Random shots of the girls - January

These are just some random pics of the girls that we took this month:


Macie loves tacos from Taco Bell (And yes, those are 2 more teeth on top! And, there are all 4 molars in the back! Yeah! When did she get these you ask? All in the same week! What fun for Mommy and Daddy!)


Here's our little Kama' aina Baby (not really, but she's as close as we've got so far!). That means "local". Isn't she pretty with her lei?

Here are the girls enjoying a picnic lunch at Ala Moana Beach Park when Nana & Grandpa came to visit.

Apparently, blonde kids are something for Japanese tourists to check off of their things to see list when they come to Hawaii.....I have never seen so many people stop and look and touch and take pictures of kids (who are really, really, REALLY cute) doing nothing! It's quite strange, but it happens almost every time we have them out in Waikiki (where the majority of the Japanese tourists are).

Christmas Morning - Part 2

Here's how everything looked before we tore into the presents.....
Again, don't you think we need more presents next year?

Macie getting to tear into one of her presents

And this is the lovely snow queen, Emerson, modeling one of her newest
dress-up outfits
(As cute as she is in it, she can only wear it for a few minutes at a time....
it's quite warm!)

Macie is checking out her Jack in the Box from the Germany gang. Once she figured out
where he was popping up from, she would try to bite him when he popped up!
Very cute!

Taking a break from all the festivities and enjoying some sausage balls
and marshmallow puffs!

And here is Emerson again, modeling some more of her new presents: a lovely Little Mermaid gown from Mommy and Daddy, and several princess accessories from Nana & Grandpa!

Yes, I think both of our children have inherited their father's gene for cleanliness!

And, of course, there are many many more pics, but in order to see them , you'll just have to come visit and we'll bore you to death with all the Christmas pics, if you like! We had a great morning at home, and then went and enjoyed Christmas dinner at Holly & Ashley's house! A very good day overall!

Santa Claus does come to Hawaii....Christmas Morning part 1

Emerson was delighted to see that Santa ate some of her cookies and drank all of the Chocolate milk she left out for him (he better drink all of that milk....it's EXPENSIVE here!). But she was a little disappointed that he didn't eat ALL of the cookies. Better try harder next year, Santa!


Emerson was excited to receive Pat Pat Rocket from Santa, thanks to much behind the scenes work from one of Santa's special helper elves!

Macie is ready to go for a ride on her new musical/sound making/loud/obnoxious ( i know, we bought it, or, santa bought it, so I can't complain can I?) bike with 1 of 2 identical purses she received.....who knew Santa liked to shop at lillian vernon as much as Aunt Abby?

Santa brought a new super-cool wagon for both girls to ride in.
They love it!

FINALLY......Christmas Eve photos!

Okay, so it has taken me MORE than a little while to get these posted..... I finally have a Saturday off, and I am trying to get caught up on everything I need to get done!

Emerson cutting out Christmas Cookies for Santa

Macie getting her first taste of Cookie dough! Yum!!!

You've got to have LOTS of sprinkles on the cookies!

And, what would Christmas Eve be without a picture in front of the tree?
I think we need some more presents next year, don't you?

Santa's cookies are all ready for him to come down the chimney and leave us presents!
Oh wait, we don't have a chimney.....he came through the back door this year!

Sprinkling the ground with reindeer food for all the reindeer.....it's a long way
to Hawaii, so they need lots of snacks!

Now, it's off to bed for sweet dreams and visions of sugarplums, and a long night of waiting
for some little girls to go to sleep so Santa can come and make a deposit at
our house!

Getting the perfect Christmas Card picture.....

By now, most of you have seen our Christmas Card picture for this year. The idea came from my Mom, who had seen a picture of a sand Christmas tree on a card and relayed the idea to me. Perfect, right? Not if the wind is blowing like a cyclone and your 4 year old, who was woken up from her nap to take the picture, is not cooperating in the least. The one year old wants to just sit and play in the sand, in her brand new white dress... Our tree builder (Eric) had arrived about 30 minutes before I did with the girls so he could have the tree ready for the photo shoot, but the waves kept creeping in on his creation and sending it our to sea! And, just as we started to get some decent pictures, the batteries started dying !!! Oh, well......Here are some of the outtakes......hope you can laugh with us!

Visting Santa

Well, we thought we were going to have a great picture with Santa........After standing in line for 45 minutes with Macie yelling "santaaaaaah" every time we saw him, we really thought we wouldn't have to deal with the whole anxiety issue. Emerson was very excited to see Santa and even had drawn him a picture. She looks scared in the picture, but I think she was just scared of Macie...I mean, the child was WAILING! But being the torturous parents that we are, we insisted on having the picture taken, and spending money on it! Everyone has to have at least one of these great pics in their inventory, right? Enjoy!

Christmas Decorating

Here are a few pictures of our house in it's decorated state.....I really had a lot of fun decorating it, and really started to like the house more and more after it was all done.....What will we do next year? Hmmmmmm.....

This is the entryway and staircase

This is the dining room

This is the buffet in the dining room

This is the "kitchen tree" that isn't really in the kitchen!