Our First BIG Family Vacation....

Oahu Hawaii December 2012:
We finally made good on our word to kaylin that we would take him to the beach in Hawaii! It was such a great vacation and one to never be forgotten, we made so many family memories and I loved watching my boys have the time of their lives with new things they have never gotten to do or see before!
We wanted this time to just share with each other together, our lives always seem so busy and on the go that Nick and I felt like it was time to just spend "time" with the boys before their new baby brother makes his way to our lives. Most all of our time was spent on the North Shore, that's our favorite place and the only place to stay when on Oahu. (in no order)
Here are the fun high lights of our trip to Hawaii a place that is our second home!

First full say we hit the beach of course, we took the boys to Sunset Beach one of our many favorites as well, the boys loved it, kiptin dove right into the sand and was in heaven. kaylin wanted to go right into the water with dad and do some boogie boarding for the first time!



We took the boys to the battle ship, that was a must on kaylins list and he loved seeing how BIG it was and walking all through it!


We wanted to boys to see the Byodo-In Temple since they love to feed animals that was a good place to start. They loved Ringing the Huge Bell, feeding the big koi fish, the black swan and the many birds.


Breakfast at the Hotel is a must for me, it is so yummy and full of everything you can think of and the best fruit and passion fruit juice on the planet!


PCC was our next stop, though it was a very wet rainy day we still loved it. Kaylin got called up on stage at the Samoa island to help with the drinking of the coconut water, he HATED it, he pulled all kinds of funny faces after drinking it, but he thought it was the coolest thing that he got called up to be the helper!
We got to make angel fish out of plants, the same leafs that they use to weave baskets, the boys loved those and they made them part of our Christmas Tree decor when we got back to the condo. Kaylin got to open a few clams and get mommy some new pearls, he got a pink ones, he was sad cause he wanted to get a black pearl so bad.


After our first sunday church meetings there we took the boys over to the temple grounds and had a blast there, they thought it was awesome that they could swing from the "swinging vine trees" and he loved climbing up in the huge trees with daddy.
We visited the visitors center and this was the first time I have gotten to see inside, it is by far the best visitor center i have ever been in, they have a little hut village in side and it was full of Christmas Trees which were so beautiful.


We had to stop by the Dole Factory and let the boys have some of the famous Pineapple Ice cream, they really liked it just like daddy, I dont care for it too much but a few bites is alright with me. We road the train and daddy and Kaylin went through the huge corn maze. Then we headed inside to get a bite to eat and kaylin really wanted to try another clam to open so we let him pick one out and he was such a lucky kid, he picked a clam that had TWO BLACK pearls in it and they were so so beautiful, it really made his day (and mine!!)



We went to the Bishop Museum and Sea Life Park, the boys loved both places as well!
At Sea Life park they got to see and touch a new baby sea turtle and some star fish and well as the cute dolphins, seals and sea lions, birds, turtles and kaylins favorite the sharks!



Kiptin was a lucky boy and got to have and spend his big day in Hawaii, he turned 3 years old while we were there. We wanted him to just pick out what he wanted to do and of course he said go to the beach and the pool. later we took him to the store and let him pick what ever cake he wanted to have and he chose some red and green cup cakes!


Turtle Bay Hotel Beach is the one we went to the most, its right where we were staying and they have a reef break off the shore line that breaks up the huge waves so it was safe for the boys to play in the water there. They dug a HUGE hole in the sand to play in and kaylin went out snorkeling with daddy for his very first time, he was super lucky to get to see a Sea Turtle while he was out not many people get to see them in the winter months and usually not their first time out either. It popped it head up for some air right in front of kaylin and then they watched him swim right under them!



Christmas a nice and quiet this year, which was a little strange not to have family and lots of noise around but it was so awesome to just get my 3 boys all to my self. The boys and I made cookies for Santa and kaylin drew him some pictures and left him some Chocolate milk, Santa even wrote a Thank You note back! We watched them open presents and then headed to the beach of course. Strange to sit in the sand on Christmas instead of playing in the freezing cold snow, but i rather liked it!



This time to Oahu I told nick we were GOING to find "Lanikai Beach" its in the worlds top 10 beaches for hawaii and i was so wanting to find it, it is also a private beach and not many people know about it or where to find it, it was tricky to find. It really was the most beautiful beach i have ever seen. on a really sunny day it would have been so amazing to see. the water was crystal clear and so smooth, the sand was as soft and white as could be, it was like walking on baby powder no joke. For sure this is my ALL TIME FAVORITE BEACH!!!



