Miss Lilikoi

Our favorite (and only, as of now) niece, Lilikoi, turned 2 years old the week before Gita turned 5. I feel so blessed to have their little family living right next door to us, especially because our other nephews/cousins are in Utah and Iowa, so having some family close by feels so precious. Lili walks over to our house at least once a day and just walks right on in and absorbs herself into our family happenings. Sometimes we don't even notice her admist the choas, that is until Alex or Kelcey comes over to let us know Lili escaped and did she possibly come over to our house? I sure love that little girl and am so excited to see her grow and develop and (early next year) become a big sister!.

Lili with the coolest balloon hat ever at the LEAF festival

snuggle bum

Happy 5th Birthday, Gita!

We celebrated Gita's 5th birthday on October 20th. She was so excited to open the stack of presents that had been growing over the past week, asking each day if she could please open just one. Her best friend, Willow, came over for the day and chased Gita on her tricycle as Gita zipped up and down the gravel road on her new 2 wheel bike (with training wheels). David says she needs to have a good solid (but not too painful) fall to put a little bit of fear in her, because as of now, she has none. I came home from work early to frost the cupcakes David made (!) and prepare dinner for the neighbors. All the neighborhood families came together with happy birthday wishes for some pre-dinner cupcakes and then a pasta dinner. Gita took full advantage of the day claiming everything was "for her birthday." Like the response to, "Girls, why don't you go upstairs and put a movie on?" is "I'll choose which one because it is my birthday movie."

Happy Birthday, Gita Pi Luca Carmona!

Little Readers

Camping at Tsali

David and the kids took a camping trip at Tsali while I was working at the conference last weekend. It was the first time David took the kids camping by himself and according to the kids reports, he did not even forget anything important like tent poles or breakfast (I will admit that I had my doubts as while my husband excels at many things, forethought is not one of them). By heading out midweek (yet another perk of homeschooling), they had the whole area to themselves. The kids enjoyed hiking, fishing, and of course, smores!