Christmas 9 months pregnant- Will we have a New Year's Baby?

 

The rest of December was a month to remember! Lots of beach time, family time, friend time, and Christmas time. Oh yeah, and pregnant time for just a couple of weeks more!

December included a lot of  play dates with friends. The kids sure love their friends.

Our kids and a few neighbors decided they would like to carol on Moana Street. They had so much fun because many of our neighbors gave them treats. They ended up singing to much of the ward. Caroling barefoot with no coats is the best! 

A video of our carolers:

The nesting instinct kicked in and I spent a good portion of Saturday organizing and washing baby clothes and getting ready for our little one. Here's his drawer with his tiny clothes:

We had our neighbors over to dinner on Sunday. They live two houses away, and our kids (especially Audrey and their girls) play together 24/7. 

Monday morning OB appointments with Brent. Sometimes we go to L&L BBQ next door for lunch to make it a little date.

On Monday evening some of the kids from Ava's elementary school performed in the Hukilau Marketplace at the PCC. She's on the stage in a red shirt in a bell choir here.

Picking up Audrey from preschool- she's still so into the monkey bars and asks every day if she can play on them on our way to the car.

The Hukilau Marketplace has some fun Christmas activities this week. We went on Wednesday night and went on our North Pole ride:

And we saw Santa. We also saw the Rappleyes there so had to get a picture together.

My feet have been swelling every day for a couple months, but now in the morning they haven't "reset," so the swelling is just worse! I can hardly fit into my flip flops, and they leave dents on my feet. No other shoes fit. It hurts to walk.

Picking up Audrey from her last day of preschool before the break:

36 weeks- getting close now!

Our friend Katia invited our kids to play a piano number with her ward when it was their turn to provide a musical program at the visitor center. Katia teaches our kids piano. Ava didn't quite have her song down, so I was a little nervous for her to perform since I didn't want her to get frustrated and sad. But she stepped it up and played it the best she's ever played! I was proud of her for being brave.

The Saturday before Christmas it was wrapping time. Ava and I wrapped presents while I introduced her to only the best movie ever made, While You Were Sleeping (1995).

While the girls wrapped, Brent made sugar cookie dough. Then it was time to roll and make our sugar cookies. If you zoom in on this picture, you'll see flour all over my belly. It is hard to not get your belly dirty when cooking!

Right after we made our sugar cookies, Ava said she didn't feel good. We had invited friends over to frost the sugar cookies and watch a movie. Ava stayed in her room (and then started throwing up, nooo!).

Watching a movie with friends- I thought these two looked so cute.

Christmas Sunday pictures. No, I am not sad that we don't actually look Christmassy and cozy. Yes, Audrey went barefoot to church, as is pretty common for children here. 

With her bestie.

That evening we were invited to our friends' house to celebrate Advent. After a meal of appetizers, we gathered around the candles and each family that was invited chose a song to sing from their book of Christmas songs. Brother Henderson is a professor in music, and many people there were very musical, so it was some amazing music!

Improving with his student in the middle of our rendition of Rudolph:

Of course we had to sing Mele Kalikimaka as one of the numbers, and one of the ladies did a hula with it: 

Ava was so sad to miss this night as she was still recovering and we didn't want to share germs. 

Our fridge was on the fritz- certain parts would freeze our food, and other shelves wouldn't even set up Jello. So we put in a request, and a new fridge was delivered right away. Check out the guy on the left, carrying in our fridge- super strong.

On Christmas Eve Coen got sick with the bug, no! We had a low key Christmas Eve due to him being sick and me being super pregnant :) We did manage to make it to the beach for some relaxation though!

I asked Brent to take a few pictures of my bump (37 weeks now).

For Christmas Eve we had a ham dinner, and our usual tradition of Brent reading Luke 2 and I read parts of The Living Christ. I was so happy that Coen was feeling better by evening and could join us, and also set out the cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.

Christmas morning- Audrey had snuck downstairs and had a peek to see what Santa left, the naughty girl! 

Ava got a purple insta-camera:

Coen got a remote control car that flies:

And Audrey got her Minnie Mouse purse & wallet. 

Happy faces:

The Rappleyes came for a visit and gave the kids a large dart board:

Then we kept up our tradition and went to Kahana Bay, which the kids call Holiday Bay.

The beach had several trees and and other debris after the (almost) hurricane that swept through the month before.

This says Mele Kalikimaka! You can see one of the big trees that fell in the background that started to be buried in the sand.

We worked on the advent puzzle that my mom gave us since we had only done a few days' worth. It was fun- everyone took a day, or section. 

I got my compression socks from Amazon a couple weeks before and tried to wear them to help with the swelling. By the afternoons I was so hot that I took them off though.

I ended up working the day after Christmas since we had no plans and I was trying to get lots done before maternity leave. While I was working, I kept hearing things out the window. I looked to see these two birds building a nest right against our bedroom window. I watched them for quite a while and looked up what they're called. They're called the java sparrow. It reminded me of the nesting we've been doing for our upcoming little one.

Since it was the day after Christmas we felt all confused on which day of the week it was and nearly forgot Brent's shift at the temple! I remembered when I saw my neighbors going to their regular temple appointment and called Brent. He ran home and changed and I zipped him over. 

The sky was so pretty and pink that I stopped at the beach after dropping off Brent to enjoy a walk.

My swollen feet!

One morning Audrey told me, "I had a dream you had the baby! He fell out on the beach. And he was naked." 

I think the baby was growing exponentially at this point. 

