Happy Holidays! Part 1: Christmas in Hawaii

I am having mixed feelings about this holiday season.  On one hand it does not feel like "Christmas" and I am actually a little home sick for the cold weather in Oregon.  I know that I can only say this because I am not there right now and I am glad I am somewhere where it is warm.  But there is something to be said and missed about winter weather during the holidays.

On the other hand I am really excited about Christmas this year because I think it will be the first one that Never will be able to really enjoy.  He kinda knows about Santa Claus and he knows all about presents thanks to his recent birthday.  He has seen wrapped presents in the closet and I keep telling him that he has to wait till Christmas morning and suprisingly he seems OK with that.  We won't put the presents out till Christmas Eve. I know if they were under the tree, as soon as I took my eye off Nev for a minute he would start unwrapping them.

Although it is warm and doesn't feel like Christmas weather wise, Hawaii does a pretty good job with the festivities.  We have done a few holiday themed activities this past month.  We watched the Honolulu City Lights Parade.  This was cool for Never because he got to see all kinds of his favortite trucks drive by plus they were all decked out and covered in lights.  The prettiest garbage truck I ever saw! We got to hear some holiday music and of course see Santa Claus.

We also got to see a boat parade!

The big mall in town has a holiday train, the Candy Cane train.  Nev got to ride the train with his friend Hugh. They were both pretty excited about riding the train and they did a good job riding it by themselves.

Well, I pretty much have everything done for Christmas.  I've gotten all my presents done or bought and packages sent off.  Christmas cards are in the mail.  And packages are wrapped.  I still have to buy stuff for a Christmas dinner but I'll wait till the last minute so my fridge doesn't get too packed.  I'm thinking I'll cook a ham this year.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

Happy Holidays! Part 2: Traditions

Ok when I started writing this holiday blog I was just going to put it all in one post but it got really long.  I realized I had a  lot to say about the subject and most of it was about holiday traditions so I decided to split it in two.

I have been thinking a lot about holiday traditions and what I want to teach Nev about this holiday season, especially since our celebrations are not faith based.  Micah and I didn't really do much for the holidays before we had Never. We might have had a solstice or christmas dinner and exchanged gifts but we usually didn't decorate and have a tree.  Now that we have Nev the holiday seems more important.  It is such a magical time for children and I'm excited to share that with Nev. Since he was born we have been trying to develop our own family traditions.

Nev's first Christmas we started the tradition of cutting our own tree whether it be from the forest (which we did the first year) or from a tree farm like we did last year.  This tradition didn't hold this year  because I assumed since we are in Hawaii we wouldn't be able to cut our own tree.  I learned of course after I bought a tree from the big box store that there is in fact a tree farm on the island where you can cut your own tree.  Wish I had done more research! Oh well next year if we are still here.

I have also been getting a new ornament for the tree each year.  This year I bought a nice one from the Honolulu City Lights Parade.  They put one out every year as collector items.  It is nice to have something to show where we spent christmas each year.  If we continue to travel and spend the holiday in different places it will be neat to collect ornaments from all the different places.

Growing up the one tradition I remember was getting to open one present on Christmas eve. This year I am hoping to start the tradition of giving holiday PJ's on Christmas eve.  This seems to be a fairly popular tradition.  In the future I want to try making the PJ's for Micah and Nev. This year I am invisioning a lazy Christmas day spent for the most part in our PJ's watching Nev open his presents, a good dinner and of course there will be football on all day since it falls on a Sunday this year.   

We also send out a photo holiday card and try to have a family photo in it.  This seems like a must do now that we have a kid.  It gives everyone a chance to see how he has grown.

                                    

To me the holiday season is about the joy of giving and I really enjoy giving to my family.  I do not however like the comercialism of the holiday.  I do buy quite a few things, especially for Nev, but I try not to go too overboard with it and I also try to make gifts instead of buying things. I really don't want Nev to grow up expecting to get a bunch of stuff for Christmas.  I want to try to keep it simple and low key.  As he gets older I will encourage him make gifts for people and to be thoughtful about the gifts he does give. I want to focus on the giving and not the recieving.  I would really like to incorporate into our traditions the giving to others who may be in need.  One year Micah and I spent Thanksgiving serving dinner to elderly people.  This is one of the best and most meaningful holiday memories I have. I hope I can start a tradition like this with my famliy and make it stick. 

