Humuhumunukunukuapua'a (20mo!)

Looking shaggy in their Hawaii state fish tees Humuhumunukunukuapuaa, in serious need of haircuts!

 CET

CET

CET

Sightseeing with our friend Bryan that came all the way out from SoCal to see us and to get a break from the heat. It was great to have his visit to look forward to after our big trip : ) It was so nice seeing a friend from way back when (think college days when Phil and I were dating) to reminisce the old days, hope you come and visit again!

Sorry for the dry spell but we've been busy scheming ways to get back to Hawaii. It won't be easy when the boys can't fly for free anymore and we don't have a gazillion frequently flyer miles to get us free tickets. I don't know exactly how but we'll be back!

I want to mention a few things I missed on my last post, I realize you are probably sick of hearing about this trip already but must document it for my own benefit so bare with me. In 2006 Phil and I went to Waikiki during spring break and had a lame time there. We got back feeling like we never went to Hawaii. It just so happened that they were getting one of those 'once every hundred years' storms. It rained the entire time and seriously I've NEVER seen rain come down so hard and fast! Our last day there the entire tourist area was flooded up to our knees. It got so bad that two days after we left a major canal broke and flooded Waikiki beach with tons of sewage forcing authorities to close down one of the most popular beaches in the world!

Here is a pic of us with Diamond Head in the background, notice how green it is (it's generally a brown/yellow color).

An interesting thing happened while we were there this last time around. We came back with over 30 unused diapers! I packed all the diapers we would need for the trip and figured we'd probably end up buying a pack since it might not be enough. But something magical happened, the boys were only pooping once a day! I was praying that this wonderful occurance would continue once we got back home but the very next day home it was back to 2-3 times a day, argh! Seriously whats wrong with these children? You'd think they'd be 300lbs by now considering how much they poop!

I thought I'd take advantage of the jet lag and get them into a more convenient sleep schedule where they go to bed at 8pm instead of 7pm in hopes of getting them to wake up at 6:30/7am and not 5:30/6am like they had been doing. Well, I don't think it's been working, so not sure how much longer we'll keep this up, although they have been napping longer, hmmm...decisions decisions? These guys have a seriously good internal clock!

At the Park!

 T

 E

 I'm gonna eat your stinking flower!

 E

 samich

 E and pops

C on the spinner

Baby Updates
Eli made up his own sign for hand washing, when I tell them that we are going to wash our hands he rubs his hands together as if he were washing them. He does a better job of signing it than he does actually doing it, I usually end up washing his hands for him.

I think the flood gates might be opening for Eli in the speech department. I've seen a lot of improvement in the last two weeks or so. He's got several new words and I've noticed he's trying to say stuff when I ask him to (before it was like pulling teeth or they would just say things out of the blue). His vocab list includes: mama, papa, kity, down, go, hi, pop, ya (spanish), mas (spanish), banana (it's the same in both languages). He said 'socks' today too. He tries to mimic what I say but most of the time it doesn't sound anything like the real word but at least he gets the right number of syllables down.  They learn very quickly from each other so I think his brothers will catch up soon too or maybe it's just because they are identical (they are never too far behind from each other). I am seeing improvements in Thomas and Caleb too.They both have been saying mama, kitty, and mas for some time now. Thomas recently said pop but can't get him to say it again. Caleb said bubble, pop, papa, hi, and wow recently too. Both T and C won't repeat things as readily as Eli will, I especially notice T gets very shy quickly so I feel like he holds back more.

 Finally free ranging it in the bath tub. It was everything I feared, bucketfuls of water out of the tub, fighting over toys, pushing, etc. Will miss the bath seats : (

 Eli eatin pad thai with chops!