I made the comment to Jeremy tonight that we need to write a letter to our kids, during this time of our lives, to let them know how poor we were and life was simple. You know you've heard people say how they wish they could go back to those simple days of school life- but I do not know what they are talking about.
Anyway, thinking about a letter to my kids, instead of tell you about the juicy details of financial woes or list off all the things we don't have or the things that are being forced to hang on in life because we can't afford to replace it (yeah, we're there: camera, Jeremy's glasses, a computer, many common things. At least our car is great! ;P ), let me just tell you about life these days and, well, you.
I love Lucy as much as ever. She's pulled out a few of the terrible-two symptoms; some of her terrible two symptoms are fighting with baby brother, pushing and hitting him and stealing his toys (sounds awful, huh? terrible!) She also asserts her "No"s with a flaming two-year old attitude. But she's one of those kids that loves to learn and so she's just fun to be with. I'm continually amazed how well she speaks and learns new words. Despite her first-impression being shy and timid, she loves to try new things. We've had fun doing our own home-gymnastics, she does forward rolls, forward falls, and she likes to run! Princess movies and songs are still her favorite. She's seen Aladdin way too many times, it's the only disney movie we have right now. And she already knows almost every word to all the Aladdin soundtrack! Yep, she's getting to be just like her mom!
Willie is all boy for sure. Rough and tumble, loud and...loud- that's him! I can't believe he'll already be turning one in a month! He's a fast crawler and likes to climb. He hasn't shown too much interest to walk yet, still quite wabbly when he stands. He is so into whatever Lucy is doing- or whereever the action is, he has to be there; even if it's just hearing the toilet flush, he'll come running. He's very adventurous. I hate to tell you that you play with princesses way too much (we're low on boy-kine toys at the moment) and you have no shoes (this is not so much the money thing as his feet are just too fat and no shoes fit him right now, and perhaps a little bit of the money thing). But still, he is happy. His laugh is contagious and his smile the kind you'd pay money to see. So Pogi! ('Handsome' in Philipino; on a walk the other day a philipino man stopped to talk to us, to Willie he said, Hi Pogi! And told me it meant handsome. I think that's how you spell that word, I'm not sure.)
Life for mom right now is hard to sum up. The kids and I are kind of into a routine now that mom has all the free playgroups, storytimes and other family programs mapped out. What a great mom I am, (winkwink)! I'm going to try and make the kid's halloween costumes again this year. It's nothing too wow, I'm just trying to use things from around the house.
Your dad, you know we have to hand it to him, he's working so hard. Jeremy just got offered a grad assistant position with the director of Child Welfare at UH, so we're all really excited about that. It's a great position for his experience and he's getting to meet a lot of important professors at UH that will hopefully help him get into the PhD program someday. He'll have to quit the other job he had just started, but such is life. The grad assistant job pays good and we might be getting a full tuition waiver- we're still waiting to hear back if it's full out-of-state waiver or just in-state tuition waiver- anyway, that's really good! He's been doing really well in school and is glad he came to UH.
We went to the temple yesterday and afterwards came across a little festival going on at the beach. I talked with a vendor who was a photographer (I gave him your website Shonda, and you can check him out at www.holladayphoto.com), anyway his wife is a social worker and did her masters at Columbia but they said they regret not doing it at UH. Well, besides the fact that I really do know that we do have plenty, so much more than a lot of people in the world, everything we need I'm sure. But I guess the bottom line to this little letter to you kids is, despite having the worries and stress of school life, the blessings are still pouring in. And we're glad you two are here to share in it all with us!
Until 10 years, when you're old enough to read this,
love always,
Mom Courtney
Monday, September 15, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Well, what'd ya do?
Well, what'd ya do when you have time to kill and don't have a camera or pictures to play around with...I guess you play around with your blog.
Not sure I completely like the new look, but it's new nonetheless and that's fun. I will get to a more interesting post hopefully this week when we get our disposable camera developed-- I know, right, who uses that any more?! I'll try and post some interesting pics of our apartment and the kids doing kid stuff-- or something!
Not sure I completely like the new look, but it's new nonetheless and that's fun. I will get to a more interesting post hopefully this week when we get our disposable camera developed-- I know, right, who uses that any more?! I'll try and post some interesting pics of our apartment and the kids doing kid stuff-- or something!
