April was a rough month overall. It started out with our deep freezer going out. Luckily Brent noticed probably only a few hours after it went out and we didn't lose any of our food. We took everything out of the deep freezer and also our regular fridge/freezer to organize everything and put the most important stuff in our freezer that was still working. Look at all this food! We put a little bit of food on a shelf or two in our next-door neighbor's freezer. It was actually a good project to throw away stuff that we were never going to eat!
Kai turned 3 months! He just got happier and more fun each day. Brent left for Chicago on April 2, so the kids helped me with Kai's 3 month pictures.
It was raining so much, so these girls got out boogie boards and swimming suits to enjoy the rain.
Kai went on a nursing strike while Brent was out of town, so I had to keep pumping a lot. One time Audrey was sitting next to me feeding Kai his bottle while I was pumping. She was getting tired of holding the bottle and asked, "Mom, can you hold this? I'll pump." I asked, "How are you going to pump?" She replied, "Because I have tiny boobies." That made me laugh so much!
Here's a video from Conference- Kai loved Elder Holland- it was so sweet!
We got out of the house in between sessions and fed the horses on Kam Highway. The kids were fighting and fighting in the car, about who was holding the carrots, etc.
A video:
I made the kids the General Conference Easter eggs (activity ideas inside of the egg labeled with each apostle's name. When the apostle speaks, they open up his egg). One of the activities was dance break. Here's a video:The kids played legos for quite a while and I was also trying to fold laundry during conference. Tired mom. And sweaty, hot baby.
I don't have a picture of Audrey in her monkey costume, but it's just a simple headband ears and tail. One day she was wearing it and Kai cried at something. She said, "I think Kai got scared because he thought I was a monkey."
Ava got to go on a fieldtrip to play miniature golf, about 45 minutes away. Parents helped out by driving the kids and chaperoning.
Bathroom selfie with my baby. I have done this with all my babies!
Brent got back from his trip in time to see the kids' Keiki Rising performance. They did songs from Beauty & The Beast and Wicked. Ava got to play Galinda in two of the songs and was thrilled. Coen was in the ensemble and was SO nervous to perform- it was his first time to do anything like this. Ava called us on her watch as they were doing their dress rehearsal, "Coen feels like he's going to throw up. He wants you to come here."
After some hugs, pump up talks, coaxing, and reassurance, he stuck it out and performed on stage right after the dress rehearsal.
From Belle:
From What is This Feeling:
From One Short Day:I have no picture, but I started back to work on April 8, the day after Brent got home. Brent watched Kai while I worked since he was still on paternity leave for a couple more weeks. It helped me ease into it to have Brent watching Kai instead of a babysitter. I was really sad to go back to work though! I thought it might get easier with each baby, but somehow it just feels harder. I didn't want to be away from Kai at all.
The next day Brent took Ava to get her braces on! She was pretty excited about braces and had been looking forward to them for a while.
As they were driving away from the orthodontist office toward Costco, Ava felt a bracket pop off. Brent called the office and they told him to bring Ava back the next day to get it fixed as it was now closing time. Guess how far away we live from the orthodontist office? A minimum of 45 minutes, so that would be an hour and a half of driving each way. The downside of living so remote! Luckily we planned to meet Chris the next day at the botanical garden near the office so we could take her then.
The kids love picking out Kai's clothes for the day, and they often choose these Dumbo ones.
This is how Kai sleeps- in a swaddle that lets his arms stay up by his face, and in a baby lounger placed in my bed. He's the first baby to sleep in bed with me, but I think by baby #4 I'm just SO tired that it's easier this way. He actually spends the first part of the night in a rock n play next to Brent, who sleeps on the couch downstairs. This way we both get part of the night without a baby waking us up.
Ava and Coen each did Battle of the Books this year. Their division gets a list of books to read, and then they meet during the year to do practice questions about the books. The competition is team-based and has some written portions and buzzer rounds. Here's Ava's team with her good friends Sakura, Jonathan, and Chrissy.
There were 10 teams, representing about 7 schools, competing.
Coen's team got 4th or 5th this year. He is a smarty pants but I found out after that he didn't read all the books, oops.
and then we got a few like this, haha!
It had beautiful views and delicious food. Kai slept the entire time.
I don't know anything about cars, but man these were beautiful!
I asked the owner how they got these cars into the second floor of the house which is built in the mountain side (see three pictures above) and he told me a helicopter dropped them off and then they drove them in. I wasn't sure if he was kidding, but how else would these cars have gotten upstairs??
On Monday Chris said goodbye and Brent and I went to work.
I try to nurse Kai while I'm working, although he's not as good of a nurser as Audrey was. So it's hard to do it while I work since I have to sometimes switch off a bottle with nursing to keep him happy. He also eats super fast now and is done in like 4 minutes.
A video of Kai's laughing turning to crying:
Living among faculty and seeing different professors in robes, it was like we live in the world of Harry Potter, especially when I saw our neighbor flying down the street on his electric scooter while wearing his robe.
We had a little Primary Easter egg hunt at the neighbor's house.
Little sickies:
One day I was dishing Coen dinner and asked him, "how much rice do you want?" He responded seriously, "75 pieces." I laughed and asked, does that mean a lot or a little?
Coen had a fun Primary activity where they made an Easter story activity, and also egg rockets. The eggs had a little water and Alka seltzer in them, which would make the top blow off.
Chris came to visit for the weekend. We met him at the botanical garden in Kaneohe. Look at Kai's face when meeting him:
Beautiful Koolau mountain range:
They fed koi fish and walked around the botanical garden some more while I drove Ava to the orthodontist. Then they went to the macadamia nut farm. Coen is showing that he cracked open the outer shell of the macadamia nut to find "twins" inside! Two nuts.
