Keeping on top of it

This picture was emailed to me from the BYUH studio less than one minute ago! I went to get officer pictures and my beautiful family accompanied me because we were going to a forum afterward. The photographers agreed about the family being beautiful and insisted that they get in a few pictures.


I was the only one planning on a picture but everyone else looks better than me, how did that happen?!


Update... Just got another one! Looks like Amri woke up and is in her Ninja pose. Jeffrey, on the other hand, hasn't blinked. He's beating someone at a staring competition... he's good.

Maybe I'll never get caught up . . .

Every time I look at our photos I see another event or something that I want to blog. Sigh. Oh well. These pictures are long overdue. All taken in September, with the ones at the park taken when Amri was 2 1/2 days old (and I'm 2 1/2 days postpartum. . .not looking my best but at least I wasn't pregnant), and the ones of Amri on the table were by my awesome cousin Natalie who came to Hawaii when Amri was 2 1/2 weeks old. Enjoy.

This summer was the first time in 5 1/2 years my whole family was together because of missions overlapping (Dan and I by two weeks, Dan and Ryan by 4 weeks). And, ironically, we all lived at home for that month we were all together. It was so fun to all be together.

All the boys

All the girls, three generations.

I love these of Jeffrey and Tyson.

me and my bros. Don't they all look so distinct? To me they're not like other brothers who look a lot alike.

This chair Amri's on was given to me by my grandma. She received it for Christmas when she was 4 years old, and she's now 82.











This last one is random. I took it a couple of weeks ago. Jeffrey makes me laugh so much!

Two years for us!

Our Two Year Anniversary, November 17, 2009. Hard to believe. Two years, two kids, twelve moves, and thousands of irreplaceable moments.

Our date that night. . .eating at the cafeteria ;-)

Our two little Hawaiians.

Our day activity--take family pictures. We were hoping to get something for a Christmas card, but between Tyson's classes we just didn't have much time so these were taken in a hurry in extremely windy weather with a tired Jeffrey. We'll have to get more another day.

A possibility perhaps?

Maybe I'll even get ahead!

A month ago, Donny called us with the exciting news that he and Alyssa are getting married! Tyson and I met Alyssa in May at a kayak store and Donny met her in July on the Salmon River. So we'll be flying out to Utah over Thanksgiving to see them married in the Salt Lake City Temple. We are so ecstatic to welcome Alyssa into the family!

Our first meeting with Alyssa at the kayak store.

Look at her! Doesn't she already look like a Hazard?

On the top of a mountain. They actually got engaged after they climbed to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite. She later told Donny she'd always wanted to be proposed to on the top of a mountain.

Don't they go so well together?!

Beautiful Alyssa.

Getting caught up. ..

So I'm trying to get caught up on the blog, and these are a few things that we've been up to the past couple of weeks.

(Jeffrey got tried to climb into the dump truck and got dumped, I think this picture is so funny!)

Natalia, Kai (which is ocean in Hawaiian), and us. Each of these kids are one year apart, give or take a week. A little background--I have not taken advantage of living in Hawaii the past two semesters. There were weeks I didn't even SEE the ocean, let alone go to the beach. But since our time is rapidly coming to a close and I am finally NOT PREGNANT while we are here, I am trying to "aprovechar" all I can. So Natalia and I go either on a hike or to the beach every week and have become good friends. . .which reminds me I haven't posted any of our hike pictures. Guess I'm not caught up after all

These next few are of our ward's trunk or treat activity the night before Halloween. I went as a nurse, how original am I! Tyson couldn't go because BYUHSA scheduled a FOUR HOUR seminar that night and another FOUR HOUR seminar for the next morning. Who planned that?!

Tyson and I got to attend the Haunted Lagoon at the PCC later that night however while my brother Dan watched the sleeping kids. It was the first time we've gone on a date just the two of us since we've been back. . .or basically since Amri was born, besides one time at the Temple in Utah. So romantic, I know, but I loved just being with Tyson!

The Haunted Lagoon was pretty awesome. I'm sad we won't be back for it next year.

So what did we do on actual Halloween? We went to the WATER PARK! It's way fun, we got cheap season passes on sale for the rest of the year. Jeffrey loves it, if you can't tell. He loves the water in general. When we go to the beach he just charges for the waves and I have to drag him back up the beach when he gets to the point waves are crashing over his head.

He hit is head on this one coming around the bend. I shouldn't have sent him down without his lifejacket (which would have prevented this) but Tyson doesn't like him to have it on when we're only in one foot of water.

So fun!

These are the slides Tyson and I take turns riding.