Monday, September 1, 2008
An Email Posting: So, How's Hawaii?
Instead of sending out a "so we made it to Hawaii" email to everyone, I thought I'd just do a post with the same jist. So, how's Hawaii?
So, Hawaii is pretty much the same as I left it. The same things that I didn't like about it are still here, the same things I LOVE about it are still here!
OUR APARTMENT
Although smaller than I anticipated (of course, anything is going to be smaller after living in Grandma's house that has spare room enough for 4 families), but it's pretty cool. Jeremy did a great job on the floor. The story behind that was the tiled floor started coming up soon after Jeremy moved in and he redid a lot of the tile- working really hard to finish it before we got here. I'm no contractor, but I can't tell a difference! There's lots of cupboard and closet space for our meager 3 suitcases of stuff. We were lucky that the apartment ended up being mostly furnished. Lucy loves the trampoline in her room- well, that's what she calls it. You might say it is more of a Mattress Land (we brought 2 beds not knowing the place would be furnished as much as it was and haven't gotten rid of extra mattresses yet).
THE KID'S ADJUSTMENT
The kids were really quiet when they saw Jeremy at the airport. Lucy had a big smile on her face but was still quite shy and must of thought it was strange. She definetly got excited to be with daddy again as an elated "Daddy, (giggle, giggle)...Daddy" was the only thing she said the first 10 minutes of the car ride. Willie didn't seem phased that anything was different and tended to treat him more like a stranger the first few days. The kids had a rough first couple of nights, up at 3am and not wanting to sleep. I didn't think the time change would affect them very much. They're pretty much back to normal though.
JEREMY'S ADJUSTMENT
He was a little shocked about the kids not wanting him or recognizing him- he knew it would probably happen, but didn't know he'd feel as bad as he did because of it. I think it was hard for him the first week getting used to having the kids around again and doing all the daddy-type chores for mom again ;)
MY ADJUSTMENT
It's definetly back to student life, I can feel that for sure. None of the furniture matches, you hate to invite friends over to a cramped apartment, you're always looking for cheap or free things. Also, it's kind of weird being in a place where I was single before and meeting old friends who I haven't seen since before I got married. It's kind of a weird transition. I'm really excited about the Traveling Preschool that comes to the park nearby once a week. There are a lot of young couples with young kids in our ward too, so that will be really fun. I love being back in a hub of culture and activity of a bigger city. There's always so much going on and things to do.
Friday night our ward had an Ohana Night with a potluck and some of the YW entertained with some Samoan dancing even though they were micronesian (there are quite a few micronesian people in our ward). They also had invited a Samoan girl who was Miss Teen Samoan, or whatever something I forget, to come dance and she was supposedly one of the best young dancers from Samoa. They were fun to watch, it's always fun to see all the elaborate costumes. I told Lucy, look at the pretty girls. And now everytime she sees a young woman, she says, "Look, a pretty girl!"
Saturday, we went to the Okinawan Festival, a japanese kind of festival at Kapiolani Park near Waikiki. It was huge, bigger than I remembered from when I went years ago. We couldn't stay for the whole day, kids don't last, but it was fun to visit the culture for a few hours. Lucy loved the children's games. They were real old school- like the HP picnic used to be. Her favorite was the classic Fish Pond- she did it at least 4 times. They did a really cute job with their games- the fish pond was actually a good sized little blown-up pool filled with water. They had screwed little hooks in the tops of floaty toys and given the kids a "double hook" little fishing pole to catch the different sea animals. Lucy loved pushing the toys around with the fishing pole. We still don't have a camera yet, or I would post a picture and not spend so much time describing it. She also loved the Disney Princess bouncy Castle. It was a fun day!
So, Hawaii is pretty much the same as I left it. The same things that I didn't like about it are still here, the same things I LOVE about it are still here!
OUR APARTMENT
Although smaller than I anticipated (of course, anything is going to be smaller after living in Grandma's house that has spare room enough for 4 families), but it's pretty cool. Jeremy did a great job on the floor. The story behind that was the tiled floor started coming up soon after Jeremy moved in and he redid a lot of the tile- working really hard to finish it before we got here. I'm no contractor, but I can't tell a difference! There's lots of cupboard and closet space for our meager 3 suitcases of stuff. We were lucky that the apartment ended up being mostly furnished. Lucy loves the trampoline in her room- well, that's what she calls it. You might say it is more of a Mattress Land (we brought 2 beds not knowing the place would be furnished as much as it was and haven't gotten rid of extra mattresses yet).