I had quite a few contractions this day and was not feeling well, but Brent convinced me to keep our plans and go to Zephanie's pizza and then to see lights at Kawela Bay.  Brent was really hoping I'd have the baby before the end of the year so that we could get our tax credit and the baby could be a year ahead in church classes. "Go jump on the trampoline! Let's walk around a lot!" he told me. The contractions never got closer than 10 minutes together though. Our friends own Zephanie's food truck and it's so good!

We got to Kawela Bay early before the lights were on, so we walked along the beach for a bit. 

We watched the sun set and Brent took this picture of me:

Then it was dark enough that we could see the lights on the path to the beach. When I had taken Cher & Laura to this beach I could see the pathway had lights, and I was wanting to come back at night and check it out!  This is all a part of Turtle Bay.

The banyan tree was lit and looked cool:

We stopped at the resort at Turtle Bay to see their Christmas decorations. All of the people staying there were very wealthy it seemed, and dressed very nice. We were just in t-shirts and had been walking on the beach and I felt like we stuck out! Coen said, "Wow everyone here is fancy." 

On Saturday Brent had a dentist appointment in Kaneohe for a root canal. He had been in terrible pain, then got antibiotics from our local dentist, so we were glad he could get in to this endodontist to get it taken care of. While Brent was at the dentist I took the kids to Target and they each got to spend their Christmas money from Grandma Hansen. They found some good things! Then to McDonalds as this was part of their gift from my parents.

After McDonalds we went to Mexican food for me and Brent :) Then on to Pearl Harbor, as Brent wanted to see the Disney exhibit at the aviation museum. We learned that you cannot just drive across the bridge to Ford Island even though my phone directed us to do that to get to the museum :) The military soldiers with huge assault rifles turned us right around and we went to park at Pearl Harbor and take a bus over to the museum. 

We were greeted by a rainbow!

Follow the Donald Duck footprints to see  "The Walt Disney Studios and World War II."

Do you spy Ava?

The exhibit included animated short films, posters, etc from Disney's contributions to the war effort. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

This is glass from the hanger doors and has bullet holes from the Pearl Harbor attack.

Cool planes at the museum, along with Audrey playing nearby so you can see how big (or small) they are.

After the museum we went to Costco, and then got home late in the evening. On the way home I had some really painful contractions, and by this point was completely exhausted, but no baby. (Still 2.5 weeks away from my due date.)

This is what Audrey picked out at Target with Grandma Hansen's money- a Minnie Mouse playdough kitchen.

On Sunday our new friends the Fosters invited us to dinner at their house in Kaneohe. When we got there we learned that all the same families from Thanksgiving last month were also invited. It was fun to be all together again! They had all the kids stay in another room with a movie and pizza (and teenagers watching them) while the parents had a fancy dinner on china. Sister Foster was such a great host and would start us off with a question and then we'd go around the table and every person would take a turn to answer the deep thought provoking questions.

Monday morning OB appointment. Since my OB was out of town, her nurse did a non-stress test on the baby and sent the results to the doctor on call in another office. Here's a video:

Ava and our neighbors had a Harry Potter movie marathon. They started in the morning at our neighbor's house, then moved on to our house after dinner. The next morning they kept going. It was a lot!!

Brent really wanted to go back to Pearl Harbor to see the Disney exhibit one more time before it left at the end of the year. On New Years Eve we were planning on seeing the Honolulu lights, so we had another long day in town. I really only wanted to go see the lights in the evening, but when you only have one car, you can't separate like that. Coen was the only one who wanted to go with Brent again to the exhibit. (Notice Coen's Donald Duck shirt).  Here he is with Disney's Oscar for the Donald Duck wartime cartoon Der Fuehrer's Face (1943).

Coen's favorite item in the entire exhibit was this war bond that The Walt Disney Studios had during WWII. It was signed by Walt Disney and had many of his famous characters on it 

Coen and Brent were the VERY last people to see the exhibit. They let them take a couple of posters as mementos. Brent and I saw this exhibit in 2021 when we were in San Francisco. Then it moved to New Orleans and then Honolulu. Disney is finally returning all of these items back to their archives after years of being on display.

A cool old plane known as Swamp Ghost. It landed in a swamp in Indonesia during WWII and stayed there for decades. They finally retrieved it in pieces and reassembled it back in Honolulu. Animators at the Walt Disney Company would also create airplane insignias for different companies in the army, navy etc. 

They created this one for Swamp Ghost and the kids got bags, pins, and t-shirts of it.

While the boys were at Pearl Harbor, I took the girls to a nearby park. It was pretty sketchy and there was a homeless guy making me feel not safe, so we got back in the car and waited in a McDonald's parking lot for the boys. I could hardly waddle by this point so I was not feeling adventurous to take them anywhere! Audrey was happy to play on her iPad, and Ava and I watched a TV show together.

We went to the Ala Moana Mall downtown and got some Chick Fil-A for dinner, and then each kid chose something to give at the Giving Machine. 

Then it was time to see the lights downtown, which were better than the previous year since a different company did them. They are the kind that you normally drive your car through, but we got to walk all around them.

One of our favorite things to see downtown at Christmas are the decorated Christmas trees and wreaths. Each municipal branch of the city are tasked with decorating a tree. Some of them are flat-out amazing!

As we drove home we saw fireworks all across the island! The kids had wanted us to wake them up for Laie fireworks at midnight, but none of them would move out of bed when we tried! So Brent and I went on our own, and there were even more than the previous year Just a reminder that fireworks are illegal in Hawaii. We still wonder how on earth so many people across the state are able to get all of them  The 360 degree show was beyond impressive!

Well, that rounded out our fun-filled and adventurous 2024 in Hawaii! We ended the year as a family of five with just over two weeks until the new baby's due date. Brent didn't get his wish of having a family of six by the end of the year. Little did we know just how little time we'd have to wait!