Back on Hawaiian soil

Hello again. We are back...home sweet home! Our trip to Samoa was refreshing, thrilling, and soooooo HOT! Kamanamau was given the opportunity to meet his great grandparents. We had such a great time. I only wish Joe came with us, but of course he was tied down with work. Not to my surprise my family fell in love with this kid. It's custom to leave your child(ren) with family if asked to and I was pressured over and over again to leave Kamanamau there, but there was no chance that it was gonna happen. If I left Mana there then I would lose my title as his bodyguard and I just love this job. The closest thing to leaving Mana in Samoa was if we all moved there. Come to think of it, my mom would put up a fight if she knew we were going to live in Samoa. Our purpose for the trip was for my grandma's birthday. We weren't the only visitors they had; my cousins from New Zealand came over too. You would think my grandparents would slow down because of their age and take rests here and there but NO, not at all. I'm telling you these people get up early in the morning to do what they do. From farming to plantation work and everything in between, they did it all. I was inspired by their strength and love for each other and their work. I hope we see them soon.

I see land!!!

This is how he entertained himself

Cheezin for the camera - Mana checkin' himself out in the mirror.

THE TONGAN STUDS

Leaving on a jet planeWe could still see my grandma waving her hanky at this point

We're going home. It's bitter sweet hence my smile and his scowl.

First class. First class on mommy's lap.

Home at last!

Out to dinner on our day back

Full rack of ribs! Catching up on what he missed while in Samoa

We're whole again :)

I am soooooo behind on this blog, i knew it would come to this lol. Well since Kamanamau is asleep and I have a 15 page paper due on Monday and I gota wake up tomorrow morning at 5, plus I still have homework to do for class tomorrow...I felt that this would be the BEST time to reactivate my blog mode.

Here's the update :

• MY BIG BOY TURNED ONE YEARS OLD!!! I know this is a "couple" of days late but its ok. I'm a firm believer of the saying "better late than never".

• (No available picture) Plus, I wouldnt want you to have nightmares of me!! We had our anniversary and somewhat celebrated it, but it wasn't exactly the romantic kind of night .... I literally had a FAT FACE lol. PUffy, red eyes with an itchy throat. Just imagine myself looking like Hitch when he had that allergic reaction...that's what I looked like. no joke. Lol

• We took a trip to Kona for Vaughn & Caryn's sealing. It was our first family trip off island. I learned that Joe HATES flying and Kamanamau LOVES it. On the flight back home, he kept screaming on the plane, it was the good excited scream but the old ladies in the front of us were not happy about it at all. They should be happy he wasn't crying, then they'd regret even being in the same plane. We stayed with Lana's granny for a little bit. She was so awesome. I love her house!!! We ate Thai for dinner and caught the last flight back home.

• My dad, his wife, and their 2 kids came down for vacation. Teanekuma (2 yrs old) is the oldest boy and Douglas (4 mnths) is the baby. Teanekuma is a bully; I really hate that he pushes Mana. Teanakuma looks like my older sister...scary! haha. Douglas loves to smile. He's kind of a chill baby. In the picture, Kamanamau didn't know whether he should be afraid or happy because the baby was just about to cry.
  

• We love this kid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, this clip is really dark and is such poor quality but i thought it was cute. He loves to rock in this chair.

Puppy love

Mana got bored after a while but it was very entertaining watching him play with the little pup while he was still interested. He pulled the puppy's ear and it yelped which got Mana scared. When the puppy (i think they named him Rafiki ?? lol) ok..so the puppy was running around for a little bit and Mana just looked at the creature like it was crazy..that confused, what are you doing look. lol.

No it's not ours.

Yes i will update.

Mmmm mmm pineapple!

He loves all kinds of fruits...actually he loves most food. So far he has only rejected green beans, lettuce, and baby oatmeal/baby cereal (unless i mix it with something fruity of course). I shouldn't have given him lettuce but he kept jumping at it so I thought since it's healthy then I'll let him have it, but sure enough he knew it was just too healthy for him so he spat it out.

winter 09

School started up again so we're back to the cram sessions and tired mornings. I already feel drained.

