This past week has been good, we have pretty much just hung out and done the usual. Meaning playing with clay...

Eliza usually just sabotages Madilyn's work station!

Playing in the cupboards...which leads to this....

This is actually not a usual, its actually a first. madilyn found a bottle of nail polish Christie left when she came to visit, and anyway she asked me what it was for, I told her and then she wanted me to paint her toes with it. I never thought in a million years Madilyn would sit still long enough for me to do it, and she totally did. Lets just say it was a super fast job, and I had to blow her toes dry with my blow dryer. But she loves her toes though.

Having Mac and Cheese for the second time ever leads to this...

A very content baby girl eating lunch...lets just say that was her 3rd helping!

I think every day they have a bath together, and if Eliza just so happens to be napping during bath time, Madilyn specifically asks for Eliza to come in with her!

Playing with sharks...at Kaneohe Mall.

Eliza LOVED playing on this shark, she was climbing all over it!

And one very excited girl on a train, she had been planning on going on this all week, and it was well worth the 3 dollars we spent to ride it!!

And to end the week we spent Saturday in Waikiki with Mike and Becca, and met up with the Hitz's for a little bit.

They decided to make the Phil and ted a 3 man stroller instead of 2.

Bentley just hanging out a Macy's trying on hats.

So all over Waikiki they have these stands with free brochures, travel books and such. Well Madilyn and Bentley both got a little book and we stopped to wait for Becca because she ran into some people she knew. Anyway, we look over and both kids ran over and sat down to read their books. It was so funny, their little legs were tired I guess. But the streets were swamped with people, and then on the side of these busy streets sits two little kids reading.

Anyway, that was our week!!

Save.

Madilyn:

This is something I just wanted to remember because it makes me laugh, and it also shows how grown up Madilyn is getting.

Today Madilyn, Eliza and I were all playing in Madilyn's room. I was doing something with Eliza, when I tuned in to hearing Madilyn say...(in a very quiet, yet concerned voice)"Help, Help, Help Pig." I started watching her at this point, only to see that her pig was balancing on the foot board of her bed. Again she said, "help pig, help help." Just then, she swooped her zebra down from up high and scooped up the pig with it and she said, "SAVE." Ha ha so cute.

Oh how I love those moments, something so simple...but so cute. I think more than anything its just so fun for me to watch her grow, and see her personality blossom, and her imagination go wild!

Eliza:

So I feel like I have only been talking about Madilyn for the past couple months, since she has been adjusting to some huge changes. But Eliza has been changing too, here is an update on her.

Eliza is SO funny, she has such a big personality. She has started making different faces and that make Taylor, Madilyn and I bust up laughing. When she is mad she starts to "blow raspberries" with out the raspberries, if that makes since. She will be devouring a meal, and then out of nowhere she just spits it and is done, she gets sick of food really fast, without any warning at all. She loves to follow Madilyn everywhere, and for the most part Madilyn doesn't mind, those girls already love each other so much. And about 10 mins before Eliza goes to bed, we put her in her playpen, and she goes NUTS. Like funny nuts. She stands up, looks to see who is watching then flings herself down and starts rolling around, and then she starts giggling when she looks up and sees us laughing. She balances really well now without help, but still hasn't taken any actual steps. She pulls herself up to EVERYTHING, and its starting to kinda walk around things holding on. Her favorite thing to say is, "Da da da da da da." So adorable. And she loves to mimic, if she squeals, and you squeal back, she will do it back even louder. But there you go, just some of the fun new things Eliza is doing!

Official Big Girl!

Well, it has finally happened. My little girl is officially a big girl, she sleeps in a big girl bed, goes potty in the toilet and she gave up her soother. Which is a huge deal because she literally has never slept without it. So it was a very stressful thing, and I have been dreading/excited for this day.

So it all started with us going over to our friends house, and that night they cut their daughters soother too, so we thought it they can do it we can too. We wanted to do it on a night where there wasn't vacation renters upstairs because we knew there would be lots of crying, so we checked the schedule and it was almost booked every night until June, except this 3 day period which was the last 2 nights, and tonight. So we realized that we had to do now. So we have 2 soothers for her, but one she never uses..its kinda like the backup if we ever loose her purple one. So Taylor took it and cut a slice in it so their was no suction, when she went to suck on it she pulled it out and screamed "YUCKY" and then she said, "Cut sooder" so we said "OK"?? We were shocked, so we took it and cut off the top and she helped. Well needless to say, a couple hours after not going to sleep and screaming and crying because she missed her soother, and begging for the orange one, we gave in. Like it wasn't mad crying, it was an emotional very hurt kind of cry. I seriously felt like the worlds biggest jerk for even thinking of taking that away from her. I mean, she literally doesn't not know how to settle down for bed without it, it was such a comfort to her. But right after we gave it to her, she fell right asleep.

