Uncle Walter

Uncle Walter was the high point of our trip home for Alekisio, snow was second. Every time I left the house I would get a phone call from mom or Naomi and they would hand the phone to a crying Alekisio. I had to reassure him that I was still close and would be home soon. He didn't even want to leave the house with anyone unless I was going. That is until Walter came home. The second he walked in the door Alekisio was attatched and when he left an hour later Alekisio went too. If Walter was going out at night with his friends Alekisio was upset and would keep asking when he was coming home. Isabelle loved him too of course, especially when he let her play with his phone. I hope you like the pics Walt. As I'm looking for pictures I realize that there aren't that many of Walt and Sio....oops.

Christmas

Christmas was great. We missed Aisea of course but it was nice to be home with some extended family. We were all(mom, Naomi, and I) excited to be together so I got the kids matching pjs and mom and Naomi got ours. Dad was left out but I don't think he cared.

The kids were really hard to get to sit still together for pictures. On Christmas Eve my aunt tried to get a few with their outfits and pjs so I knew it would be hard in the morning. There were actually three pictures and you can their disintegration from the above to screaming. If there weren't so many pictures in this blog I would post them. I stood in a really long line on Black friday for those pjs and they looked so cute it was worth it.

Poor Braylen was sick so he wasn't really into his presents and ended up spending most of the day laying on people.

Alekisio made out like a bandit. He's been really into pirates lately so he got a pirate book, hat, and a treasure chest. But his favorite present had to be the Hulk fists from Santa. They say "Hulk smash," and "you're making me angry, you won't like me when I'm angry." He loves them and I of course can do without them, oh and the nerf guns my mom got him. He always loves the toys I could do without. I guess it's a boy thing.


Isabelle liked helping grandpa open his presents. That's her opening his ipod stereo thing. She loved her toys but I think her bracelet is my favorite. Every sunday her friend Bridget steals her and Isabelle becomes one of the young women, and every sunday she takes Bridget's bracelet and eats it. Now she can gnaw on her own, and she did later that day.


Alekisio has been grandma's helper lately. He helps with laundry, cleaning, and cooking. Christmas morning he helped her make the dippy eggs for breakfast. I hope there are breakfasts in bed in my future.

That's dad loving his new sweater. I won't post the pictures of mom crying over her new cooking utensils, bakeware, and kitchen towels. She'll appreciate that I'm sure. And yes she cried over cooking utensils. That's my mom!

Aunt Carol came over for dinner and Alekisio loved every minute of it. He made her wear the pirate hat and dance. Luckily she's a good sport. We had a great Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Before we headed out to Grandma's house for Christmas Eve we had to make Santa cookies, which Alekisio said had to be chocolate chip. Naomi bought some really cute aprons for us to wear, Sio's was super cute. He loved making cookies and wearing his santa hat.


After making cookies we dressed the kids in their christmas outfits and went to our Grandma Levenhagen's house and had our traditional christmas eve with lasagna where we ate two different but equally yummy lasagnas.

Isabelle in her dress

Alekisio and Braylen

Isabelle in a jacket my mom made for me when I was little

Then Santa came. Alekisio LOVED that. When Santa left he tried to follow him outside to see his reindeer. Luckily I was able to stop that so he ran directly to the front window to see if he could see them fly away, that picture is on Aunt Connie's camera. He keeps telling everyone that Santa gave him a football.



After we opened presents Alekisio had tons of fun rough housing with Matt. He also decided to marry Matt's girlfriend Promise. The next night this was our conversation:

Me: Why do you want to marry Promise?
Sio: Because she's pretty.
Me: I thought you wanted to marry me.
Sio: You have to wait in the line.

Boys are so fickle. That's alright, at least he has good taste.

This is Promise, Alekisio's new love,with Isabelle

Matt and Sio
Isabelle was attacking Matt too

At Grandma's everyone also danced on tv with Alekisio's new video camera toy, and enjoyed Isabelle. It was really nice to be home for Christmas Eve. I miss it every year!

Family time

The 23rd was my birthday. I spent the day at home with Sio, Isabelle, Braylen, and my dad. It was bitterly cold and snowing. We decided to take the kids to get pictures with Santa and than go to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. The steak melted in my mouth...yummy. And my family decided to tell them it was my birthday. Embarrassing! However there was a family sitting behind us and their son was turning twenty one. When they announced to the whole restaurant that it was our birthdays they did it at the same time and I got to be 21 for the night! It would probably be cooler if I felt 29, but I don't really feel much different. I've learned alot of life lessons in 8 years but I don't know if I'll ever know what it feels like to be an age until my body starts aching. Anyway it was a nice night. Braylen and Isabelle sat by each other and were holding hands, of course we forgot the camera. That night Isabelle was eating an apple whole. She loved it! During the day while we were freezing I needed a shower. When I came out I found this...
I guess Isabelle was fussing and wanted to go back to sleep. When Braylen saw grandpa holding Isabelle he was a little jealous and had to get in on the action. Luckily they both fell asleep. But it was a really cute picture moment.

