halloween!

just like any other kid, little miss was especially excited about halloween. but i think even more so this year because she seemed to really grasp what it was really all about......CANDY!!! well and getting dressed up. the kid does love to play dress up. she had already decided that she wanted to be a princess and when we found the target version of the cinderella costume we bought it. as she counted down the days until she got to wear it, we went though all of the protocols about what to do. "you have to say trick or treat" and you have to make sure you say "thank you". so we would kind of practice the whole process when she wanted. and as we got closer and closer she got more excited. of course everyone in the house got sick the week leading up to halloween and we were all miserable, but by halloween day we were more than ready!!

little miss also decided that alexi needed to get dressed up this year. and she decided that alexi needed to be underdog- so that underdog could protect the princess (her) from the mean witch (me). so i got some cheap red fabric and made alexi a cape....she actually did pretty good with it too. and the girls loved it :)

so she got dressed in her cinderella costume, which of course was itchy!, and started getting ready. i even let her wear a little bit of make up. tonya and k came over, we ordered and ate pizza and then we were officially ready! we started off just going to a few houses to warm up and then the fun really started! little miss kept cracking me up! she kept telling people- "i love your costume!" - even to those that didnt have costumes on :) and then the best moment of the night came when she told one guy- i love your costume (he did have on a bears shirt) and the she game him a hug and kiss as his thank you. the guys was so sweet! he told little miss thank you and said that she had just made this the best halloween ever. this little girl just cracks me up! she is always so friendly and loves talking to people, and she just proved to me yet again why she is so special :)

here are a few pics of my cinderella and her protector :)

pumpkin carving time

in hawaii we cant really carve our pumpkins too early because they will rot quickly with the hot weather. and because of our busy schedule, we ended up not carving ours until the night before halloween this year.

little miss always has fun helping and of course makes an ewwww face the first time she sticks her hand in, yet she keeps right on going. since we had 2 pumpkins that we got at the pumpkin patch, we let her "design" her pumpkin which josh helped her with and then i got to do my own :)

so she drew triangles for his eyes and nose and then said she wanted a scary mouth for him. so we drew a few different ones and let her pick. josh did the cutting, but she helped punch out the pieces and then push them on through. she had a great time creating her pumpkin and getting everything ready for halloween.

as promised

so here are the sonogram pictures of our newest addition. we still dont have any ideas on a name for him, but little miss keeps calling him marmaduke. although i can promise that is not what we will actually be naming him :)

he is already a very active little boy, and we could actually see him kick and wave during the actual sonogram.....pretty funny to see, but man does he have a kick already! i am going to be in trouble when you can actually feel it from the outside. he will defiantly be a soccer player :)

the verdict is in!!!

well its official! we are having a boy! our technician was awesome and gave us some good pictures of our new little one and its pretty obvious that its a boy!

when we got home and told little miss that she was going to have a brother she said "but its a sister!" so we hold her the dr. told us its a brother and she said "yay! a brother!" so shes still pretty excited which is good. she has also decided that even though its a boy, she still wants to name him eima lally marmaduke nix! what a mouth full!

and josh is excited because he will now have a little bit more of an even balance in the house :)

sonogram pictures to follow tomorrow :)

pumpkin patch

its that time of year again.....pumpkin time!!! and even though we are still in the upper 80's we (the kids) still put on our jeans and head out to the pumpkin patch! this year at least we had a little bit of a breeze, but man it was still hot!

first we took a few pictures by all of the huge pre-picked pumpkins and then sat down under the tents for our education lesson. after the girls being more than ready to pick pumpkins, we headed out for the hay ride! which was actually the hottest part of our day....guess we were moving too slow? but the girls seemed to like it and little miss kept talking to all of the pumpkins we were passing....she was talking for them saying stuff like "dont pick me!!" and "pick me! i want to go home with you". just dont know where she comes up with this stuff, but she always has me laughing.