Joe is working hard in school and at work itself. He's doing his best. I know he works hard for us. He often puts himself last, and I keep telling him that sometimes it's ok to do things for yourself ....i just don't want him to be burnt-out.

Kamanamau is not walking on his own yet. I think i might have made a mistake by putting shoes on him too early. He's getting there though. (kata, i hope you're NOT praying that he doesn't walk until you see him).

This semester will be the hardest. There's so much busy work.

My church calling has been something else. This is more of a blessing than a burden but it's so hard to see it when you're not willing to learn. I know everyone says that but that is basically where I'm at.

stalker

This is a old story, but I figured it was interesting so it's blog-able.

I do my share of looking at other people's blog, myspace, or whatever else internet thing there is out there. Ok it's called blog stalking. Stalker blogger, blogger stalker?? eh. whatever. You get the point.

This is my only stalker story. I hope to never have one again. The only reason why I haven't made this blog private is for YOU family and friends who don't have emails and won't get one :) but i still love you.

One night I decided to google everyone. I googled Joe's grandparents and found good stuff that he didn't even know of. There was an interview with his grandma where he learned new things about the family. I ended up googling myself, then I googled my sister, then I googled our last name- my maiden name. a BEBO thing came up. I thought it would be private but it wasn't, it let me go on the page. When I scrolled down the girl's bebo page I found Mana's pirate picture (one of the pictures from Leeyen). I didn't know who this girl was and why my son's photo would be on her bebo. I called my sister to let her know about it. She said it could be one of our cousins bebo, but I still didn't like the idea of my son's face on someones page. Til this day I still don't know who's page it was because they eventually made their bebo private...probably because they felt I was a stalker but I only checked to see if Mana's picture was still on it. I think word got to her that I didn't appreciate it. It's real scary if you think about it. Anyways that's the story. Boring, but what if you found a picture of yourself on someone's internet page? Will the real stalker please stand up.

Getting to know MANA

SOFT THINGS = SUCK THUMB
When Kamanamau touches something soft it triggers his thumb to go straight in his mouth. Weird. I know. I didn't think it would be something i would blog about but when I saw this it was just too cute...well i mean what isn't when it comes to your own child?? So while I was on the computer I let him play around in the room. He was making his way over to me and that's when he found a piece of a blanket that wasn't fully tucked into the 'blanket tub'. He stopped, looked at it, touched it (it must have been soft), then bent down and started sucking his thumb while holding on that tiny part of the soft blanket. I thought it was so funny, and cute of course. So here are the pictures to make you smile. In my old post there's that pic of him sucking his thumb while touching his soft panda pillow. I made the connection of his thumb sucking to soft things while doing laundry. It was my "ah ha moment". I came in with my basket of clean rugs and clothes. I threw the rugs on the floor and poured the clothes on the couch. I went to the room/kitchen (i really don't know, i just remember the important stuff) and came back to the living room to find Kamanamau full on cuddling with the rug and sucking his thumb. My first thought was gross! only cos it was the bathroom rug, i mean it was clean but it's the bathroom one! So that's when i finally made the connection.

RED LIGHT

When Mana sees a red light he will usually make this face. He squints his eyes, opens his mouth wide, and lets out a little "uuhhh". You try it LOL. I put 2 and 2 together when connecting the dots. He did the face when I took pictures of him because sometimes a red light would come on before the camera flashed; I still didn't connect it then. When we pull up to a red traffic light we sometimes say 'red light' and one day I turned to look at him and he was doing the face (without the sound) and Joe & I were just cracking up. Then later that day I had the "ah ha moment". I was so proud to tell Joe that I figured it out. He just looked at me and was like "okay". What a party pooper.

As you can see Mana is crying.

I distract him with the camera. Here's the red light face.

He forgot all about why he was crying in the first place. I'm good! LOL

He also has a thing for throwing everything. He likes to watch it drop. Actually, i don't know yet. He just likes to throw everything. He will pull all the clothes out from the basket and make sure that it is outside, and not inside the basket. When it's clean clothes I let him go at it, but dirty clothes I have to stop him because I feel sorry for what he has to smell hahaha, eventhough it really looks like he doesn't care.

That's a lil bit of Mana for you :)