10 Months!

It's hard to believe our little buddy is already 10 months old!  He has started crawling and would really like to be able to walk.  He crawls all over, pulls up on whatever he can get a good grip on and then looks over at us with a huge smile.  He is definitely proud of his accomplishments!  He is one smiley little guy.  He laughs the hardest when he knows he is doing something naughty.  He likes to get into everything...toliet water, cupboards, the girls toy masterpieces, etc.  He eats just about anything now but some of his favorites are smoothies, crackers, cereal and ice cream (yes he is our third).  He says lots of "ma-ma", "da-da", and other first sounds I can't really remember.  He sticks his tongue out a lot for no reason at all.  He LOVES his blankets.  If you drape the blanket over your shoulder he will nestle in for a good snuggle.  He loves his sisters and crawls wherever they are just so he can be a part of things.  He likes cars, trucks and balls just like all boys.  He is so fun to have around!

Christmas!

 Bennett was the first to wake up Christmas morning.  He was pretty excited to see Santa had left a room full of balloons.  It was good entertainment for him while the girls were busy opening presents.

 Christmas Jammies!

 Smiley boy!

 Happy kids on Christmas morning

Bennett's favorite gift from Santa was a pile of blankets.  He can't resist these!

Christmas Eve

 Christmas Eve was a fun day.  We started off the morning with a 5K run.  I organized a fun kid run, followed by the 5K and then kid games down at the park/beach.  We had about 10 families show up and it was a lot of fun!  The kids burned off some Christmas Eve energy and the adults ran off some calories so we could justify eating all the junk.  In the late afternoon we went to our friends house for delicious tacos (she even made homemade corn and flour tortillas), gingerbread house making and nativity.  We drove around looking for Santa, the kids fell asleep in the car-who could ask for anything more? 

Christmas-Fancy Clothes

 My girls love to dress up all fancy so of course Christmas Sunday we try to coordinate and make them all "fancy".  It cracks me up to see these pictures.  Why is it that babies are the easiest to take a picture of?  If I could just get all three of my kids to smile at the same time that would be a small miracle!

Our Little Trio

It's crazy how at such a young age siblings just get along and play together.  Bennett has just rolled right into the mix with playing with the girls.  He really thinks he is a lot older than he is and sometimes drives his sisters crazy.  They are so sweet to him and most the time try to include him in on what they are doing.  He loves it when they give him rides on the plasma car.

 Doing crafts together

 Hugs!

 8 months old in this picture.  We sure love this guy!

Halloween

 We are the witches and vampires so don't mess with us!

What an innocent little vampire...

The Awesome Visit from Grandma & Grandpa

 Fun, fun, fun!  My mom is one cute moped rider!  We sure had a blast riding around Waikiki with my parents.  Any time I get on those mopeds all I can do is laugh.  It's just so funny to me...

 My dad would have preferred to ride a motorcycle but I guess a moped sufficed.  I love that my parents weren't afraid to get on and go for it.  Thanks mom and dad for the fun morning!  Thanks to my friend Erin who watched all three kids for us for four hours.  She has three kids the same age so she had six kids!  She rocked it and allowed us to have an amazing morning kid free.

 My mom went on whatever outings I planned for us to do.  She helps a TON and makes everything so much fun.  The girls were in heaven having my parents in town.  Here is a far away shot of the tide pools which we love to go to.  I was sitting in a chair and far too lazy to get up and get a close up of the fun time they were all having.  Thank goodness for iphones that can take decent enough pictures.

 We ALL got haircuts while my mom was in town.  She is our personal stylist so we only get our cuts twice a year now that we live so far away.  I actually cut Bennett's hair so my mom doesn't have to take any credit for the buzz job.  I have to practice since I don't know what I'm doing. :)  I love this picture of my mom holding his hands to walk-something he loves to do.

 My mom rocked it on the boogie board.  Again, I needed to get up and get a close up but when I'm at the beach this extremely lazy side comes out.  It was a lot of fun to watch the girls boogie board with my mom.

 Bennett getting some grandpa time.  We worked my dad hard this trip having him help us with computer stuff, home repairs, monster burger making, meat cooking and telling stories to the girls.  It was sure fun to have him come for the trip too.

My mom took Brinlyn out for ice cream and sent me this picture.  Do you think she was having fun?  My parents also took Elli to see the movie "Brave".  I have some spoiled kiddos.

Us girls went and had our nails done one afternoon.  Brinlyn and Elli thought it was pretty neat and special.  It was fun to watch the look on their faces.  I thought it was pretty special myself considering it has been at least two or three years since I had a pedicure.

 I hope our crib can make it...

 My dad told the girls a "never ending" story while he was here each night.  It was pretty hilarious to hear what he came up with and the girls thought it was pretty neat.  I think it was about some girls and a dragon?  I love how you can tell they are way into the story grandpa is telling.

I wish grandma just lived with us!  She is SO helpful and the girls love every minute with her.  She picked up all my slack for sure.  Here she is reading their bedtime stories.

I have more pictures on other cameras so hopefully I will get to uploading those soon.  I had an AMAZING week with my parents.  I'm so lucky to have such great parents who are willing to make the trek out to see us.  They helped us out so much and we enjoyed every minute of it.  Elli especially is still sad they are gone but we just keep reminding her that we will get to see them in Feb/March.  Thanks Mom and Dad for coming out and spoiling us.  We love you!

Only living in Hawaii...

