Jospeh's First Tooth

For the past few days Joseph has been pretty fussy and clenching his jaw. I could never tell if he was hungry, tired, wanting to play, wanting to be held, or what. Well today I figured it out. He was clenching his jaw again, so I thought to myself "maybe he's teething". Since my hands were freezing cold, I decided to let him chew on my fingers to relieve his pain. That's when I felt his first little tooth. I wasn't really expecting him to get a tooth so soon since Rosie was 11 months when her first tooth appeared. I guess that's yet another difference between them. Now all I have to do is pray that he won't bite me.

Me Ka Aloha

- Elisabeth

Joseph at 7 1/2 Months

It's hard to believe that Joseph is almost 8 months old. Time is just flying by and some how it feels like it's going by faster than when Rosie was a baby (well, she kinda is still a baby). Here's some of the things he's been up to.

Joseph, like Rosie at that age, likes to shake his head back and forth like he's saying "no". He laughs and laughs when he does it. I'm pretty sure babies do that because everything looks crazy when they do. He also laughs at Rosie when she's laughing and he totally cracks up when he looks at the frame with Rosie's baby pictures.

He's also a little grabber. He needs to grab EVERYTHING. Whenever I put him in his exesaucer, I need to be careful that there's nothing dangerous within reach. Today he some how reached over to a dinning room chair and nearly pulled down on himself. He's constantly grabbing my hair or Rosie's hair with his vice grips. Poor Rosie started crying the other day because he had two fist full of her hair and wouldn't let go. It's hard to read him book because he's always trying to grab the book and eat it. When he sees something that he wants to grab onto, he goes for it and nothing can deter him. Earlier today he saw Rosie's sippy cup on the ground. I knew he wanted it so I put him down facing the other direction and gave him a toy to play with. Seconds later he was on his back shaking the juice in Rosie's cup.

Joseph is almost crawling. There's a couple other babies at church that started crawling around 6 months, so I'm sure Joseph will start soon. He's pretty good at getting around by rolling and army crawling but I know he knows there's a better way. He mostly scoots himself backwards, which sometimes gets himself in a pickle. Like today when he crawled backwards under the coffee table and bumped his head. Dave has been trying to "train" him to crawl by helping him up onto his hands and knees and chanting "Joseph, Joseph" over and over again. He loves it when we chant his name. He gets all excited, smiles, and waves his hands and legs.

Joseph has also learned how to say Dada and Mama. He also rolls his Rs, usually when he makes the sound "Darrrr darrr darrrr". Oh and he also says "na na na na". It's so cute to hear his little voice.

Well, he weighs around 25 pounds (maybe even more) and wears size 5 diapers. He's at the stage where he's super chubby, but once he starts crawling he'll thin out. I'll be sure to post picture when the day comes. For now, here a super cute picture of Joseph wearing his winter hat.

Me Ka Aloha (With Love)

- Elisabeth

What's Rosie up to?

Rosie is getting bigger and smarter by the second. She's learning a new word every day, like today she learned how to say Ikea, but it sounds like Ikara (Yes I know, we go there WAY too much). She's just too darn cute with all the stuff she's been saying.

The other day I sneezed and she said "bess do Mommy". She's also been calling me "honey" lately. I'm not really sure where she got it from because Dave calls me "hun". I'm pretty sure she knows she being cute when she says it because every time she does, she giggles. Every morning, Rosie pushes my door open, just wide enough so she can see me, and says "Hi honey! Honey heeping, Dodeph heeping, Daddy heeping." (Mommy sleeping, Joseph sleeping, Daddy sleeping) She's always giving me hugs and saying "honey!".

If she wants someone to wake up she'll say "cock-a-do-doooo wake up!"

Rosie is also great at playing guess the song. I'll hum the tune of a song and she names it, usually within the first 3 seconds.

She's been majorly curious about boxes and things in packages. She'll shake it and even if it isn't something she would want she still hands it to me and says "opid it" (open it).

She's been sleeping in her big girl bed lately and Dave will sleep on a mattress in her room just in case she gets up in the middle of the night. The other day she got up and was feeding Dave imaginary food. Well a few minutes later, she fed Dave Sudocream. I woke up to Dave saying "Oh yucky Rosie, that's not food! Don't feed that to Daddy" as he rushed to the bathroom to wash out his mouth.