after a super hot hayride it was time to go pick our pumpkin. little miss and k immidealty decided that they didnt want a big pumpkin, just a little one like some of the ones they had seen during the education talk. after much persuading (and a little pumpkin) we talked them into actually picking out a real pumpkin :) it was much easier this year too, they already had them cut from the vines-which last year....we were have to try and rip them from the vines and tearing our hands up. so that was nice. so after climbing over the pumpkins and through all of the rows, we finally settled on our pumpkins and we were headed back to the car. and as you can tell penny puppy had just as much fun picking out pumpkins as little miss and k did! that penny is such a trooper!

and all of that barely took us an hour! then because they were both good, and because we were all so hot, we decided it was time to head to the pool! both girls were just as excited about that, and it was a nice way to cool off after such a hot day!

elmo!!!

i got asked to make elmo cupcakes (and suckers) by a friend for her daughters 2nd b-day. of course it fell during one of our busy weekends, but i am always up for the challenge :) since the party was on saturday and i had work, sara's soccer and beauty and the beast- they all had to be done on friday :) luckily i was able to start on the suckers ahead of time and was able to get most of those done before hand. and since tonya is such an awesome friend she came over on thursday while i was baking the cupcakes and again on friday to help me create all of the cupcakes....and boy am i glad she did! we made 30 "regular" elmo cupcakes and 30 "furry" elmo cupcakes.

i was able to show tonya how to do the regular ones and i started in on the furry ones. i had made 3 batches of red icing to get us started before hand too (and we used ever last bit!) and that barely made us to the last cupcake. i had had some ideas on what to use for the eyes and nose and stuff, but not having enough time to play with them before hand, we decided we didnt really like the way they looked.....so off tonya went to our little shoppette (which actually has a better selection of candy than our grocery store does!) to look for some ideas. and tonya being the awesome creative person she is, came back with some awesome ideas that i know i would have never have thought of!

we used marshmallows for the eyes and used chocolate covered sunflower seeds for his pupils. orange jelly beans for his nose (i had m&m's, but they just werent big enough...peanut m&m's would have worked better). and then half of a chocolate wafer for his big smile. they turned out great and i was pretty happy with them once we got all of the faces on. from what i hear, the party was great and everyone loved them, so as far as i am concerned we did a job well done :)

and i will say, with 60 cupcakes sitting on in my kitchen, i thought josh was going to die when he saw the "mess" and to give him some credit...it did look a little chaotic :) on the last cupcake i was able to talk tonya into doing a furry elmo, and i have to say, for her first one ever.....she did awesome!!! thanks again tonya for all of your help! i know i would not have been able to do it without you!

beauty and the beast

with little miss being the princess fanatic that she is, when the opportunity to go see the "broadway" version of beauty and the beast came up, we just had to go. i have actually seen the play on broadway when we lived it ny and it was awesome! little miss loves the movie so i just knew it would be fun.

the tickets were a little pricey and we might as well have been in ny, but the excitement in her eyes when we got there was well worth the money. tonya and k also joined us so it was a fun girls afternoon. the girls were both so excited it was hard for tonya and i to keep in our excitement. :) they both had their moments during the the show, but overall they had a great time! (and so did we)

they both dressed up like princesses-k in her halloween costume and little miss in the tutu tonya had made her. needless to say, they were both beautiful belle princesses. :)

soccer

today is a very exciting day! little miss had her first soccer "practice" this morning! im not sure who was more excited...me or her :) its every mom's dream to watch their little girl grow up and start playing and loving the same things i did, and josh was pretty excited too :)

i actually had to work so josh got to take her. her best friend k is also signed up, and even though they got split up once it was time to start, they got to share the excitement together before hand. it was pretty chaotic this morning and josh said there were about 200 kids there, which i am sure didnt help. but the first day at any of these kinds of things is always like that. they havent actually played with a ball yet and wont actually play games for a few weeks but she still came home and said she loved it!!!

here are a few pics from her morning.