Kai's giggles are starting and it's the absolute best.
Chris let the kids pick out some food at 7-Eleven and had a picnic at the beach park.
That night I made lasagna soup while Brent took Chris on a mini tour of Laie.
At the very end of this video, Ava answers a question correctly! She has a really good memory and so this put those skills to good use.
Ava's team got first place!
While I was with the baby at the high school watching the competition, Audrey went to a birthday party and Brent and Chris went to the PCC.
Some pictures that Coen took of Kai. Many of them were so cute,
Sunday Chris went to church with us and then wanted to take us to a fancy restaurant about 15 minutes away from our house called The Crouching Lion.
It had beautiful views and delicious food. Kai slept the entire time.
The restaurant is set in the mountain side like this.
As we were leaving, Brent and Chris started talking with the owner, and he had all of these amazing vintage cars in the white house behind the restaurant. Chris is a lover of old cars, so it was perfect when the owner asked if we wanted to come check out the cars.
Look at these adorable toes!
Sister Gray came to visit. She is always taking pictures and took this one. Just us in our normal habitat. Audrey's running around somewhere!
On Monday evening I was playing a board game with Audrey and during the short time we were playing, I went from having a sore throat to having chills and feeling really sick. I went to bed, but woke up a couple hours later with a fever, chills, body aches- the works. I couldn't sleep the rest of the night because I felt too sick to even sleep. Ava came down with it in the middle of the night, then Coen the next afternoon, and then Kai. It. Was. Awful. I don't think I have ever felt that sick in my life, aside from after the births of Ava and Kai! Ava and I went to the doctor and tested positive for Influenza A. We got tamiflu for the whole family.
Brent and Audrey were the only ones who didn't get sick. Brent took care of us- making us jello, buying us powerade, etc. Ava and Coen couldn't hold down anything for a couple days.
Finally Brent had to get some of his work done to prepare for his upcoming semester. Enter the TV babysitter for Kai. A video:
It POURED and Moana Street flooded. All of the neighbor kids came out to play in the river that formed in the street.
A video of the flooding:
Kai talking:
Audrey dancing for me:
Friday was graduation at BYUH. Here's Brent and his colleague with some of their students:
Audrey went to her friend's birthday party:
Kai thinks the baby in the mirror is so fun and smiles at him a lot :)
Brent moved his office. They are tearing down most buildings on campus and reconstructing almost everything. It's going to be very nice some day! The building where Brent's office was located was partially condemned. It's one of the first to go, so Brent's department is moving offices to another building across campus. It was a big project for Brent to move all of his stuff in his office! It took some very late nights all weekend.
In the meantime, the kids and I continued recovering at home from influenza. Here's a video after being cooped up all week:
Brent and I got out to go on a walk at the beach. This picture is taken at 6:50pm- that's the most beautiful time of night. In the winter, it is about an hour earlier.
Another video from being cooped up all week. Coen can get so giggly, and this laugh in particular is so funny:
Easter! We tried to make it more special this year like the First Presidency asked us to, and we read parts of the Easter story leading up to Easter that week. On Easter we still did our egg hunt and baskets, although I think I keep that pretty simple. Also, I realized on Saturday that we only have two Easter baskets in this state. A quick Target run is not possible here, so we just make do with what we have!
That evening Brent decided we should drive to Sunset beach to see the sunset. Since we live on the eastern shore of Oahu, we don't get sunsets over our beach. If we drive up and around the tip of the island for about 20 minutes, the shore is now on the western side of the island and gets beautiful sunsets. Hence the name.
Here's an encore of Audrey shaking her hips- I think this one is funnier than the second.
That evening I was planning to take the kids to see the Garfield movie at our library's movie night. Since we don't get to the movie theater here, this is as close as it gets to getting out and seeing something new. I started to feel so exhausted and not well again. I decided I could get up the energy to just drive them to the library and sit for a movie. Audrey invited our neighbor and we went to pick up Coen from Brent's office.
As we were driving around the circle on campus, I saw a man in a suit standing at a car, and then realized it was Laura's father-in-law, Elder Strong. I had known he would be on campus speaking at an event, but didn't expect to see him. I pulled over and told Ava to roll down her window and say, "We're Emma's cousins!" We definitely caught him off guard and it took him a second to realize who we were :)
Turns out he couldn't get his rental car to start because the battery in the key fob was rusting out. Brent came over and was able to help him by giving him a battery and I went off to the library with all the kids. It was a sweet little moment of being in the right place at the right time.
A funny thing Coen said was he called cradle cap, "curdle crap" and I feel like that should be the actual phrase we use from now on.
Another fun Primary activity- building towers out of marshmallows and noodles.
Brent is excited that he is turning one of his classes, Popular Culture in Communications, into a Disney edition class this fall. He made posters to advertise the class and Ava helped him put them up around campus. The other night the seniors were able to register beginning at midnight, and by 2am he had people emailing him requesting to be let in because it was full.
Audrey's May Day fell on a Friday so Brent was able to attend with me. (He started teaching the week before). The elementary school also didn't have school, so Ava and Coen got to watch as well. Audrey's class represented the made up island of "zumba."
A video:
This class from Tonga was adorable:Kai really loved the whole thing.
Our little zumba girl:
Audrey riding her bike on campus:
Kai laughing, because we all can't get enough baby giggles:
One day I text Brent at work that I was out of patience with the kids for the day. He came home and declared we were going to the beach. It definitely helped with kids fighting, and helped me feel better!
And that concludes April-I now have a new paranoia of influenza because I never want my kids or I to get that ever again. But we had some great times too with May Day and Kai giggles.
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