May- kitties, babies, end of school year

 Brent and I went on a walk to the beach and walked by the house that we nearly lived in this year. I was reminded again what a miracle it was that we got into the house that we did. This one we were originally set to get was tiny with only one bathroom and two bedrooms upstairs and a small kitchen/living room area downstairs. Here I am looking into the unit:

My friend Katia had her baby in April. Instead of making her dinner I offered to do her laundry. I washed some super cute tiny little boy clothes! When we returned their laundry, Audrey, Coen and I got to meet her baby. 

Rocket- the sweetest cat around! Every once in a while I let him in while I work and he climbs on my lap and loves cuddles. 

One evening we couldn't find Audrey and Velzy. We have no fence between our house and the neighbors, which is a bunch of BYUH girls. We found them sitting around a campfire with the students, eating smores with them! Haha. The students had also showed the girls that they had rescued another kitten that looked just like Rocket. They named him Mowgli and our kids loved him. 

Something about living in Hawaii- everything goes rusty so quickly! This can of soup is only a few months old but you can see it's all rusty!

Audrey holding Mowgli:

A random video of a very tiny gecko in our kitchen:

When driving into town, we always pass this colorful park. This Saturday while on our way to Costco we finally stopped and got out to explore the little park. Since we don't get to play at parks very often, the kids were soooo excited! 

For sale at Costco- wild raw whole octopus for $7.49/lb. Each of these packages cost $40. 

Coen gets 100% on his spelling tests every week. I don't help him study for them, so I asked him how he gets them all right every week. He shrugged and said, "I just know them." I think he sees a word once and then remembers how to spell it from then on.

Our kids play in the backyard all the time, which I love. Audrey especially, is out there for hours every day. They love climbing the plumeria tree in the backyard and each have a spot to sit in the tree.

A video clip of life in the backyard:

I took this picture just to document how the houses are in Hawaii. One piece of property will often have two houses on it, and each house has multiple units in it. Coen's friend lives in the white house in the back, and they live in the back/downstairs unit. The dad is an attorney. There are probably 6-7 families between these two houses that you can see in this picture. 

Brent and I went to listen to a man from Rwanda speak at BYUH. He spoke about the genocide that happened in their country, and how people are forgiving each other in the country now. He told the story of a woman who lives in the same village as the man who murdered her entire family. She has forgiven him, and they are even friends now. They sat next to each other, giving an interview, and talked about the love they have for each other. It was shocking, and amazing.

Audrey had picture day at preschool. I took my own before-

They didn't get much of a better one since when Audrey smiles right now she tucks her chin back :)

Here's Audrey's preschool class, with Auntie Joy on the left and Auntie Jamie on the right. Auntie Lauren is sitting on the bottom left. Audrey is on the back row, toward the middle. Her favorite friends this year were Alana, Erika, and Zoe.

Our ward started up activity days in our ward, and each child and their parent needed to take a turn and plan an activity. For her activity, Ava chose to learn more about family history and make family trees. We also played the human knot game since our families are all connected in a chain. 

After activity days we had a RS tea party. We have some really funny people in our ward! It was a fun activity and I felt sad to already be moving wards and have to be the new person again.

We had Zoe's friend over to play. She loooved baby Mowgli. 

I remembered it was Coen's half birthday on Saturday morning, just in the nick of time when Brent was making pancakes. When Coen was out of the room we put a candle in his pancake and started playing the unbirthday song for him. 

Brent and I went on a long Saturday walk - to the temple, and through campus. I said a few times, "wow, I am SO tired!'

Next door to the temple are the townhouses. They all face each other in a large circle. These are one option for faculty housing.

The other option is Moana Street, where each house is a duplex, but they're more spread out down a street. We are going to be living on Moana Street in the Fall. Here's a picture of our future home!

We got home from our walk and found Ava was doing Audrey's hair and makeup.

Saturday afternoon Brent went to the theater with his movie buddies and the kids and I went to the beach with our neighbors, Velzy and her mom Tori. Audrey was so excited to go with her friend!

Mother's Day was one to remember this year! I woke up early in the morning and took a pregnancy test. It was positive! (Brent was in the living room where he sometimes sleeps when our bedroom is too hot). I got back in bed and listened to church music on pandora as I tried to fall back asleep. I smiled really big when my favorite hymn came on, one that I had been thinking of a lot the last few months. "Fear not, though the enemy deride. Courage, for the Lord is on our side." Because of the serious medical issues I had experienced in the Fall with a devastating and scary miscarriage, I had a lot of anxieties and fears about getting pregnant again. This sweet little moment and song gave me courage and peace.

Here are my three cuties! I am so grateful to be their mom. It is so fun and rewarding but also stretches me and helps me grow. I love being a mom.

And a picture with Rocket too.

It was a busy morning calling our moms and getting ready for church, so I hadn't found a quiet moment to tell Brent about my pregnancy test. After church, after he took pictures of me and the kids, they went to watch a movie. I asked Brent if I could get one picture with him outside. 

As I took our selfie, I told him, "I'm pregnant!" He responded through his smile, "no you're not...." I laughed and told him it's true. 

I took a series of live photos, so you can see his face go from "WHAT." to happy!

My sweet little Mother's Day card from Audrey.

Monday we had the Elders over to dinner, and I made soup. We brought in all the fans so we didn't die from the heat. Sometimes soup tastes yummy despite the weather. These elders loved talking with Brent about Star Wars after our lesson.

 At the end of the night, one elder realized that the shoes he had left just outside our front door got drenched in rain! He poured out the water and laughed about it.

