the ER in Pearl Harbor. After a long wait, we realized that perhaps this isn't anything to do with her fall, but Ella seems to have her first, real, full-blown cold. Her nose is so congested and she miserable. I was up most of the night with her, on and off. She only fell asleep when she was laying on me. It made for a long night, but now that we figured out what her problem was, I felt much better. Just building up some more anti-bodies, but ewwww, the runny nose - yuck!

Manners

Ella has finally learned "sorry", "thank you", "me me" (Excuse me), and "peas" (please). She says "sorry" to any toy or piece of food she drops and says "me me" when she burps, or fake burps as the game seems to be.

She is doing okay with napping, usually I have to get her so exhausted before she'll go down without incident. Otherwise she'll use her crib as a trampoline for the whole time, blankets, clothes and diaper strewn everywhere. Once she's up from her nap I usually find her bouncing and tossing around - funny though that she doesn't like the trampoline at gymnastics???