Makana's Birthday, 6 years old!

Makana celebrated her birthday several times this year. We had cake and dinner on the actual day, on another day when Dad could be home, on a day when Cody cold be here and then her party. Wow! She had just a few kids for the party, but they enjoyed themselves so much. Kathy decorated her beautiful Barbie cake, I did the baking, that is the easy part!

Noa went to see his speech pathologist who said he seems to have articulation problems that have nothing to do with the cleft in addition to the cleft issues. She suggested we take him in to an ENT for a scope procedure so they could see if the airway is closing properly. I was lucky to get an appointment right away. We went in last Friday and I am now waiting to hear from the surgeon. Both the ENT and the Speech Pathologist, who was kind enough to meet us there, agreed that we probably need surgery. The procedure was less than fun, but not terrible. My little guy having another surgery does not make me happy, but doing everything we can to get him the help he needs to speak so he can be understood.

After the doctor's appointment we had a lovely lunch with Cody and did some shopping at the mall nearby. Not for me, Noa got new clothes and we visited Build a Bear where he got a new panda and dressed him in a fire man's outfit.

We are having fun on today's snow day, and another has been called for tomorrow. Too bad the wind chill is so low I don't dare let my babies out to play. Tomorrow is Noa's second Gotcha Day, can't believe its only been two years and also can't believe its already two years, at the same time! He is such a wonderful little guy and we are so happy to have him a part of our family!

It's almost Christmas

We are enjoying our time at home for the holidays. The kids have seen Santa, as you can see, no one cried. Makana does look concerned, but you would have too, the cameraman's hat started singing and dancing on his head. It was weird. I half expected a "ho, ho, ho," and a kick down a slide!

The kids have been very excited each morning to come down and see what the Elf on the Shelf has left them in the advent calendar and to see where he is sitting for the day. They are normal kids, one day they are running around making every Christmas musical thing sing and the dogs bark and generally driving mom crazy and the next they are perfect angels. No, really, I had a 24 hour bug and could barely move from bed, they played nicely all day, took a nap when I asked them to and did not argue with me. Of course today they have been hitting each other with those little air filled packing pillows and claiming that they have nothing to do, so I told them to clean their rooms. Hmmm, sounds like my mom speaking! Which is great because she was a perfect mom! Another thing, I always wondered why mom took so much time to look through every pocket on every pair of pants, seemed like a waste of time to me, but this week I learned differently. In one load of kid laundry I found one lightening McQueen car, two silver dollars, 3 pennies, 2 dimes, 3 rocks, and a small plastic shovel. I'll be checking pockets now too. I should have known, we have to search Noa every time we leave day care because he puts things in his pockets! I have a toy phone that no one knows where it came from and I think I found a pendant from a store we were shopping in that I did not pay for! Little clepto! I need to catch him in the act so I can teach him a lesson, but he is too fast for me so far! I don't think he means to be bad, he doesn't understand yet.

Gotcha Day 2010 and beyond!

I can't believe it has been 5 years since we became a family! Makana is such a beautiful girl, inside and out and we are so lucky to have her in our lives! We celebrated with Daddy and Cody with dinner and cake, then I took Makana for her first mani/pedi at a little salon for kids, she loved it. This month at school Makana got an award for Personal Integrity, which was very sweet and the assembly was very nice. Noa is loving his school and is talking more, he is putting together longer and longer sentences, though he is still difficult to understand. I know the first step is that he tries to say the words and that we can work on how he says them now, but sometimes it is hard on all of us when he wants to say something and we can't understand him. He LOVES jeeps like his Uncle E has and says he wants one too. His favorite toys are his cars and trucks, like most boys, but he also plays house with his sister, which is really cute. He finally can reach the pedals on the trike that we bought him for Christmas last year, down hill is no problem, except for the steering part, up hill is another matter all together. Halloween is approaching and Noa is still unsure of all the spooky stuff. Gil loves Halloween and has been making ghosts with the kids, and other decorations. Our trees are now hung with plastic ghosts and coloring on construction paper. I bought costumes for them both, a princess and a dragon, very cute, I found them when the kids weren't with me, so I was very happy that they liked them. Fall break is wonderful, I love being home with the kids, we haven't done much, but just being together is great. Leaves are changing colors, it is beautiful, I am not ready for the snow that I know must be coming! Gil has finished the deck project for this year, it looks great! we have so much more usable space now, he has worked so hard since June, it will be good to have him to just hang out with now!

Some new pictures!

I don't have much to say, we are all well. Makana's conferences are tomorrow. Gil has worked on the deck every spare minute since June, it is finally finished, or at least finished for now. We get Daddy back! Pictures are of first day of school, time with Dean Dean, and just everyday stuff around here.

September 2010

I really can't believe that it has been almost a year since my last post, I guess that just proves that life with two is much busier than life with one child! My school life was pretty darn busy too, in addition to my normal school duties I took on the first school musical and took 8th graders to Washington DC, both in March!

