Christmas 2009

For our family, Christmas this year was a little crazy. It would have been nice to have had a little rest and calmness, but then again...where's the fun in that??

Since Aho had to work Christmas Eve into Christmas morning, Ola and I spent Christmas Eve at our friend's, the Horita's, house. Every year they have the same Santa come by and have all the kids get a chance to sit with Santa and get a present.

This was the first time Ola actually saw a Santa Clause and he wasn't quite sure about him at first. But once the jolly man gave Ola his present to hold, he was totally content with the guy.

Christmas morning, we got up and headed to Aho's parents house to open presents with them. The rest of us were all busy with our gifting, while Ola only cared about the ukulele.

We thought maybe if we helped him open a toy he'd get excited and help open the rest, but he really just wanted the ukulele.

After Christmas with the Del Toro's, we opened a few presents at our house and then headed to the airport and home to the Badua house. As usual, my mom totally over did herself and we all got way too many presents. Ola, however, didn't complain.

Among lots of other things, he got a play tent, complete with crawl tunnel...

this squishy case with handles and headphones that lets your kids use your ipod...

and the mickey mouse he's been eyeing at Walmart every time we've gone the past few weeks...

But the biggest present was the one we picked up two days after Christmas. The newest addition to our family is our precious little Hiwa. She is an 8 week old, black lab puppy, and she is absolutely adorable. She is such a cruiser and loves attention.

Ola wasn't too thrilled about her at first. I guess he didn't like having someone following him around and licking at him. He would actually start screeching and run away from her, which only encouraged Hiwa to follow him more. But, he is slowly adjusting to her. In fact, by this afternoon, he was already willing to pet her and give her a kiss. Granted, she was sleeping when he did both, but...baby steps.

Thanksgiving in Vegas

Two years ago, my family decided to spend Thanksgiving in Vegas. Mom, Dad, Aho, Me, my brother Kai, and his girlfriend Vicky all went up for the Thanksgiving break. My mom's brother, Uncle Paul, and his wife Susan also met us there. That trip ended up being a bust, since almost everyone (except lucky little me) got sick. Mom was sick in bed all Thanksgiving day, and Aho was sick in bed on his birthday. Two years later, we decided to do it again. Mom, Dad, Aho and I, and of course, our little man, flew up for a five day trip.
After almost a year of not having a functioning temple on Oahu, I was SO happy to get to visit the one in Las Vegas. It was the first time I've ever been into a temple other than Laie, and it was so wonderful. Lucky thing we had the best baby sitters to keep our little man busy while we were there. Thanks mom & dad!!


We also got to take a drive up to Mt. Charleston so that I could see the snow. I really wanted to let Ola play in it, but he knocked out in the car and took the longest nap ever. I just couldn't wake him. So Aho and I just took pictures by ourselves and laughed the whole time cause we were trying to figure out how we should stand if we wanted to photo shop Ola in later. We're such dorks!
Ola wasn't really thrilled by Vegas, until he discovered the escalators. After that, it was up and down and up and down. This was while we were waiting in line for the buffet. Aho and I took turns taking him up and down.


And of course, my Uncle Paul had a blast with our little man. This is him swinging Ola in Mom's insulated tote. SO hilarious! Ola kept asking for more. Uncle P also showed him how to bounce on the bed (still in that bag) and how to turn his stroller into a super charged racer. I'm not sure who had more fun.

All in all, it was nice to get away and enjoy a change of scenery, but we were all happy to be home.

Wrecking Havoc!

Recently, with this second pregnancy, morning sickness has been getting the better of me. Most days, Ola and I just lounge around at home because mommy is too sick to even get up off the couch (or ground). And so the little man has been left to find his own entertainment, which isn't always a good thing. When left to his own devices, Ola has discovered how to....

iron the carpet...

pop all the bubble wrap...

climb onto the kitchen chairs...

and reach all the items stacked in the corner or on the kitchen counter...and then throw them on the ground.Amazingly, he also sat still long enough for mommy to make sure his new beanie and mittens fit for our upcoming trip to Vegas. Oddly enough, he really liked the mittens.
In a realization that we needed to use our down and out time more constructively, we've been working on a few new things. Ola now knows the signs for "more" and "please" (his own version), which he has found very handy around snack time. We're also working on "apple", "cracker", and "cookie", which are all a little more difficult. And besides signs, he's also learned a new word. But for some reason, it only applies to phones. (You'll have to listen carefully. He's kind of quiet in this shot.)