THE KID'S ADJUSTMENT
The kids were really quiet when they saw Jeremy at the airport. Lucy had a big smile on her face but was still quite shy and must of thought it was strange. She definetly got excited to be with daddy again as an elated "Daddy, (giggle, giggle)...Daddy" was the only thing she said the first 10 minutes of the car ride. Willie didn't seem phased that anything was different and tended to treat him more like a stranger the first few days. The kids had a rough first couple of nights, up at 3am and not wanting to sleep. I didn't think the time change would affect them very much. They're pretty much back to normal though.
JEREMY'S ADJUSTMENT
He was a little shocked about the kids not wanting him or recognizing him- he knew it would probably happen, but didn't know he'd feel as bad as he did because of it. I think it was hard for him the first week getting used to having the kids around again and doing all the daddy-type chores for mom again ;)
MY ADJUSTMENT
It's definetly back to student life, I can feel that for sure. None of the furniture matches, you hate to invite friends over to a cramped apartment, you're always looking for cheap or free things. Also, it's kind of weird being in a place where I was single before and meeting old friends who I haven't seen since before I got married. It's kind of a weird transition. I'm really excited about the Traveling Preschool that comes to the park nearby once a week. There are a lot of young couples with young kids in our ward too, so that will be really fun. I love being back in a hub of culture and activity of a bigger city. There's always so much going on and things to do.
Friday night our ward had an Ohana Night with a potluck and some of the YW entertained with some Samoan dancing even though they were micronesian (there are quite a few micronesian people in our ward). They also had invited a Samoan girl who was Miss Teen Samoan, or whatever something I forget, to come dance and she was supposedly one of the best young dancers from Samoa. They were fun to watch, it's always fun to see all the elaborate costumes. I told Lucy, look at the pretty girls. And now everytime she sees a young woman, she says, "Look, a pretty girl!"
Saturday, we went to the Okinawan Festival, a japanese kind of festival at Kapiolani Park near Waikiki. It was huge, bigger than I remembered from when I went years ago. We couldn't stay for the whole day, kids don't last, but it was fun to visit the culture for a few hours. Lucy loved the children's games. They were real old school- like the HP picnic used to be. Her favorite was the classic Fish Pond- she did it at least 4 times. They did a really cute job with their games- the fish pond was actually a good sized little blown-up pool filled with water. They had screwed little hooks in the tops of floaty toys and given the kids a "double hook" little fishing pole to catch the different sea animals. Lucy loved pushing the toys around with the fishing pole. We still don't have a camera yet, or I would post a picture and not spend so much time describing it. She also loved the Disney Princess bouncy Castle. It was a fun day!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Grandmas ROCK!
We miss Grandma!!
We had so many fun times with Grandma! She turned Lucy into a full-fledged princess and helped Willie to grow up into a little boy. We love you so much!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Resurrected!
That song (Happy Together) always reminds me of my hubby. And maybe especially now since we've been apart for over 2 months now. But, we're counting down the days of being together again. And in celebration, I decided to up the blog again! Afterall, we'll be so far away from friends and family and we'll still want to show off pictures of cute kids and fun adventures! ;)
This year has been a good one though, living with Mom. It came with some sacrifices, but we've learned so much just from being close to Mom and working with her in various projects. I wish I would have done a better job writing down memories I've learned about her, but I guess that's a project I just will have to keep working on.
So here's to all things that are back....back to blogging...back to Hawaii...back to even having a camera...back to being together again...back to starting a new chapter of life.
RESURRECTED.
This year has been a good one though, living with Mom. It came with some sacrifices, but we've learned so much just from being close to Mom and working with her in various projects. I wish I would have done a better job writing down memories I've learned about her, but I guess that's a project I just will have to keep working on.
So here's to all things that are back....back to blogging...back to Hawaii...back to even having a camera...back to being together again...back to starting a new chapter of life.
RESURRECTED.
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