photos as promised...

This is our house!! It has a huge side yard and a few small trees.

The front room

The Master Bath, now highly functional and brighter!

The kids duck bathroom

The laundry room and 1/2 bath (I certainly have alot more bathrooms to clean!)

This is the inside of my new washer! I hesitantly made the 'High Efficiency' switch and am pretty satisfied so far.

Well, as you know, most houses come with bedrooms, kitchen, etc. You'll just have to come visit us if you want to see more!

Maya turns one!!

Happy Birthday Maya!!

My baby turned one...mixed emotions, of course. I'm loving her independence and mobility, her interactive play and her expressions; but I'm sad I no longer have a tiny, cuddly baby, that fits in the crook of my arm. We love having Maya in our family!

Coconut cream cake covered in pink and brown MMF and matching smash cake in BC with MMF accents

We have a tradition in our family of giving a whole box of tissues on the first birthday. Each of our birthday babies have pulled out all those tissues so differently:

Maya- pulled out two, handed one to mom, pulled out one, tried to eat it...never did finish off the box

Lily-pulled out one after the other, right hand, left hand...the box was empty in 47 seconds

Keoni-enjoyed pulling out each tissue, joyous that another would pop up...well worth it!

Any baby's favorite part of the day--eating their very own cake!! While the rest of the guests worked on the large cake, Maya kept picking away at her smash cake; I eventually had to take it away, knowing her tiny tummy probably had enough for one day!

We bought a house!!

Dear blogging friends, sorry for the neglect...we've been awful busy with buying a house, finishing the basement and remodeling the master bath! It's been such an adventure for us, but I think we're almost settled in. In the next little while I'll get a slide show up, but until then...

We were planning on postponing the finishing of the basement until later. when we bought the house it was already 1/2 finished. we had a plumber look at it, and discovered this unique way of doing the piping for the tub...he said if we would have used the tub it would have flooded our whole basement!! we got a new tub and had it installed without the use of duct tape (plus painted, tiled, etc) but now we have a 'Guest Suite' if any of you want to come visit us!

Our master bath, before-- the dark man-cave as we called it. the Shower doorway was only 16 inches wide.

the shower was kind of a rocket, completely enclosed by walls and made the whole bathroom feel the size of a closet (it's not that big anyway)

Step one: remove rocket shower

Step two: paint white

Step three: custom cultured marble complete with leg-shaving shelf

This is cute Maya; I couldn't resist posting this pic!

Winter Fun!

We've been enjoying the winter! The snow was less than optimal for traditional rolled snowmen, so JL improvised, had the kids lay right on the snow, cut them out, and lift their snow persons to display! He even got Lily's hair!

Santa brought sleds and the kids LOVED speeding down the tiny hill (made from a freeway overpass--it was safe, don't worry), hiking back to the top and doing it again, and again, and again!! Yes, they go by themselves and tow their own sled. Maya liked it too!

Keoni's Birthday

I have a 5 year old!! Because his birthday is so close to Christmas, he got two parties this year!!

Happy Birthday, Bud!

Merry Christmas!

A Merry Christmas to you all! We had a very merry Christmas, indeed and loved being closer to family this year!

Christmas Jammies this year were 'Zippies'

What every Christmas morning should look like...

Yes, Lily is nearly inside the box!

No spitting!!

When I was trying to take a kid pic, I caught this one and just love it--Sisters, Sisters, never had a better friend than sisters...

Maya's newest talent...spitting. Lily often reminds her that there is No Spitting!

"I love you!" Maya knows sign language!! Just kidding, this is how she soothes herself to sleep, sucking these fingers! this is also a classic shot of her 'wild hair'