Halloween

This year, we were a little slow with our Halloween decision making. In fact, we didn't decide until two days before Halloween what Ola would be. And then, we only decided the morning of Halloween that Aho and I would dress up too. But, that said, I think we did ok. We got to celebrate with cookies from my mom & dad, trick-or-treating with friends at the mall, and then some trunk-or-treating at our chapel. It was so much fun, and I was so happy my boys got all decked out. They were such good sports.
Our basket of cookies, minus a couple heads.

It took him a minute to figure out what he was holding. Actually, it only took him one bite. YUM!Ola all dressed up before we left.


The whole fam. Popeye, Brutus, & Olive Oyl. (At this point, we were pretty much exhausted, but, I had to get at least one picture.)

My two favorite boys

I love my boys! Without Aho and Ola, I really don't know what my life would be. They keep me busy, the keep me laughing, and even though they drive me crazy, somehow, they keep me sane. In the past couple of weeks, I caught a few pics of them that I just couldn't help but love. After all, they're pics of my two favorite boys.

Daddy and Ola looking at the Sesame Street gang on display at the Thinker Toys at Windward Mall.


Like father, like son. (Laugh if you must at Aho, but he's being excessively animated to try to get Ola to keep the hat on so I could at least snap a picture. What a good Daddy.)


And possibly my favorite...my two boys...fast asleep. Ola was supposed to go to sleep in his own bed, but he climbed out and snuggled up next to his Daddy. He didn't even try to send him back to bed. Now THAT'S precious!!

What a trick!

Waiola is constantly learning new tricks. Sometimes they are things that we have tried to teach him, and sometimes we have no idea where he gets them from. At the end of last month, Ola woke up one morning and decided that he was going to show me his fancy new trick. I had never seen him do it before, but all day long, this was all he did.

On the floor, on the couch...brother was having a blast! We don't know where he got it from, but we just had to laugh. And then...I realized what he was doing. Amongst our friends, there is a little known occurrence that when your child does this....
it means they're expecting a new sibling. Low and behold...our little man was trying to prepare us for the news. Come June, our Ola will be welcoming his first little brother or sister. If you ask me, that's a pretty talented trick. But seriously...who taught him this??

Mr. Independent

Recently, we've been having a difficult time getting Ola to sit down and eat. Especially at dinner time, he has been getting extremely fussy and turning away from food. Since he's already below the average weight for his age, we were a little concerned that he wasn't getting the nutrition he needed. Apparently, he just wasn't getting the food the way he wanted it. Turns out, our "big boy" did want to it...he just wanted to do it by himself.



After a week of struggling to get him to eat, last night (night 2 of letting him feed himself) he ate 3 bowls of food. I guess he just wanted to be Mr. Independent.

The BI

So, this weekend, we flew up to the Big Island for a short family trip. Aho and I both hadn't been to the BI in a while, and we thought it would be nice to just go and hang out. We spent the first day in Hilo, then drove around to Waimea, and ended up on Kona side. It was nice to be away from the city and see so much green.


Our hotel in Hilo was a little interesting. They had just remodeled, and instead of carpet, had used all tile. Every single sound echoed throughout the entire floor, including that of our very noisy one year old. And, they only gave us two towels. Luckily, Ola was small enough to use one of the hand towels. lol!
We drove around past Hilo the second day and stopped off at Akaka Falls. Ola had just knocked out in his car seat, and since no one was at the falls that early, Aho and I hopped out for a quick pic. You can barely see the falls just above my head.


We got into Waimea at the perfect time...right before they closed the roads for the parade. So, we found a parking spot and joined everyone else to watch the parade. It was so nice and cool, the little man actually needed a jacket.


My two paniolo trying on hats at the Parker Ranch store. I think Ola is meant to be a cowboy!