We (mostly Nate) are a little crazy and got out our Christmas stuff today, November 16.  Yes, it is way early but so much fun so why not enjoy it just a little bit longer. :)  Anyway, we were getting the Christmas tree down from the storage area and this little conversation made us laugh.
Brinlyn: Mom, that heavy?
Nate: Brinlyn speaks her own version of pigeon.
Elli: She doesn't talk like a pigeon!

You forget that kids are always listening to what you say and often times don't really get it!  Brinlyn does have her own version of pigeon and it cracks us up. 

Brinlyn and her words

I wanted to jot down something brinlyn said a few nights ago. My dad made steak. I was cutting some up for her.
Brinlyn: "mom, what is that?"
Me: "steak"
Brinlyn:" I don't like snake"
Me: "well how about some zucchini?"
Brinlyn: " I don't like snake or bikini"

Well I guess we don't have to worry about bikini wearing or snake catching.

Food!

I'm not sure what I do wrong, but none of my kids have liked baby food.  I remember feeling so excited when Elli turned 6 months old because I got to try out rice cereal.  Well, she never liked anything of pureed texture so we ended moving straight to the finger foods with her.  Brinlyn came along and the same thing happened.  Now, here we are with #3 and we are having the same problem.  So we have tried and tried baby food with Bennett and have had no success.  He is almost 8 months old and still hardly eats anything but milk.  Well, we are finding a little success with just laying the food out in small pieces on his tray and letting him go for it.  This strategy is lame for me because it pretty much means he needs a bath after every meal.  I'm happy he is eating but, wow, this is going to be an exhausting road. Wish me luck! 

Camping

 The "comfortable" sleeping conditions when you are camping.  Elli somehow ended up on the ground but managed to sleep anyway.  Bennett ended up in bed with us and it was horrible.  I think we got one hour of sleep.  Why would anyone camp with a baby?  The girls sure love camping so I guess that is why we do it.

 Elli has been way into boogie boarding.  It is hard to tell in this picture which one Elli is but she is the one closest in on the left.

 The mamas all lined up enjoying being lazy. :)

 Brinlyn is our beach girl.  She will go to the beach any day! 

 Brinlyn and Bennett are buddies.  Bennett thinks he is such a big boy.

The girls sure love their brother

Surgery Day

 Bennett helped me fill out the paperwork

 He ate the pen for a little bit

 Played with some toys to kill the time

Tah-dah-surgery is done and he is still slumbering

Septebmer 21 Bennett had a minor surgery.  He was a trooper before the surgery (not able to eat for several hours before).  He did great waking up from the anesthesia but about an hour later he was inconsolable.  I later found out it was because the anesthesiologist had not given him any pain meds.  LAME!  The poor guy was in pain until I figured it all out.  After we learned that he needed meds every four hours he did great.  Hopefully we don't have to do any surgeries for a bery long time!

What Tuna is made of...

I pulled out a can of tuna to make some sandwiches for Nate and I.  Elli was standing there with me and as she looked at the can she said, "Wow, I didn't know tuna was made out of mermaids".  I don't think a day goes by without something funny coming from Elli. We sure love that girl!

Another Funny Elli-ism

Elli and I were working on an assignment she got through preschool when she said something that cracked me up.  The directions told her to draw whatever she wanted on the paper.  She spent about five minutes coloring things while I went about doing something in the kitchen.  When she was done I asked her to tell me about the picture.  She had drawn a person with brown hair, a duck and something else (I can't remember what). 
"This is a picture of President Eyring.  I love the prophet.  He teaches me about Jesus.  I want to be an artist one day and give all my books away to people.  Aloha, I'm Elli Johnson and I'm an artist!".

I could not even write the last part I was laughing to hard.  So, to give some background on this, Elli loves to watch this video clips at lds.org showing children across the world.  They are titled "One in a Million".  They show a quick video of what the kid enjoys doing and how they are involved in church.  At the end of the clip the child will say something like, "I'm (their name) and I'm one in a million".  Elli took her spin on that!

She keeps us laughing.  I wish I could remember to record more of what she says.  She is such a joy to have around. 

Bananas

 We live on smoothies.  Almost every day I bust out some sort of concoction.  I put my girls to work peeling and cutting up bananas to freeze for later use.  They worked hard and completed the task.

Crazy Elli wearing the Bumbo.  She keeps us laughing!

Brinlyn turns 3!

 For Brinlyn's actual birthday we did a cake, opened some presents and sang "Happy Birthday".  The girls decorated the cake with all sorts of random toys and of course she picked pink and purple for the frosting colors.  I had to leave for my Maui trip that afternoon so dad carried out the birthday celebration.

 As much as I don't like Chuckie Cheese, it makes for the easiest birthday party ever!  Brinlyn has been talking about doing her party there for months so she was super excited when the day finally arrived.  She picked a few close friends and off we went to the kids dream world.

 Brinlyn asked for a butterfly cake and considering I got home at 1:00 am the night before, this was my best attempt.  She picked pink and purple again for this cake but the purple turned to blue.  Not sure it if is from the humidity here or what but she ended up with a pink and blue butterfly.

 Brinlyn was not a fan of Chuckie himself this time around.  This is when the gang is singing to her and she is making sure she doesn't make eye contact with Chuckie.

 Bennett was giving high fives and everything, which I guess you can't tell from this picture.  He was a fan!

What a day!  Exhausted he fell asleep in the stroller, holding the lighter.  I usually wouldn't give my kid something like this to play with but he was mad and that's what I had.  It did the trick!