Homemade Goodness

I haven't been home for winter in about four years and was craving some hot chocolate in the cold. For some reason I thought it would be fun to make homemade hot chocolate mix and marshmallows. Alekisio loves all things chocolate, and marshmallows so of course he was all for the idea. I looked up a recipe that looked good and we whipped some up. The hot chocolate was really good but you have to like dark chocolate. It's not milk chocolatey like store bought packets. It's made with bittersweet chocolate and cocoa. I loved it and the marshmallows melted right in. Yummy!

mixing the chocolate

pouring the marshmallows

Freezing Ohio

We arrived in Ohio on the 17th. It was an overnight flight so luckily the kids slept. I on the other hand arrived with a migraine from no sleep. I made the smart decision to buy Isabelle a seat and not use her car seat so she had some space. Whenever she would nurse and fall asleep she didn't want to be on me so she would get fussy and need room to lay down. Alekisio was a good sport and slept sitting up so Isabelle could stretch out over her seat and parts of ours. The best part of the trip was standing in the back of the plane waiting to get off in Cleveland. There was a steward and stewardess(I think those are the PC terms)standing there so of course Alekisio had to strike up a conversation. "I'm going to see my grandma." "Are you going to see your grandma?" "What's her name?" "I'm going to go sledding with my grandpa." Those were the safe topics, then came, "Look at this," as he reaches down, grabs his pants and starts pulling them down. Both of them started waving their hands going "No, no, no." I immediately stop him, and then explain that he had hernea surgery and has a scar, but that we don't pull our pants down to show people. Just then we started walking off and I could hear them still laughing saying how hilarious that just was. I know their families heard a funny story that night. When we finally made our way through a very cold airport I realized that I forgot to tell Naomi to bring me a coat. Oops. The kids were alright though and Braylen and Isabelle got to share a stroller while I used ours to carry luggage. I couldn't get a good picture of Braylen kissing Isabelle's head.

Mom was happy to finally meet Isabelle. Isabelle was great too, she didn't cry at all!

From there we headed off to surprise my Grandma Isabelle with Little I as my Uncle John calls her. Grandma was really excited to finally have a great granddaughter amongst the boys, and it was a bonus that she was the namesake.

When we got there we were all talking and grandma doubled over in pain. After some convincing from all of us she let mom and dad take her to the hospital. They came home at around 11 saying grandma needed surgery because she had a hernea which was obstructing her bowels. Then the phone rang and my mom had to go back to the hospital because they were doing surgery that night. Grandma is a trooper though because she's out and about with no pain meds.
While mom and dad were gone Alekisio got to finish decorating the tree with candy canes. As you can see they're all strategically placed in the same area. He was tired of doing it after awhile.

The next night they all got to take a bath together. Isabelle was super excited because she's been dying to take another bath. Her first bath with Alekisio was more of a slide fest because she wouldn't stay sitting so I haven't done it again. That's why she's cheesing in all the pictures. Maybe it's also because she could play by Braylen without getting sat on. She's still crawling and he's a new walker so he keeps falling on her. She's getting smart and trying to stand as much as possible.

Santa Pictures

We went out for my birthday last night and stopped to see Santa. There was no crying! Who would have imagined. I need to update with pictures of our trip but I'm here alone with all three so later!

Sick baby!

Poor Isabelle has had a cough for a couple days. I always go to the doctor for them to tell me it's a cold and they can't do anything about it. Well last night her fever was 101.4 so I gave her some motrin, the fever went away, came back in the middle of the night, and was pretty much gone in the morning. However I decided to take her to the doctor. I've never been without insurance so I didn't know where to take her without getting a huge bill. In case you're wondering we don't have insurance at the moment, Aisea got laid off. They didn't have any jobs right now except the one on the Big Island, and they weren't providing living expenses and flights home so we were going to spend a paycheck a month for him to work there. That wasn't worth it. Anyway he is working for a friend doing pools and waterfalls but they don't start insurance until 3 months. We(my friend and I) took her to a clinic across the island and her pulse oxygen was 94 and they like it to be 97. She had some wheezing, congestion, and her ear wasn't looking good. They gave her a steroid, amoxicillin, and albuterol. I also had to get a note that sped up the process to get Quest(govt. insurance). So for this month Isabelle has insurance but no one else does. We had to do the running around and waiting to get insurance coverage and her medicine. After all that we left the house around 9 and got back at almost four. She's still not great but doing better. And it took me three days to get this blog started and finished so this happened on monday. Alekisio's nose is gross too and I keep thinking all the recycled air is going to make them really sick. But Alekisio doesn't care about that he just wants snow! Oh and I know the picture isn't really relevant to the blog but I thought that face was great at explaining how she feels.