Kona side was hot, of course, so when we got to our hotel we headed down to the pool. Ola was so happy to be in the water.


A nice little waterfall between our room and the pool.


We went to a little shopping area for dinner that was totally empty. So, we grabbed some food and sat on the grass while Ola tried his hardest to get down to the water spouts. I'm still surprised that he didn't end up completely drenched.

Tutu & Papa's House

Last weekend we flew home so that Ola could spend some time with my parents on Kauai. I love going home because it's so relaxing and my parents have a large yard where Ola can just run free. He loves to be outside when we are there, and loves that Papa lets him play with as much water as he can get his hands on.

Ola's newest toy at Tutu & Papa's house, his water and sand table. (This was taken right after we set it up, and had yet to hit the beach to get the sand)

Trekking through the yard with his new boots.

Looking for the kitty under the truck. Our poor cat is terrified of people as is, and then came my little monster who would run after him to try and see him. The cat spent a lot of time hiding.

"Let me out!" (Hard to see, but the cat is across the street. It's much safer over there, as there are no little monsters.)Ola's absolute favorite thing to play with on Kauai...Water! Papa had sprinklers and hoses...he was soaking wet majority of the time. And...totally happy about it.

New & different toys...

Recently, Ola has found himself some new, fabulous toys.

It always cracks me up how he can be enthralled by the simplest things...
like finding Daddy's tape measure. He has so much fun pulling it out and then letting it fall back in.

And yet, he loves the extravagant toys too, but mostly for something small...like loving his new car simply for the music button. Never mind that it goes all over the place and has a steering wheel and blinkers and a door and gas tank that open. Nope, the most important part is that it plays 4 songs.

And then, some toys, we're still learning with...like the fancy basket ball game he got from the Tuitele & Albino Family for his birthday. He still thinks the point of the game is to hold the ball up and touch the bottom of the net. Oh well, he probably won't be tall enough for basketball anyway.

But one of the toys he has recently chosen is, by far, my favorite. If he can learn how to use this "toy" correctly, and "plays" with it for the rest of his life, I'll be content.

Caught...black handed?

Usually, in the mornings, Ola is awake before I'm quite ready. I put the gate up before we go to bed so that he can't get past the two bedrooms, and for the most part, there's nothing in the two rooms that he can't touch. Or, so I thought. Friday morning he was unusually quiet, and I figured he was just playing with his toys. I should have known better, because the last time this happened, he was ripping apart my scriptures. I checked on him and he looked fine...but that was without my glasses on. So I rolled over, put on my glasses, and took a second look. And that's when I saw it...Somehow, my little monster had gotten into my closet, then into my craft box, and then into my black stampin' up ink pad. After a quick inspection, I noticed that his two little hands were covered, and there were a few spots on his tummy and legs. Luckily, he hadn't gotten it on his face or in his mouth. (And luckily, it's non-toxic. Believe me, I checked.)
Upon further inspection, I found a few spots on the floor where he had obviously dropped the ink pad, ink side down; bluish-black smudges all over a large plastic container near the closet; and worst of all, yet somehow cutest of all, tiny bluish-black hand prints on my beautiful, fairly new, white sheets.

I had to laugh. Then, I had to grab my camera. After that, there was a lot of scrubbing. Wipes. Soap and water. And then, we just went and took a bath. About an hour later, it looked like blue ink instead of black and was a little less obvious. And by the end of the day, it was pretty much all rubbed off, with just a little bit left under his fingernails. Now if only I could get it off my sheets.

Toddler Bed

Aho and I have been talking about the lack of space we have in our house. So we thought that, since Ola hasn't slept in his crib for a while, we'd take it down. On Thursday, I started cleaning his room, preparing to take his crib apart, when I realized that I had stored the half rail for the toddler bed conversion under his crib. Hmmm...I wonder if he'd like to try this. So, instead of breaking the crib down, I converted it into the toddler bed. This was a little difficult, considering that once I took the front panel off, Ola thought it was his new playground and kept climbing in and out. It's a little hard to drop the frame down to the lowest point when you have a little boy walking around on top of it. I eventually got everything set up, and sat back laughing while Ola climbed in and out of his "big boy bed". He seemed to really like it, so we've been putting him to sleep in there. We hoped that maybe since he liked his bed, he'd sleep in it longer. So far, no luck. But, it has only been a few days, so I guess I can still hope. Although, last night, I woke up to find him standing by my bed. I guess it's easy to get out of or off of than a crib or a full mattress.