My favorite thing that she's been doing lately is that she's being super affectionate. She'll come over to me and ask to be picked up, or she'll hug my leg. She's been climbing on my lap and asking to cuddle and giving all of us kisses. The other day we went grocery shopping and she was starting to get tired. She reached up to be picked up, so I did. Within minutes she was sleeping on my shoulder. Awww she's just so cute! Last Sunday I came downstairs to find Dave and her sleeping on the couch together. I just love that she's being so lovey right now.

Me Ka Aloha
- Elisabeth

What's the difference?

One thing I've learned about my parents and parent-in-laws is that they love to give advice. Sometimes it's money advice, parenting advice, cooking advice, employment advice. Sometimes their advice is really helpful, and other times it can be totally "old school". Like the time they told me to rub a face cloth on my boobs to toughen then up (I didn't listen, thank goodness) However, one piece of advice that I totally agree with is to write down all the cute stuff about your kids. They say even if you think you won't forget, you will. So today as I was taking a nap with Joseph, I thought it would be a good idea to write down all the differences between Rosie and Joseph as babies.

Rosie
weighed 7 pounds 11 ounces at birth
Joseph
weighed 9 pounds 9 ounces at birth
Rosie
First word was "Mama"
Joseph
First word was "Dada"
Rosie
Loved it when we gave her Tylenol, teething tablets, or gripe water. She's smile and lick her lips.
Joseph
Gagged and even threw up when given Tylenol, teething tablets, and we didn't bother giving him gripe water.
Rosie
Breastfed for an hour at least, but after she would sleep for 2-3 hours. Sometimes when we went to church I'd spend 2 out of the 3 hours in the mother's lounge feeding her.
Joseph
Breastfed for 5-10 minutes at a time, but would be hungry half an hour later or sometimes sooner. One night he nursed for SIX hours straight... well with tiny 5 minute breaks here and there. How he did it is beyond me.
Rosie
She only laughed if something was really funny. It was hard to catch her laughing on film. Even when she thought something was funny, she get tired of it fast. We had to constantly come up with new material.
Joseph
He'll laugh if you're laughing. He thinks everything is funny.
Rosie
Very focused on the task at hand. For example, when she was nursing she would sit there and feed until she was done.
Joseph Easily distracted. If someone even sneezes while he's nursing, he'll turn his head to see. Sometimes I find myself saying "Joseph, pay attention! Finish your milk, Mommy is leaking all over!"
Rosie
Loved it when we read books to her. She'd sit there very focused and listening intently.
Joseph
He's more interested in grabbing the book and he tries to eat it.
Rosie
She's cuddly only when the mood strikes her or if she's really tired. When the mood does strike, she's so lovable.
Joseph
We call him lover boy because he's always in the mood for hugs and affection. He's always grabbing my face or resting his head on my shoulder.
Rosie
The new baby smell lasted for a really long time on her. It was so wonderful. Some of her old baby clothing still smells like it.
Joseph
I don't remember him ever having the new baby smell. Actually, his umbilical cord smelt like a dead animal for weeks and he would get stinky spots under his rolls haa haa.
Rosie
Liked sucking on my pinky finger when she was fussy. She could sit there for almost an hour sucking on it until she either fell asleep, or realized there wasn't any milk coming out and ask for the real thing
Joseph
Gagged when I tried to give him my pinky finger. He knew it wasn't the real thing I guess.

There's probably a lot more, but I can't think of them at the moment. I'll discuss with Dave tonight and post more later!

Me Ka Aloha
- Elisabeth

Lack of Sleep...

Alright, so I know my blog is all about life being beautiful and all that jazz, but often times lack of sleep can make me a little crazy. I actually don't know why I'm writing this post because I might regret it later, but Dave thinks it'll be funny. Oh yes, I'm so hilarious when I'm exhausted and grumpy (holding up the sarcasm sign). I have to warn you in advance that my grammar might suffer a bit because I so need sleep.

