All about the "D": May 2012

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Our Hoike!

Saturday, May 19th was my halau Kehulili O Kailani's annual hoike. Everything turned out absolutely wonderfully! The food, weather, music & dancing was awesome! I'm so thankful for all the family and friends who came out to watch and support our halau! Mahalo! Oh, and be sure to scroll all the way through to watch some videos of our dancing!

My two keiki's and I ready for the show to begin!

Our first number, E Lili'u e, which was a very fast, modern auana style hula.

This was my niece, Leia's first hoike. She's doing a seated hula called Kilauea. She did such a great job!

Here we are performing a medley with the uli uli, ipu and puili sticks. :)

Next we used kala'au sticks and did a new hula called Hopoe.

This was a fun one - Maeva - which means "welcome" in Tahitian. (On a side note, I remember when Andrew and I went to Tahiti back in 2006, and I remember stepping off the cruise ship onto one of the islands and hearing some of the locals singing and dancing to this same song! So fun!)

Poi Balls! Need I say more? ;)

Leia performing her keiki tahitian - very cute!

This was my favorite hula of the day... Lei Halia, by Keali'i Reichel, which means lei of fond recollection. Keali'i Reichel is my absolute favorite Hawaiian artist. I was so blessed to see him perform live last Christmas! :)

And this was my favorite costume that we made... yes, we made this costume (and just about all of our costumes) by hand! Tons of work, lots of time & effort, but it was fun, and well worth it in the end!

You can see both this Tahitian routine, called Ote'a Tai, and the above hula, Lei Halia, in the following videos! Enjoy!

Mahalo again! And mahalo nui loa to our teachers Leimomi & Luana for all their hard work in making another hoike a wonderful success!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Just a regular morning... :)

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Micah Talking & New Car Seats

So I caught Micah having a lovely conversation with himself in the laundry room the other day. His voice echoed a little bit in the empty dryer, and I think he liked how it sounded.... such a cutie! Gotta love that sweet, low, baby voice of his!

In other news... last weekend we moved both boys into their "big boy" car seats! We made the move now, because Micah is starting to outgrow the infant carrier carseat. So, we moved Micah into the Recaro, and got Samuel a new carseat that converts to a booster & backless booster when he's ready.

Here's Samuel super excited about his new carseat! His favorite part is the cupholder, and the secret compartments for his toys. :)

And here is Micah trying out the Recaro for the first time. He really seems to enjoy it and loves to snuggle up against the head rests when he is tired. Samuel was the same age (10 1/2 months) when we moved him into this one too... and for comparison's sake, below is a snapshot of Samuel back in the day when he tried out Recaro for the first time too... :)

TTFN!

Monday, May 7, 2012

What a coincidence!

Okay, so this is such a coincidence! Totally not planned, but I snapped shots of both my boys doing basically the same thing... while wearing the same thing. Can you believe it? I can't. Too cute!

On the left is Samuel, 11 1/2 months old... and on right is Micah, 10 1/2 months old.

They are both wearing the EXACT same onesie... and nothing else. (Except a diaper... oh and Micah is also wearing one sock). So funny!

So fun to see the two boys at nearly the same age doing the same things... :) Have a great day everyone!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

8 years

May 1st marked 8 years of our marriage!

I am married to the sweetest, most caring, thoughtful, serving & loving husband... ever!

And this is our 8 year anniversary photo, as taken by Samuel. We love it.

We celebrated early by taking a date night last Saturday night and ate at this cute little restaurant called Paon in the Carlsbad Village. It was very nice, and since it was a lovely evening, we ate al fresco on their little patio. It was fun to get dressed up, to enjoy dinner just the two of us, and we really enjoyed being able to carry on a conversation for 2 hours over dinner... (instead of the usual 2 minutes we get before being interrupted by a child or two). :)

Then, on our anniversary day, we packed up the kids, some beach towels and warm jackets and headed to the beach for an evening picnic. :) We all really enjoyed being at the beach, and I treasured every moment together as a family, and thought back on all the blessings God has brought into our lives over the past 8 years. Specifically, two sweet baby boys!

Following the beach, we went to get some frozen yogurt, as is tradition in our family after a dinner picnic on the beach. :)

Then after tucking the kids in bed, we turned on an old VHS with tidbits of our wedding rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, ceremony & reception... and watched all 90 minutes of it together! The sweetest part was re-reciting our vows to each other. :) Wow! So many memories and so fun. What a wonderful day. Thank you God for this man and our marriage!

P.S.

All about the "D"