Party, party, party!

On August 15th, we had Ola's 1st birthday luau. Because of his love of animals, I chose a safari animal theme, complete with elephants, lions, giraffes, monkeys, and hippos. After all the planning and work, about 4 straight months of party stuff, I was really happy when everything worked out well. We had a bouncer and balloon animals for this kids, good entertainment, cute decorations, and great Hawaiian food. But best of all, we had lots of family and friends to help us celebrate. Sadly, my poor Ola boy had only had one very short nap that day, so he was not quite in his normal happy mood. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to wait for the next birthday. =)

The beautiful banner, thanks to the help of Uncle Cameron, Aunty Lohi, and the wonderful Cricut!
My paper mache elephant card box. Not exactly what I had planned on, but not bad.
Our wonderful balloon twisters. Ola got a giraffe to go with his theme, but I didn't catch a picture.
Our 'ono Hawaiian food courtesy of Laverns. Rice, poi, laulua, kalua pig, chicken long rice, squid luau, lomi salmon, pineapple, sweet potatoe, and haupia. Oh, and the Ing/Tuitele chocolate cakes. Yum!!!
Me and my boy...both very tired. Happy Birthday Ola Boy! Mommy loves you!

Not quite measuring up

Two days after Ola's 1st birthday, we went to our pediatrician for his 12 month well baby check-up. They took all his measurements, including head circumference, height, and weight. They checked his eyes, ears, nose, lungs, and hips, and also gave him his three shots. We always take all his measurements and shots in the exam room, then head to the doctor's office to wait for the verdicts. So, following the exam, we headed there to wait.
The doc came in and began by pointing out where Ola was on the graph of average children his age, and simply said, "his growth is really great. He's right where he should be." I, however, took one look at the two dots WAY on the bottom of the growth curves, and thought otherwise. Knowing me very well, and knowing I'd freak out, our pediatrician had tried to avoid telling me that Ola was in the 10th percentile for both height and weight. I guess he didn't think I'd notice his marks were on the bottom of the chart. But, he did reassure me that despite the numbers, Ola's growth is actually looking really good, and that a lot of boys are behind for a while and then hit their growth spurts later. I simply told him "I hope you're right!"
At 12 months, our boy is 20 lbs., 7 oz., and 28 1/2 in. He may only be in the 10th percentile, but great things come in small packages (we just hope he gets some height and weight at some point).

the big ONE!!

Today, our baby boy turned one. It's hard to decide if the past year has dragged on, mostly due to lack of sleep, or flown bye. But really, I can't believe that he is actually one. Because we're having his big party later in the month, we didn't plan much for today. Just a few presents, a cake which never got made (thanks to mommy using all the eggs for breakfast and leaving none for the cake), and a last minute trip to Chucky Cheese.


When Ola woke up this morning, I took him downstairs so he could open his present. For a while, he was more interested in the tissue paper than the actual present.

When he finally realized what was inside the tissue paper, he had the biggest smile. If anyone thought we were boring parents, just giving our kid books for his birthday, all they'd have to do is look at this picture. With the combined efforts of mommy and daddy, Ola got 7 new books for his birthday. Baby Giggles, Baby Colors, Where the Wild Things Are, Five Chinese Brothers, Horns to Toes and in Between, Pajama Time, and the Belly Button Book. As of tonight, we've already read 5 of them. =)

To finish off the day, we made a last minute trip to Chucky Cheese. Ola wasn't afraid of the big walking rat at all. In fact, when Chucky stood up to walk around and see other kids, Ola followed after him, pointing and talking. He was a quick fan.


But, my favorite part of the day, was when we sang him Happy Birthday. Aho did it first, after which he told me I had to see what Ola did when he sang to him. FYI, that snorting you hear is Ola laughing.