December so far...

It has been raining a lot the past couple of weeks, which means the kids get stuck going on errands with mom, or they need to get creative with their time at home.  It's been sweater weather which I love!  Low 70's, high 60's.  It feels like Christmas here.  

The kids enjoy wrestling together.  Betsy is finally holding her own!  Enough getting picked on.  (and yes, they are pretty much the same size now.):  

About every other day, Tristan gets into the costume drawer and dresses up.  He's pretty much the same thing every time; Spider/Super Man.  He tries to get Betsy involved and dress her up too.  This is what I've walked out to a couple of times:

We got our tree earlier in the month.  We kind of thought we were going to get a little one this year, and we came home with this beast.  Naturally, we had a little buyers remorse, but got over that fast and fell in love with our perfect tree.  I love decorating the tree.  This is our very first year using colored lights.  Mama likes.    

 So does Tristan.  He chose one little corner of the tree and hung everything there.  So helpful.  

My two boys posing by our tree:

Betsy girl is getting little curls over her ears.  I love it!  I hope they are here to stay!

Meet Fred.  He is our elf on the shelf and has been in our home since the first week of December.  He is keeping a good eye on our little ones and making sure they are being good this year.  Each night he flies back to Santa and gives him a full report.  Then he comes back to our home and finds a new place to camp out for the day, just to watch.  Tristan LOVES finding his new spot in the house each morning.  And he knows exactly why he is here.  One day when Tristan was being naughty and was crying really hard because he was getting into trouble, he ran over to Fred and cried, "Please!...don't go back and tell Santa!".  He was hysterical.  It was the saddest thing ever.  But hey, that's what Fred is here for,  to keep these kids in line. :)

 

All clean from a bath, and just cute.  Still, the happiest baby I've ever seen:

We did attend the Pipe Masters this year.  Was so much fun.  This actually deserves a post of it's own, so I'll post more pictures from this special day later.  

This was the worst Santa I have ever seen!  We were at a different mall from our own, and decided to just visit Santa while we were here and get it over with so we didn't have to fight the crowds at Ala Moana.  No one was in line, we walked right up.  Santa was kicking back with the elf photographers and a Mountain Dew.  They finally saw that we were waiting and took their positions, but no one cared to greet me or tell me what to do.  They didn't even look at me.  So I just slowly walked up with the kids, and told the photographers that we were taking our own photos.  They were fine with that, as long as we were behind the white fence.  Whatever.  That's fine.  I repeated it to Santa, just to fill him in, and he says, "Don't tell me, I'm just the mannequin".  Ok.  So I'm forcing the kids on his lap and waiting for Santa to get into character but he never did.  Didn't even care to talk to Tristan.  So I had to step in and say, "Tristan, don't you want to tell Santa what you want for Christmas??"  And Santa says really short, "What do you want?"  Tristan was not that impressed but Betsy got a kick out of the whole experience.  It was all pretty funny.  But I think we will try and take them to Ala Moana to make it up to Tristan.  It wasn't as magical as he expected.        

The stockings are hung...

...on our orange canvases with care.

Since we will be home for the holidays this year, I decided to make our family our own Christmas stockings.  They are finally done!  I started them back in November and I only had a small window of time to work on them at night, and not every night.  So I feel like they were sitting there on the machine forever.  I'm so happy we can finally hang them.  

Tristan and Betsy's stockings represent snow animals from the north and south poles; the polar bear and penguins.  

Woodland animals for Dad and Mom's stockings. 

My attempt to hand-write our names onto to patches failed miserably.  I have decided I would order embroidered name patches instead.  So glad they are done, just in time for Santa!    

Thanksgiving on the B.I.

We spent Thanksgiving on the Big Island this year.  It was a well-needed vacation for our family.  We relaxed, bundled up in cold weather (low 60's I believe), brined our turkey (delish!), played in the yard, spent time in Hilo at the Zoo, and visited the beach.  Beware, I have a TON of pictures!

 We are super impressed with Tristan's hand eye coordination these days.  Future baseball player?

 Our silly little bebes.  Whenever they are together, they love to ham it up for the camera.  

 The sun came out long enough to slide down the slip 'n slide a few times. 

 Betsy showing her Tutu her cups.

 Tristan waiting in his apron at the Thanksgiving table.

At the zoo in Hilo.  A first for me and the kids!  

 This slide at the zoo park was super slick and T was cruisin' on it.

 The biggest attraction at the (free) zoo was the white tiger named, Namaste, donated from Las Vegas.   He looked so sweet.

 On the way home from Hilo, we stopped at Akaka Falls.  T freaked when he saw how tall this fall was.  

 Christian spotted this house in his parent's neighborhood that looked pretty cool, and funny.  The bottom was finished but the top floor was still in the works.  I love the red floating door.  Kind of fun.  

On the last day we were there, we met up with some friends at Beach 69.  The water is a little chilly this time of year so we took short dips and mostly visited on the beach. 

 Tristan with his (other) Uncle Ian, checking out his underwater shots.  You MUST check out Ian's photography website!  He is incredibly talented.  

Tristan's new buddy, John boy.  They had so much fun and were super cute together.

Meet sweet baby Enzo Ka'imi O' Kekai.  Meaning, Seeker of the Ocean.  He was 7 weeks old in this picture and has already dipped in the ocean a few times, head and all!  He loved it.

Trip went by too fast.  Thank you Papa and Tutu for hosting us!  We need to come back soon.