My mom group in Oregon recently had an email discussion about family traditons and I really enjoyed hearing what other familys do.  Some of the ideas included celebrating St. Nicholus Day (which I had never heard about before), playing gifting games, christmas parties and community events, and of course all kinds of quirky family things that made the holiday special for each family.  Do you have holiay traditions that enjoy doing with your family?

Hope everyone has a joyous and peaceful holiday!

Ice Cream and Turkey!

It has been awhile since I posted anything.  I was really hoping to post more frequnetly than I have.  We have been somewhat busy but time just slips away so easily.....

One of the things Never and I have been up to lately is making ice cream. Yum!  I have been scouring yard sales and thrift stores since we moved to Hawaii trying to get regular household things that we need since we pretty much got rid of everything before we moved.  One advantage to this is finding some pretty good deals on things.  I got this Cuisinart ice cream maker for $5.  I had been wanting one ever since I had my mama friend Anne's homemade blueberry frozen yogurt.  It was such a yummy treat on a warm day and the kiddos loved it too.

The first recipe we tried was just plain old vanilla ice cream from the Cuisinart recipe book.  Nev was a good little healper!  He helped me mix the ingredients and pour the mixture into the ice cream maker.  Yes it was quite the messy and sticky experience but we had fun.  Then it was time to clean up and wait.  Nev loves doing dishes (I wonder how long that will last??) but the waiting was the hard part.  Plus you really have to put the "finished" product in the freezer for a few hours before it really becomes a good ice cream consistency.  The ice cream was pretty yummy and I was excited to try more recipies. 

The second recipe we tried was blueberry frozen yogurt but I was not all that happy with how it turned out.  It was too hard when frozen and chunky with blueberry skins.  I will have to get Anne's recipe.

For Thanksgiving we went to a friend's house for dinner and they provided all the food.  I wanted to bring somethign to share so I made a pumpkin ice cream also from the Cuisinart recipe book.  This was the best recipe so far!  We shared the ice cream at the party and everyone loved it!! It was a great dessert for a warm Hawaiian Thanksgiving! 

If you have an ice cream or other frozen treat recipe you really like I would love if you shared it.

Hope Everyone had a great Thanksgiving and is enjoying their Holiday Season!

Family picture Thanksgiving Night

My Gym

I started taking Nev to a place called My Gym.  It is a "gym" for kids.  A place they can get some exercise, work on their motor skills and have fun.  In Oregon there was a place called The Little Gym.  I had wanted to try it out but we moved before I could.  I found My Gym here on Oahu and a great special that discounted the price of the class and membership so I went for it.  Part of my motivation was so Nev could have some more interaction with other kids.  He had a lot of friends to play with in Oregon.  We miss them so much and Nev really enjoys being around other kids.    

                                                                                                                                                              



The classes have been great.  He gets to run around and climb and jump.  All of the things he loves to do right now.  We call him our little stunt man because he is always throwing himself on the ground and rolling around.  He often does it to try to impress others too.  It's pretty funny.  They also have to do things in a group that involves songs and moving their bodies.  This is the hard part.  Do you know how long the attention span of a 2 year old is?  Not very long!  He is getting better at staying with the group and participating but it is a struggle.

His favorite thing at first was the ball pit but now his confidence is growing so he is climbing and jumping on things more.  I think I will keep him in the class for a bit but I am hoping to find a regular play group for him too.

Happy Birthday Never!!

Yesterday was Never's 2nd birthday.  We celebrated at Chuck E Cheese with a few friends.  Nev had a good time running around, riding the small rides and playing games.

We sang Happy Birthday but Nev was eager to taste the cake so we helped Nev blow out his candle and the kids ate cake.



Afterwards Nev opened his presents.  He got some cool toys including a Cookie Monster Doll from Grandma and Grandpa, a tool box and tools from Samara, a football from Braeden, and a motorcycle and train set from Mama and Papa.

It was a great Birthday for Never! Thanks to everyone who helped him celebrate!

Happy Halloween!!