The day finally came for Ava and Coen's May Day. They practiced a lot at school and were so excited. Ava's grade represented Spain and Coen's represented China. Their performance was on the PCC stage!

Here's all the cute little second graders sitting in the audience until it was their time to go on stage. I sat just in front of them. Brent had to teach that morning, but made it half way through in time to see our kids still.

At the beginning of May Day, the royalty are presented, which are a prince and princess for each island. 

It is customary to introduce people as the son or daughter of___ and give the parents' names.

It was so fun to watch their dances! Everything was very impressive. Volunteer parents choreographed the dances and made the costumes.  Each grade did about 3-4 dances. Here a couple video clips. 

Kindergarten- Jamaica. Then I panned over and found Ava sitting with the 5th grade in the audience. She looked so cute with her red lipstick.

First grade- Greece. These cute little dancers and Hercules were killing me.

Second grade- China. Coen is in the back, third from right. 

Fifth grade- Spain. Ava is in the back/right.

After May Day, the kids had no school so we walked over to BYUH's devotional and they joined us (though not too happily). 

At first Rocket didn't like the new little kitty, Mowgli, and would swat at him. After a few days, he got used to him and I had to take a video of him being nice to Mowgli

Pretty soon Rocket was protective of Mowgli and didn't seem to mind a little shadow following him everywhere.

It started to rain and rain, and it just kept going and going for days! It starts to flood like this:

We had visitors for a few days- Brent's friend Katie, who he worked with at Disney World, and her mom. They first went to the Big Island and great weather, and then on Oahu, they got lots of rain. We went to the PCC one day:

Around this time I started feeling iffy- 5 weeks along.

We braved the beach in the rain, but it just wasn't as fun or beautiful. 

The next day Brent took our guests and the kids to another beach and the macadamia nut farm. Still a lot of rain!

Brent showing how to crack open the macadamia nuts. Just wait for it.

On Monday I went in for an early ultrasound because my doctor wanted to make sure that the baby implanted in a good place this time. It was our wedding anniversary, and we got great news that our tiny little baby had implanted far away from my c-section scar.

The girls had a dress rehearsal for their tumbling showcase. Audrey's class was monkeys:

Audrey is on the far right. 

Ava's class was popcorn (the showcase was a circus theme). Ava is on the back right.

When we got home, Brent had decorated for our special anniversary dinner (14 years!) He bought me flowers, because we decided we can now officially afford them ;)

Fatigue started hitting me. Here I am laying down one afternoon, joined by my little girl who loves to cuddle.

Silly Coen!

Brent took the kids to an art show at their school. Here's Coen showing off his:

Audrey's last day of preschool was a swim day. 

I took a video of her classroom:

Here's Audrey coloring her cards to give to her preschool teachers. They are chip clips and we made cards saying "Chip Chip Hooray, Thank you for holding us all together this year!"

She wanted to wear red lipstick for her special preschool graduation.

Her graduation was held outside in a big open area. Brent had to teach that morning, so I brought my camp chair and went alone, although I found some friends from my ward to sit by. 

Audrey with two of her teachers- Auntie Joy and Auntie Lauren. She had such wonderful teachers and loved her school so much! 

Here she is with her friends that are twins, Alana and Erika. Audrey thinks if she brings the same thing for lunch as them, or wears matching shirts, that she's also their twin :)

Cleaning the church- Audrey wanted to mop the bathrooms with this tiny mop :)

We got a splash pad at Costco and the kids loved it. 

I took Coen to his friend Logan's baptism. We were glad we went to support him!

Ready for their tumbling showcase. I wasn't feeling well this evening so Brent took the kids on his own. 

The showcase was outside near a school, and it was so hot this evening! 

I was taking Ava's friend home and we spotted a kid swinging a dead chicken by its legs. Ewww.

Playing with the splash pad, and Mowgli really wanted to sit on my lap. 

Coen got to go on a walking fieldtrip to BYUH on one of his last days of school. He's in the very back of this picture smiling really big.

The church owns property here and allows members to use a plot of land to farm on it. We're going to share a plot with some friends, and they took Brent (and Audrey) to see the land. It's in Hauula which is the town 5 minutes south of us.

While there, they picked strawberry guava. We had had pie that was strawberry guava that was super yummy and always thought it was the two separate fruits. We learned strawberry guava is one fruit!

This whole year the PCC has been preparing the Iosepa, a traditional Hawaii canoe, for a voyage in the ocean. The canoe was in the corner of the PCC across the street from our house and they had a sign on the fence that counted down the number of days until the launch of the Iosepa. They planned to launch it at about 11pm. This Iosepa is very sacred to the people here, and I was just reading that M. Russell Ballard dedicated it in 2001. I was too tired to go see the Iosepa leave for the ocean, but Brent went and took pictures! They pulled it out of the PCC, with some songs and chanting, and then began its drive to the north shore where they launched it in the night. 

You can hear the conch blowing and the men saying "Iosepa!" which means Joseph in Hawaiian. Our street is also named Iosepa- after Joseph F. Smith who was an important missionary in this area.

My cute mini mommy, loves her babies.

The nausea really started kicking it up a notch. The heat in the kitchen at dinner time made it unbearable. Luckily Brent cooked these last couple weeks because I just couldn't bear to look at the food. One evening when he was in class I hurried and set out the kids dinner while trying not to look at the food, and then I escaped to my room with a fan on my face and a cracker to munch on. 

Just a random video where the kids wanted to see if Rocket likes bubbles:

The last day of school (May 30)- we decided to keep up our tradition and have a sleepover in the living room. 

On to summer vacation!!