About a week before Christmas, Rosie started to get really upset when we put her to bed. She would wake up in the middle of the night crying, which is so unlike her. She used to sleep 12-13 hours through the night, no problem. Neither Dave nor I know what's happened, but one night during one of her fits, she climbed out of her crib and fell face first on the ground. You know what that means right? Time for the big-girl-bed! I've heard horror stories about parents trying to get kids to sleep in a big bed and lucky for Dave and I, we got to experience it during the Christmas season (holding up the sarcasm sign again). Rosie spent the first three nights literally SCREAMING at the top of her lungs for hours at a time. Nothing or nobody could calm her down. Eventually she would give up and crawl into her bed. Since then she's been fairy well behaved and kind cute when she goes to bed, but not last night. Dave read some website about her nightly outburst and he thinks she has something called "night terrors". Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't, but whatever it is, it's terrorizing the whole family.

Last night at 4 am, Rosie woke up screaming. She didn't want a drink, she didn't want a hug, she didn't want a story, she didn't want a song. She just wanted to scream and SCREAM!! By 4:30 am Dave had given up and came back to bed. At 4:45 am, Rosie was screaming "Mom Eeeeee Mom Eeeeee!" so I decided better try to calm her. Of course, as soon as I got up to get her, Joseph woke from all the madness. Now there were two crying babies. I'm trying to wean Joseph during the night anyway, so I asked Dave to deal with him, while I dealt with Rosie. I went into her room and she was standing beside her bed crying. She ran toward me when I came in the room and asked me to pick her up. I got into bed with her and she fell asleep right away! Hurray!!! Victory..... well no not so fast. I'd like to say that everything was ok after that, but it wasn't.

As I laid in bed with Rosie, I could still hear Joseph crying in the next room. Dave was singing him songs but he was still fussy. I knew I'd have to go in and get him soon before he got too upset. I rolled Rosie to the other side of the bed and slowly started to sneak out. The second I got out of her bed, she woke up and started screaming again. Seriously?!?!?! What the heck am I supposed to do now? Well I had the bright idea of bringing Rosie into our room so she could cuddle with me while I feed Joseph. Instead Joseph got upset that Rosie was there, and Rosie couldn't settle herself down. Instead she kicked the wall, jumped on the bed, and talked to Dave. So here we are, 5:30 am, everyone is awake and crabby. We all laid in bed for another half hour, and at this point, Joseph had fallen back asleep, but not for long.

It was time to put Rosie back into her own bed because she wasn't even close to falling asleep in our bed. Dave picked her up and she started crying again, and of course, woke Joseph up. Back to where we started from an hour ago. Arrggghhhh, why does this have to happen? Dave took Rosie into her room, and I settled Joseph down (as best as I could with screaming in the next room). It was 7 am when everyone FINALLY went to sleep. Dave said that Rosie slept with her knees on the ground and her head on the mattress , like she had fallen asleep praying.

I awoke at 10 am to Rosie screaming again and Joseph pulling my hair. It's time to start the day I guess. Now it's noon, and I've finished breakfast and I'm finishing this blog post. I'm so very exhausted and short tempered (thanks kids!) and have no idea how I'm going to finish a long list of things that need to get done.
1. Clean kitchen and finish organizing cupboards
2. Do laundry
3. Clean both bathrooms
4. Organize food storage room
5. Put away clothing the kids have outgrown
3. Clean our bedroom
6. Make dinner
All while dealing with a house full of sleep deprived grumpy pants! I know days like these are all learning experiences and character building. I know that days like these help me to appreciate the better days. One day I'll look back and laugh.... one day... maybe.

Meka Aloha (I almost didn't write that)
- Elisabeth

Sundays are Beautiful

Each week I always look forward Sunday. Sunday is the day we go to church and have family time. We don't go shopping, work, or watch much TV. It truly is a day of rest for my family. Today, my parents and brother Michael and sister Gabrielle, and niece Rowan came over for dinner. Mom is helping make a new cover for the glider in Rosie's room, so when she was here she got started. When it's done, I'll post some before and after pictures. It's going to be great, just you wait and see.

Well since it's the end of a fabulous week, I thought I'd share some funny things my kids did.

Yesterday, Dave decided to put up the flower wall lamp he bought at Ikea, in Rosie's room. She didn't notice it at first, but when she did she got so excited. She started giggling and shaking and waving her arms. She kept on say "Oh flower!" She got herself so worked up that she actually threw up a little. Haa haa haaa, it's so cute to see how excited she gets about home decor :)

Today I was nursing Joseph he started to clench his fists and push his feet against the sofa arm rest. He also began to clench his jaw and stare at me with wide eyes. I was wondering what was going on. Then I started laughing... "Joseph, are you having a poop?" Yup, that's exactly what he was doing and when he was done he started smiling. Haa haa haaaa, oh Joseph, only you can make poop so dang cute :)

I believe in cherishing even the smallest moments in life and finding humor in everything... like poop and puke.