My memories of Halloween always involve my mom and her homemade costumes and decorations. One of my favorite memories is decorating the front yard with my mom with a fake grave that had a fake hand sticking out of it and a headless man sitting at the door on a straw bale with a jack-o-lantern in his arm. I wish I had a picture of it. My mom always seemed to really enjoy Halloween. I think I have gotten from her this joy in making homemade costumes and I hope to make many costumes for Nev. 
This year Micah and I were talking and I asked him "If Nev could tell us what he wanted to be for Halloween what would it be?" Micah said "Cookie Monster."  This was perfect! 
 
 Nev has been impersonating Cookie Monster for a long time now.  He likes to pretend he is gobbling something up like Cookie Monster does.  So I set out to get him a costume. I thought I would buy him one cause I thought making one would just be too hard.  My Mom and Micah convinced me I could make one myself, so I did.
I found a costume pattern that I could use to make the body and hood but with blue fur instead.  I had to get pretty creative to figure out the eyes.  They worked out pretty good.  Nev likes wearing it and pretending to eat the cookies. 

We also went to a pumpkin patch this year to get a pumpkin. I was not expecting to be able to visit a pumpkin patch in Hawaii. I don't think the pumpkins were actually grown there but it was fun anyway. 

Nev got to sit on a tractor, which was the highlight of the trip for him, and pick out a pumpkin but he was getting pretty mad that he was not able to pick the pumpkin up by himself and of course he did not want any help! 

We carved the pumpkin a week ago cause that is what we would normally do but we realized that this is probably not the best idea in the tropics since things decompose so much faster in the warm humid environment.  Our pumpkin has gotten a little prematurely moldy.  Oh well.  It just needs to last this one last night.

We'll take him trick or treating for the first time tonight.  Not sure how I feel about all the candy.  He hasn't really had much for candy before.
Happy Halloween and have fun trick or treating!

No More Mama Milk

It has been 1 week since Never has nursed!! I have nursed Nev for just shy of 2 years.  I am very thankful that I have been able to nurse him for as long as I have.  It was a good relationship between the two of us.  It brought him nourishment and comfort, gave us another way to bond and it also forced me to sit down, relax and give him my undivided attention for periods of time every day.  I really enjoyed this.  After Nev turned a year old I knew I would want to wean him sometime during his second year.  I knew I didn't want to do it while he was in daycare because of the extra immune boost he got from it.  Nev was in daycare until he was about 18 months old. Then it was time to focus on moving although the actual move would not come for several months I didn't want to wean him during a time of big change plus I thought it would be very helpful to have Micah's help to do it.  There were several times however when I really wanted him to stop nursing.  I was really feeling the need to have my body back to myself.  I was so tired at times and I felt exhausted when Nev wanted to nurse at the end of the day.  However, we were able to reduce the number of times he nursed to 1-2 times a day, at nap and at bedtime. Once we got moved and settled I started focusing on eliminating his nap time nursing.  He often did nap without "mama milk" simply because he feel asleep while we were running around. Then a few weeks ago Micah put him down for naps during the weekend.  He has been fine with going down for naps without any milk for some time now when someone else puts him down but when I put him down he wants to nurse.  So after that weekend when I would put him down for nap he didn't ask for milk.  Then if he did I told him "mama doesn't make milk anymore during the day."  Then last Friday when I put him down for bedtime I had gotten that feeling again that I needed my body back and I needed him to stop nursing.  After that night Micah put him down for bedtime and of course he went to bed no problem.  We did this for 4 nights then Micah had to work the next night so it was on me to get him to bed.  It went pretty good!  He asked me for milk once.  I told him that "mama doesn't make milk anymore" and that he was a "big boy!"  He cried far a minute then decided he wanted to go to bed and said "nigh-nigh mama." Since that night he hasn't asked.  It has only been 2 nights but I've got the feeling that he might be done.  I hope so!  I have had a lot of anxiety about weaning him.  I didn't want it to be too hard for him.  I didn't want nights of crying himself to sleep.  I think having Micah's help really made a big difference.  I think this can be a stressful time for a lot of moms.  If you were/are a breastfeeding mom, how long did you nurse and what was helpful during weaning?

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

To day is my dad's birthday so I wanted to post something special for him because he is an amazing dad and such an awesome grandpa! Nev absolutely adores his Grandpa and talks about him pretty much every day.

He loves going outside with Grandpa and playing in his truck or watering the yard. Even if he can't get outside he is happy to be playing alongside his Grandpa no matter where they are.

We love you Grandpa and we are looking forward to seeing you soon!