Kauai (part 2)

Annaliese charmed us all (and any one around us) with her smiles and giggles throughout the trip.  She is pretty sure that the thing she is holding in this picture is a chew toy, not really something she's supposed to suck on to be soothed.

We enjoyed a free hula show after shopping and eating a Puka Dog at the shopping center in Poipu near Koloa where my mom grew up.

Spouting Horn was erupting as usual, although this pic shows a rainbow, not the spouting.

Proud Grandpa & Grandma at breakfast.

Annaliese's favorite new beverage - ice water from a cup.  Sometimes she just sticks her tongue in it, but she does drink a little bit sometimes.

Quintessential hawaiian hibiscus flowers were every where.

Andy was a super hula-hooper on Matt & Rina's Wii Fit.  Alana is showing him how to do it.

We were all laughing and having a great time.

Having a great time on vacation

Let's get this party started - 5 months

Annaliese turned 5 months old over the weekend and wants to invite you to a party according to the T-shirt that her Uncle Josh got her...

Actually, she consistently sleeps through the night so fortunately 3am is a pretty quiet hour at our house.

Looks like the party got started a little early and Annaliese has had her share of millk!

Annaliese is checking herself out in the mirror, making sure she looks good for her party.  Her daddy says we'll need to teach her humility... later :)

Kauai (part 1)

We stayed at the beautiful Marriott at Kalapaki Beach on Kauai for a week.  Thanks to my mom and dad, my sisters Jenn and Shelly, Andy, Annaliese and I were able join them on the trip.  It was so fun to stay right on the beach and a hotel with such beautiful grounds.  This was the view from our hotel room.

Most mornings after breakfast, we went to the gardens to watch the koi fish feeding.  You could let them eat out of your hand or throw (or "chrow" as the Hawaiians would say) a whole bunch of food pellets in and watch them gobble them up.  My sister Shelly wanted to pet them but was a little freaked out.  They really seemed like they might jump right up on to the tile and smack you around if you didn't give them more food!

 

Could this Grandma be any happier???  

She and my dad and Andy all helped out with watching Annaliese at different times so that I could get some pool time between feedings as she is still nursing.  It was a great blessing to me... I brought along a book, but didn't read a page - just relaxed.

Annaliese did a great job on the flights and throughout the vacation.  She nursed on the way up and down each time and slept a good amount on a little changing table mattress that we laid across our laps so that she could lay on her tummy like at home.  

Even though we messed up her naps and bedtimes frequently all week long, she was still generally a happy baby and adjusted to Hawaiian time quickly and easily.  Of course, she brought smiles to everyone she came across in the airports, airplanes and Kauai.

to be continued...

Bye Bye BSK

*Sigh* I’m officially resigning from my job at BSK Analytical Laboratories; my leave (paid & unpaid) is finally over.  On Friday, I had to get in one last photo op wearing my BSK sweatshirt with Annaliese in her BSK onsie from Mamie.  Alicia, Sandy, Laura and Xai are pictured above.  I already miss my friends from work so much (I’ll still stop by to see them) as well as being a Client Service Representative.  It has been a blessing to work with such a wonderful group of people.

Now we’re off to Kauai tomorrow for a week with my parents and my sisters to celebrate Easter my mom’s side of the family!  Whoo-hoo! Can’t wait, although I’m a little nervous to fly with Annaliese!  Pray for us all!  We'll have plenty of pictures to share when we get back!

Kittie Kats

For those of you who haven't met our cats & for those of you who already know and love our little furry friends, here they are.  I felt like I should show them off a bit since they've been such good kitties even with their banishment to the outside world.  Actually they still come inside on occasion, but much less frequently than before the baby came.

This is Squeaks, aka "Little" or "Little-Bittle."  She is balancing on the railing with her legs hanging over the sides.  Her favorite pastimes are wrestling with Indie, fighting with Miko, and anxiously trying to get ice that may fall on the floor whenever the someone gets ice from the freezer.  Her newest trick is acting like a water dog when I water the garden, running through the water and trying to 'bite' it.  I found her abandoned out by a peach tree orchard when I was on a walk over a year ago and she came home with me.  We were going to give her away so we didn't name her, but called her the Little One which stuck last past her actually being named.  We originally thought she was a boy and when we took 'him' to be neutered, the vet informed us that we couldn't neuter him, but we could spay her.  Fortunately, Squeaks is a name that goes both ways and she as soft as a mink coat.