Me Ka Aloha!
- Elisabeth

Canada is too darn cold! I wish I was in Hawaii!

This morning my husband called his business partner and you'll never guess where he was. HAWAII! He's on the Big Island, where Dave and I spent our honeymoon. Tonight he's going to the top of Mauna Kea to star gaze! What a lucky bum!!! I think he's had his fair share of Hawaii, after all, he lived there for 2 years while he attended BYU Hawaii. Any way that's not the point... back to Mauna Kea.

Mauna Kea is an inactive volcano and it's the highest point in Hawaii. The summit is above the cloud line - an amazing site to behold. It's probably the only place in Hawaii where you'll see snow and ice. Dave and I drove to the top of Mauna Kea and it was incredible. As you drive up Mountain Rd. the oxygen levels begin to drop. The engine in our car began to struggle as it needs oxygen to run properly. They actually recommend only driving a 4x4 up the mountain, but we didn't listen. There's also warning sings all over telling the elderly, pregnant, anyone with respiratory problems not to go. Just running around for less than 30 seconds makes you feel out of breath. There's even emergency oxygen tanks in the gift shop. When we were at the very top we were above the cloud line. It's like being in an air plane, or like being a Care Bear. We also saw some of the worlds best observatories. The Big Island is perfectly set up for optimal star gazing and space observation, because there is little light pollution. The main highway that goes all the way around the island is free of street lights. Instead, there's a bunch of reflectors on the road itself that reflect the headlights of your car. It's really quite effective. We stayed atop Mauna Kea to watch the sunset, then we headed back down to the gift shop where they had a few large telescopes. We all took turns looking in the telescopes and I saw the planet Saturn!

Ah the memories! Ah the jealousy I have for my friend who is experiencing this tonight! Ok, really, I'm happy for him. I hope he loves it as much as I did. If you ever go to Hawaii, I highly recommend putting Mauna Kea on you itinerary.

For two months after Dave and I left Hawaii, I had a dream almost every night that we were back there. Maybe after writing this post, I'll dream about it tonight!

Me Ka Aloha! (With Love)
- Elisabeth

To learn more about Mauna Kea visit:
University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy
Hawaii the Island of Aloha

2010 Goals

Welcome to 2010! My goals for 2010 are:

1. Start a blog. Figure out how to make my blog look pretty and function well. I've always been taught that keeping a journal is a great thing to pass down to your children and grandchildren. This is kind of like that.
2. Give the kitchen a much needed make-over this summer. I've been talking about it since the day we moved in, and this year is THE year! Stay tuned for before and after pictures :)
3. Lose 10 pounds. Yes, this is the typical New Years resolution, but I know I can do it. Stay tuned for more before and after pictures (haa haa, if I'm brave enough to post them.)

My Very First Blog Post

Welcome one and all to my very first blog post. I decided to start a blog as a way to document and remember exciting things that happen in my life, my beautiful life. First, let me introduce myself. I'm a 26 year old Canadian Girl (although American by birth certificate, but mostly raised in Canada). I am married to the man of my dreams, David, and have 2 beautiful children, Rosie and Joseph (There will probably be a few more children some day). I am a stay at home mom, and love every second of it.

I decided to name my blog "Life is Beautiful" for 2 reasons. First, life really is beautiful. My father said it perfectly the other day on the phone. "You sound very content." It's true, I am. Love life and life will love you back. Love others and others will love you back. Second, my most very favorite movie is "La Vie Est Belle" or "Life is Beautiful". If you haven't seen this movie, do. You will LOVE it! My blog address is "Me ka aloha" which means "with love" in Hawaiian. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Hawaii. If a genie ever granted my 3 wishes, you better believe one of them would be to live in Hawaii forever. I dreamed of going there my whole life and finally had the chance to go on my honeymoon. I will for sure be posting more about Hawaii and my love for it later. Stay tuned it's going to be exciting.

I'm not really sure who will be reading this blog, but to whom ever does, I hope you enjoy it.