The kids are doing just great, they are growing like crazy and love each other so much. I am very lucky to have such healthy happy children. At Noa's 3 year old check up he had gone from the 20th percentile in weight and height when we got him to the 50th percentile, in just one year! He is almost as tall as Makana ad she only outwieghs him by 2 pounds on most days. Mostly they get along well, but she is a bit bossy at times and he is growing up and beginning to resent that a bit. We spent a month in Arkansas with my mom, Dean Dean to the kids. We were so lucky to have so much time with her. The kids got to ride in the golf cart, check the bluebird houses, swim, meet cousins, and visit the beach in Texas. The car trips were not much fun, we drove there and then drove on down to the Texas coast with a stop in Ft. Worth. Makana was car sick much of the time and I did not discover how well a little children's Dramamine worked until the last day on the way home. I was not aware that it was safe for little kids. Noa's speech continues to improve, he is still hard to understand, but is trying more and more words, his newest is "Why?" to everything, which is a bit annoying! He is quite a tease, sometimes that is not good, he seems to think I am teasing when he is in trouble and he just smiles and laughs at me.

Both kids started public school this year, Makana is in Kindergarten and Noa is in pre-school. They are at different schools because the elementary that M attends is too full to house the pre-school program. They both ride the bus to school and then to the sitters house. Noa has the bus to himself both ways and loves his driver, Mr. Gideon. Both kids love going to school and love Leslie even more, some days they don't want to leave when I come to get them. Makana can read most anything, and just forget about spelling something in front of her if you don't want her to understand it you have to resort to pig latin. Please, no one teach her that! She writes stories about princesses and letters to her grandmothers. She is pretty amazingly smart, the other day she was writing something and telling her brother, "now this is the mall, don't forget." It was a map! As a social studies teacher that makes me proud! Gil is building a deck, has been working on it since June! Anyway, Noa loves to "help" and dad is so good about letting him do so. He bought him a Lowes apron and Noa puts that on with his sunglasses and hat and goes to work hammering with his plastic golf club even when dad is at work. Yesterday he wore his sister's pink bejewelled flip flops to top off the ensemble, cute! Of course yesterday he also swung said golf club into his sister's head. Oops, glad it is plastic. Oh and on another note, yesterday he also stuck cereal up his nose, pulled it out and then while I was telling him not to do that laughed at me and ate the cheerio! As Makana said, "I told you he was gross!" Happy Labor Day!

Makana's Gotcha Day 2009

October 10th marks the 4th anniversary of the day I became a mom. We were handed a beautiful baby girl in a conference room in Jiangxi, China and I was finally a mom. She was fascinated by my necklace and content to be in my arms, until Dad decided he wanted to hold her and grabbed her from behind. She began to scream and cry and was so loud we had to take her down to our room to calm her down so that the other families could meet their daughters. I fed her Cheerios and she stopped crying, bonds and trust began to form. Every year on this day I am amazed that another year has passed. We try to do something special to celebrate and to help her understand her early life. I offered her the choice of a manicure and pedicure at her favorite girl's place, Sweet and Sassy, or a trip to Build A Bear. She chose the latter, so Aleigh did her hair, I painted her nails and we all took off for lunch and Build A Bear. Of course Noa could not be left out, he got a bear too. I was happy she did not choose the Hannah Montana outfits, but truly she does not know much about her, just what she has heard at school. A few weeks ago she announced that she did not want to be a teacher, she wants to be a rock star by 16. She only watches playhouse Disney and Ni Hao Kai Lan, so she doesn't actually know HM and I like it that way, she is just too young for all of that! Or maybe her mamma is just too old! I do wonder if I will be headed to graduations and such in a walker!

We have decided to pull the kids out of daycare. It is not that there is anything wrong there, just my mamma guilt that they will be in school the rest of their lives, they need time at home now. Cody has had a hard time finding a decent job and she is in school again, it works out that she can take the light rail out here and watch the kids 3 days a week and if I pay her what I have paid day care she can quit the job at a really bad bar. So it helps her, helps my guilt and I think it will be good for the littlies. Not to mention that I will get to see Cody more often and Aleigh will enjoy getting to see her big sister too! I think Cody will be able to work with Noa on his language more than they could at day care and the speech therapist will come and work with Cody every other week and me every other week. He should thrive with the one on one attention and we will come up with lessons for Makana as well. The internet is great for ideas, and my degree was in K-6 education to begin with so I should be able to do this. We are all really excited for November when this will begin.

Aleigh is doing well in school, she looked beautiful for her homecoming last week, though we had quite the adventure getting everything ready at the last moment! She skipped her first class, I am trying to be very Dr. Phil and allow the logical consequences. She had a detention from the school, so I guess that worked out. She seems to have a very good head on her shoulders and is really interested in the academics so far, so I am trying to let her handle it. It goes against my nature though, I tend to want to control things. A shock, I know.

We have had our first snows of the season early this year. It is beautiful, snow on the ground, the grass is still green and the leaves are still bright red and yellow. I love fall and I love the snow until about Christmas and then I am just ready for summer again and start to really miss Hawaii. I've also been missing travel, especially travel for me, like my trips to Japan and Korea. Probably because I have gone throught he pictures and seen my old friends and the beautiful places and people. This is the first summer that I did not leave the state, and I think that adds to it as well, but I am defintely longing for some travel and the trip to DC with students this Spring may be fun, but not really what I am talking about! I wonder if I dare to apply for a trip somewhere this summer? I'd love to go to China as a voluteer some day or to Korea or China as an English teacher, but would need to be able to take my kids with me. I think it would be good for them! Enough rambling!