But the next day, Taylor took her orange one and cut another hole in it without telling me...because at this point I couldn't bare seeing her that sad again (I know, pathetic right?) But later that she went to take her nap, and she noticed it was yucky again, but she could still get some suction, so she went to sleep. Later that night she came up and said she wanted to go to bed, so I said ok. I saw her lay down and suck on her soother for a few minutes and then she came running out saying, "cut sooder," and Taylor and I said, "Madilyn, if you cut this there are NO MORE SOOTHERS." But she just kept yelling, "CUT SOODER." So we got out the scissors and let her cut off the top. So a couple hours later she finally got settled into bed and she kept asking for them, but we showed her the cut soothers and she seemed ok with her choice. But then I think she came up with every excuse in the book to not go to bed, so finally we left her and she cried for a good 20 mins I would say. But she finally passed out!!! Yeah! She did it, but she did wake up earlier than usual. And for nap time, she cried again for another 15-20 mins, but passed out again from exhaustion. It was a shorter nap, but she still did it. So I am just hoping tonight goes smoother. You can tell she was ready to do it, and she knew what she was doing...but it still makes it hard for her to let it go and learn how to sleep without it. So hears to hoping tonight goes better.

I think for Eliza we will get rid of the soother before she turns 1, so its not such a hard attachment to break. But I am excited for the big changes Madilyn has made in these past few months. She is officially a big girl.

My Big girl, just winding down by watching a show!

Tsunami...

Well, in the time period that we have lived here this was our second tsunami warning. Thursday night I was at the relief society activity on campus. At around 9:15 I left to go home, the minute I turned out onto the highway, I saw cars lined up all along the road on both sides trying to get into the gas station. I immediately knew something was wrong, and I got a really sick feeling in my stomach. I knew it was either a tsunami was coming, or gas prices were going to go up even more, we are already paying $3.94 a gallon. So I tried calling Taylor, no answer, so I called about 4 times and he finally picked up. I told him I was really worried, and that something weird was going on and asked him to hurry and check on the Internet or something. A few minutes later I pulled up to the house, and Taylor was waiting for me outside talking on the phone and ready to jump in the car. He said, "there was an 8.9 earthquake in Japan, and we are on tsunami watch." He was going to take the car and try getting gas, our neighbors were on their way out too to get gas. She was telling me her father is a geologist and has been telling them for days now something was going to happen, and he wanted them to leave the island. Anyway, Taylor left and asked me to get the house ready by filling up ever bucket, cup, anything we could find to fill with water. He was gone about an hour, I am surprised at how fast the line went. He said it was crazy over there, he was the last person to be able to get money out of the ATM before it ran out.

We are very very blessed to live in a location were we are in the safe zone, so we didn't have to leave our house this time like last time. The other amazing thing is, earlier that week Taylor and I felt impressed to get our food storage, so we ordered our kits from the LDS distribution center, and while doing so Taylor accidentally ordered an extra set of stuff. It was shipped out on Tuesday, and miraculously arrived to us Thursday afternoon. Just in time for our crazy weekend.

So I tried getting a hold of family, while I cleaned the dishes since our water was going to be shut off, and could potentially be out for days. Oh ya, the first wave was suppose to hit around 3 am and it was around 9:45pm so we had time for preparations. I filled up everything imaginable with water. I got on facebook to wait for our Bishops guidance on what we should be doing. He was telling all the off campus families to head to TVA and find shelter on the 2 floor with everyone else. Since we were far enough from the ocean we decided we wanted to stay home and let our girls sleep through the craziness. But I remembered our friends the Hitz's that live on the same road as us, but they are close to the beach. We called them and offered them to come on up so they could put there kids down here. They took us up on our offer, and they brought along their brother and his wife who are also in our ward. So in total, we had including us, 6 adults and 6 kids going to be staying in our tiny place. I had been talking to the vacation renters upstairs and they offered room to anyone that needed it, since it was much bigger and there was only 3 of them. So I asked if it would be alright if the family coming over could use a room of theirs. They were very kind and allowed us to stay there as well and watch the TV they had. Another funny thing is they were all from Alberta Canada, 2 from Edmonton (Millwoods area) and the other aunt was from Calgary...small world.

So while all of this was happening the tsunami "watch" turned into a full blown "warning" with sirens and all. I felt very at peace the whole time, and felt prepared for it. We had almost everything we needed. The only thing I was in fear of was if something really bad happened, that we wouldn't have enough for our family plus helping those who had lost homes or whatever it might be. But as you all know, we were very blessed and only very minimal damage happened in certain areas. But you can't take any of these things lightly, especially after watching the footage in Japan. My heart aches for all those people, the ocean is such a very powerful and scary thing. I pray for all those who lost loved ones, homes, and are still in desperate need of help.

Well as the night went on we kept our eyes peeled on the TV watching and waiting. The first waves didn't appear until around 3:30am or 4 ish. All the while, I think every person in Hawaii was awake waiting. It was so crazy watching the ocean suck back the water leaving only the ocean floor. So crazy, but we were so blessed that even though it was receding back the length of a football field, the water didn't rush in as fast or as high as expected. So by the time most of the action settled down, it was around 7am, just in time for our girls to wake up. Haha, needless to say we did not sleep that night! But I am so grateful it didn't turn out anywhere close to as devastating as the Japan tsunami.

But those are just some of our adventures here in Hawaii. I told Taylor that if we ever end up living here long term, I refuse to live anywhere near the beach, and I want to have a HUGE food storage! All in all everything turned out better than we could have hoped for, for us at least, we were well prepared and were in a good location with amazing neighbors and friends. So even though it didn't end up being huge, I sure hope everyone doesn't start ignoring these warnings. I am glad for the peace and comfort I felt throughout it all, and for all the prayers.