Sugar High

Yesterday, we decorated sugar cookies and the girls had them for breakfast... after toast, fruit and orange juice. Needless to say it was a spastic morning with the girls on a sugar high. :)

Hickam Beach

Ron had duty last night so he was home this morning at 7 and I headed out to renew my driver's license. After almost failing the eye exam and deliberating over an awkwardly-worded written exam, I officially have a Hawaii driver's license complete with a rainbow. :)


We met up with Christina and Emmi and headed to Hickam Beach in Pearl Harbor and enjoyed playing in the surf. The water is so beautiful at this beach!





Here are some pictures from yesterday afternoon. Carrie dropped off Lukas to play in the swimming pool while she ran errands.

Happy Mother's Day

Indeed! I have everything I could ask for in my life. A wonderful, loving husband and an amazing daughter who is the love of my life. Ron took Ella for a drive this morning so I could sleep in, uninterrupted - ahhhhhhhhh heaven! I woke up to flowers and Ron cooking me breakfast - could I be luckier?? Just being at home, on a quiet morning with Ron and Ella, relaxing is all the gift I need.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms.

And to our Mom, we love you and we miss you. Thank you for being the support and light we cherish in our lives. We hope you had a wonderful day. xoxo

Cinco De Mayo

I'm getting behind on this. So happy Cinco De Mayo - belated, oh well.

Sunday night we had dinner with Manuel, Christina and their little boy, Emmi. Christina cooked us a wonderful Mexican spread: homemade salsa, guacamole, rice, beans, grilled meat and tortillas - so yummy! It was so good and we ate so much that Ron and I drove home with our belt buckles loose. I don't know how Manny does it, if we lived with Christina we'd be 400 pounds... she's a great cook.

Emmi and Ella are great friends - cute boyfriend for Ella, don't you think?? :) Emmi even asked if Ella could live with them, and Ella's always asking "Play with Emmi?" It's a great bribe, I tell her if she goes to bed or takes a nap, she can go play with Emmi - she'll lay right down and doesn't give me any trouble! They are adorable together, Emmi is 3 almost 4 and looks out for Ella who adores him...

Blog and Facebook Relationships

Blogging is addictive.

I blog to keep in touch with everyone and I love posting Ella's news for our family and friends (it's a good way to journal too). I get to read, post and share comments among my blogger friends and family. I am finding that after almost 2 years of it, I am not posting as much - not because of having little time, but because there doesn't seem to be anything new to say. I used to be able to take pictures every day, but now I find a week goes by and there are no pictures because it hasn't been all that exciting. And without pictures the blog can be pretty boring. :)

I'm also addicted to Facebook. All my friends from home and abroad are on and I get to catch up with everyone through little notes. Most of my friends are good with pictures and little updates so I get to spend a few minutes a day seeing what everyone is up to - it really makes me feel connected because I know what's going on in their day-to-day lives. I guess it's the delusional way of the internet world and I would think it's weird if I lived in the same town as my girlfriends (unless we were stuck at work and could get away with this as opposed to chatting on the phone - at least typing looks like real work).

I love checking the blog or Facebook and seeing new comments or updates. Just a quick "Have fun at the park" or so-and-so "is going shopping / taking the kids for ice cream, etc, etc." brightens my day. Given that many of my closest friends and family live oceans and continents away, there isn't anything better than a little note to say "I'm thinking of you" or an update that someone I love is "happy and enjoying the sunshine". Well, of course there is something better, living in the same city or talking on the phone. But let's face it, with everyone in different time zones and with a million things going on, I'll take my few minutes on the computer to reach out and say I am grateful for all the wonderful people in my life. No matter how far away you are physically or geographically, I get to spend a little time with you all, here at my desk and usually while Ella is asleep. :)

Lessons Learned

Here is Ella dancing to Disney Channel's Choo-Choo Soul. We have been watching Dancing with the Stars and Ella will imitate the dances so well. It's hilarious and I'll try to get some video of it, but this will do for now.

This morning at breakfast, Ella decided to climb on the table (she gets in and out of her highchair herself now). I warned her to get down into her seat or she would fall and sure enough, she slipped off as she was hanging from the table trying to touch the floor with her toes. It was such a short little fall but sure enough she busted her lip, blood everywhere. She had a bit of a moment but the bleeding stopped quickly as most lip cuts do and Ella is fine. Since she's been climbing on things, I warn her of the dangers and then let her figure out the consequences herself (nothing too dangerous of course!). So far we've tumbled off the bed, the couch, the crib, the highchair, the coffee table, and now the dining table... I'm all about letting her learn the hard way and she either never does it again, or figures out how to do it safely. So it's all good. Here's a video of her busted lip...

(Just a director's note: Ron accidentally scratched her eyebrow once with his nail when he was getting her dressed, and I have scratched her leg accidentally with my nails too - apparently this is cause enough to blame every "boo-boo" on Mommy or Daddy - she still points to her eyebrow and says "Daddy boo-boo". Nice try Ella, you can't get off that easy, we all know you have half my genes and it's more than apparent you did get the clumsy one from me! )

Chuck E Cheese

The playgroup had an outing to Chuck E Cheese this morning. Despite the fact that if you don't have a child, it's probably THE most annoying place to eat, but the pizza is delicious! The girls love going and Ella loves Chuck E and the animated characters - she's not the least bit intimidated by the giant mascots - such a fun, brave little one we have!

Potty Update

Last Thursday was day one, we made it til Saturday afternoon before reverting to diapers as Ella could just care less about learning to use the potty. As Murphy would have it, the minute we stopped "teaching" her and put her in diapers, she's been going on the potty all week. So successful, that I didn't buy any more diapers and have been using pull-ups (less stress for me having to clean up accidents).
On average, we go through 1-3 pull-ups a day but she is staying dry through the night and nap time, as long as we get her to the bathroom as soon as she wakes up. She also pees "on demand" before bedtime, nap time, bath time, upon waking up... Knock on wood, but it's been a week and we've been seeing whole days in the same DRY pull-ups. Who knew?? We also don't really care about how quickly she learns as she'll be in pull-ups on the plane to Canada and the long drives in the rental car anyway. We're just happy she's learning and we don't have to spend so much $$ on the darn things.

Chatting with Grandma

Potty Training - A No Go

Day 3:

Potty - 1
Floor - 4
High chair - 1

Day one was so successful, but yesterday and today, Ella has fought us with everything she has and refuses to sit on her potty. We did the bad parenting thing and made her sit on it and she just cried (our mistake, never doing that again). She does love her big girl underwear, but has no intention of using the potty. We also did the "Bad Ella, pee in your potty not on the floor.." thing but this last time she peed on the floor she just looked at me and said "Bad Ella". So now I am heart-broken that not only is she overwhelmed but I may have contributed to her potty self-doubt.

Once again, she seemed more than ready but it turns out she's not, or we're not. Seeing as most kids were 2 1/2 and the potty video has 3 year olds - I am going to give Ella a break and revert to diapers. She really is such a good little girl, so smart and so eager to learn, I sometimes think she's ready for more than she can handle. "bad mommy." :(