This is Miko (aka Schmiko, Schmeeks, Meeks) and she is oldest sister.  Miko gets annoyed with Little's antics and the two girl cats have frequent squibbles for no apparent reason.  Miko loves to be inside but she also loves to eat so sometimes it is a toss-up for her whether she would rather go outside to eat when we feed her or try to run inside and hide.  She has spent a couple nights hiding in various closets when we literally couldn't find her.  She also a litter box snob and will sometimes have 'accidents' on the bathroom rug near the litter box if another cat has 'dirtied' the box before her.  Her favorite position to sleep is on her back, legs outstretched so that she looks dead. We're glad that she came to be our cat after being an orphan for her early kittenhood (still eats like an orphan as her portly figure shows below - sorry about the unbecoming photo, Meeks!).

This is Indiana Jones (aka Indie, Bindie, or Binder) and he is intently about to catch a bug of some sort while Miko watches.  You can't see his uneven white socks in the pic, but they are always greyish brown because he's dirty.  He is the only boy and a hunter and adventurer by nature and frequently comes home with stickers in his coat or cobwebs on his face.  He is the only cat that we purposefully adopted from another family.  But there's no such thing as a free pet!  Indie has been to the vet the most.  Beside vaccines/neuter, he had an eye infection over a year ago, got a fox tail stuck in his eye (emergency vet trip for that one), ate something bad and was vomiting and had diarrhea, and currently, his third set of eyelids is visible over part of his eyes implying that he is sick.  (The vet doesn't know what is wrong with him without doing a whole panel of blood work etc, so he's on antibiotics which seem to help as the eyelids are slowly receding back to normal.)  He's working on using up all of his 9 lives, but we're glad that he's  tough guy.

Here is our hummingbird feeder which the cats believe we did just to torture them.  In fact, they aren't all that interested anymore because they can't ever seem to get close to them little birds.

Finally, a random pic...  Here's our new bedding that we got from Crate & Barrel, thanks to an old gift card that was nearly forgotten.  Yeah!! (Even better than finding $5 in your pocket of your jeans.)  Thanks for getting this stuff for us Josh.

Genius

That's right, Annaliese is sporting one of the new colors "Zinnia" in cloth diaper fashion.  I did the good old traditional pre-folds last week and when I decided I was committed to cloth we took the plunge and got some easy (but expensive) Bumgenius v3.0 one-size reusable pocket diapers, keeping the pre-folds as backups.  

Before you congratulate me for saving the earth, it was almost entirely an economic decision.  The fact that we're reducing the amount of waste that goes into our landfills is a definite bonus but if cloth & disposables were the exact same cost, you can bet I'd be throwing those poopy diapers in the garbage.  So I plan on doing wash every other day or so and with my very rough calculations, it appears that we'll still come out ahead in the first year with more significant savings after that since we won't have to buy more fancy-schmancy diapers since they  have snaps to adjust for various sizes.

All in all, Annaliese doesn't seem to mind wearing cloth at all and I'm thankful that the Bumgenius diapers are so much easier to put on/take off and don't leak during naps or at night.  We even used cloth all day yesterday including going to church and to my parents' house (Tutu & Papa Deere). Hopefully my good attitude persists after the honeymoon period wears off... :)

Working out with Uncle Josh

Uncle Josh came to stay the night for an interview for entrance into the Fresno State Athletic Training program and he gave Annaliese a little work out too. 
Doesn't Uncle Joshie look sharp?  I'm sure he rocked the interview!!

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Poor baby had 4 shots for her 4 month vaccines today.  She is almost 26 inches long (~90th percentile), weighs 14 lb 4 oz (~75th percentile) and has an average size noggin (16 1/2 in head circumference, ~50th percentile).  She is also just getting over a touch of a cold so she is not quite her usual chipper self, but she's been sleeping like a champ which is helping her to get over it I think.

Obviously she's getting enough of mommy's milk judging by those chunky thighs, but in about a month or so I plan on starting her on solids...  Any suggestions of things that have or have not worked well for any of your kiddos?