We went shopping afterwards and got back after 8pm and still had to unload everything we'd got from Costco and Walmart, so we actually didn't go trick or treating. I really wanted to, but I realized it would be a lot of stress for just a couple of pictures. Let's be honest--it would definitely be more for me than for the kids. It would be me dressing them up, me saying trick or treat for them, and me eating the candy (I can't let Jeffrey's teeth rot!). So we happily put our tired kids to bed and called it good. Besides, we still have tons of candy from the trunk or treat.

I've realized the past few years that I am just not that into pumpkin carving. Maybe I just got out of the habit in my teenage/college years, but it doesn't excite me to spend a lot of time on something that is going to rot in a few days. So the extent of my pumpkin decorating this year was drawing a face on with a sharpie (which is more than I've done in years past). However, I do have a tradition of cooking dinner in a pumpkin on Halloween. Again, the cooking did not happen on the actual Halloween, but a couple of days later. And per tradition for our family, Amri got stuck in the pumpkin after we cleaned it and before we cooked it.

So cute of Jeffrey holding Amri's arm! They are such good buddies.

Amri got fussy at one point and Tyson just rocked the pumpkin until she felt better.

See that excited look on Jeffrey's face? That's because he jumped off the table right as this picture was getting taken. Don't worry, we were ready to catch him.

Tyson's trying to fit Jeffrey in the pumpkin. He didn't want to. I guess we'll have to grow a giant one for next year ;-)

This picture is mostly for my family. Sister Cook was the devotional speaker last week, and my dad used to mow Elder Cook's lawn in Michigan as a youth. Elder Cook was very close to my grandpa. It was cool to get to talk to them.

Now let's see if I can stay caught up. . .

The many faces of Amri

One of my favorites. . .

Are you sad, Amri?

Or are you just thinking about being sad?

Now it's mad!

What a cute pouty face!

Now be excited!

Mischievous. .

Pensive. . .

Blah, Mom!

Kind of sleepy

Eyes of a dreamer

Yeah, what a good idea!

This is what I call her pirate face. . .one side of the mouth open bigger than the other, usually with one eye closed. She does it when she's hungry. So cute!

And now. . .Amri's two month birthday pictures!

Some people have commented that her hair looks reddish. . .there are some red highlights coming out, but they may fade like Jeffrey's did. But Jeffrey's looked red at birth and then changed at four months, whereas hers was way darker and turning red. It will be interesting to see.

And Amri with her best friend, taken a couple of weeks ago.

Happy two months Amri!

Head circumference: 40 cm, 94th percentile

Length: 23 1/2 Inches, 90th percentile

Weight: 11 lbs. 2 oz, 75th percentile

The difference between boys and girls

These are Amri's pretty little fingernails. As well as having long hair she was born with very long nails as well. But that's not the difference between her fingernails and Jeffrey's. The difference is that they're clean. I don't know how Jeffrey did it, but ever since he was a week old he ALWAYS had dirt under his fingernails. . .which really confused me. He was always either in the house, in his car seat, or in my arms--I never put him directly on the ground unless a clean blanket was under him, and I routinely cleaned under his fingernails. Go figure.

Speaking of nails, we had a spa night for a Relief Society activity two Wednesdays ago, which was really fun. We had massages from a couple of professional women in the ward, did facials, ate junk food like coconut rolls and pumpkin cookies, had foot soaks in vibrating hot water, and pedicures. My pedicure happened to match my shirt that night, as you can see. The next day my brother came over and saw my feet and commented that he'd never seen my toenails painted before. That's probably true. It's because they're only painted when someone else does them, which only happens ever 3-5 years. Ha ha.

And here is a picture of our cute Amri. I never thought I'd be saying this, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE putting big bows in her hair! It's so fun having a little girl! I'm becoming more girly than I ever have in my life.

Last week stuff

Tyson has been way busy with all of his BYUHSA stuff, so we decided we'd help him out as a family. On Tuesday we went to the recycling center to take all the cans and stuff from recycle boxes at food fest (see previous post). We ended up having to take off all the lids from water bottles and sort through all the cans with garbage and tinfoil all over them and some kind of slimy stuff. It was gross. It took way longer than we thought and Jeffrey screamed through the whole thing while in the car. I would have taken him out of his car seat, but my hands were so gross I didn't want to touch him. This is how the kiddos were when we got home:

Both konked out leaning the same way. Amri slept through the whole thing actually, even Jeffrey's screaming. Rest In Peace, kiddos.

On Saturday BYUHSA was doing a huge service project and Tyson was in charge of a group to go help clean up Laie Cemetary. May they all Rest In Peace too.

Tyson's comment on it: "It was fun."

Jeffrey doing what he loves best, trying to push the stroller, screaming when it gets stuck.

Our friend Eliza who came too. Andy my brother was there as well.

And Happy Halloween to everyone this weekend!