On our last beach day we took the boys over to Pounder Beach and yes its called that for a reason, the waves seriously pound you in to the sand. We found a spot that was fun for nick but still ok for the boys as long as we were with them, kaylin did get pounded one time and after that he was done riding the waves onto the sand :)
The boys played in the waves and dug one last HUGE sand hole to play in and they really loved jumping into the hole but had a really hard time getting back out of the hole since it was way deeper then them. kaylin had to boost kiptin out everytime and then find a way for him to climb out.
When we were about to clean up and get ready to head back home, i saw some huge thing waddling on the sand and saw that is was a Sea Lion!!! I yelled at nick to get out of the water and come see it with us and we all walked over to it, it was amazing to see a sea lion on shore with us just sun bathing and resting. They look so different when they are right from the ocean. It was so fun to see that and get to share it with our boys.




Before we headed across the island to the airport we took the boys to Waimea Falls and hiked up to the water fall. bad planning on my part cause the hike is 1 1/2 miles and then we had a 5 hour flight and another 1 1/2 hour flight after that, need less to say i paid dearly for all the walking with major swollen ankles.
The boys loved that water fall but kaylin wanted to swim so bad..i didnt think about that either and did keep out any clean cloths for him so he couldnt swim. They found a Peacock roaming around the grounds and loved chasing it and feeding it kaylins tuna fish sandwich.




Here are some random pictures from the trip that I love! Including some of our favorite yummy treats of the island which include: Malasadas so so YUMMY, Ted's Chocolate Cream Pie, Lilikoi juice, Chocolate Macadamia nuts, and lots of fruit!!!
On our way to the air port we took the boys through the H3 tunnel that goes right through the mountain, they liked that. The boys were also so excited that we got a 4door jeep and they loved riding every minute in it and told us we need to trade our durango for one...dont temp daddy boys he just might do it!







Our flight home was a red eye, we planned that so the boys would sleep for the flight and they did! Once we landed in LA we had to hurry to our next plan in the 15 minute window we had before it left so we ran across the airport to the next flight only to find it got delayed til 9 am, it was 5:30am at this point so we had a while to wait. we got some breakfast (i hate paying airport prices for food, $19 for a cinnamon roll and muffin and 3 drinks) we ate right by our gate so if they called it early to board we wouldn't miss it. we sat and sat and sat for hours. and then 8:30 rolls around and they gate still had not changed everyone still waiting and by now they should be boarding us. I watched a guy go over and ask a lady what was going on and she said "oh that flight got cancelled, you have to go to customer service to find another flight out" WHAT THE *******...I was so pissed, we had waited and they never once announced that is was cancelled so everyone had to rush to a huge line that took nick almost 2 hours to get through to find us a flight to vegas, they told him there was no flights leaving LA to Vegas til 6am the next day. so we got a flight to San Francisco which we had to run too to make it since it was boarding already and it was the last one as well. Once we got to San Fran we asked if there were any earlier flights to vegas and they again said no only 2 more tonight and the first one is not til 6pm tonight....so we waited 7 hours in the airport, totally exhausted by this point and then once again our flight was delayed another hour. We finally made it to vegas at 11pm and i told nick in san fran that i was just sooooo done and needed some sleep, my legs where huge swollen and hurting and there was no way after being awake for the last 48 hours that i wanted to drive another 3 hours home..so we stayed the night in vegas and got some much needed rest!
The Trip was SUPER GREAT, getting back home NOT SO MUCH! but my boys did SOOO amazing they never cried on the flights or had any melt downs at the airports...thank goodness for modern technology that kept them happy and busy!

Once we arrived in cedar the first thing nick had to do it shovel the walk way so we could get out bags in the house!


Here to a very memorable Family Trip!!! Now its on to planning the next one!!!

Mele Kalikimaka...

Merry Christmas from Hawaii. This year is so awesome, a little strange not to have all our family around and lots of food and noise but the fact I get to just have my 2 boys and my hubby all to my self for this Christmas is awesome.The boys and I made cookies for santa and kaylin said santa would love some chocolate milk so we gave santa some yummy cookies and chocolate milk, kaylin also made pictures for santa and then santa even wrote a thank you card back to him! It was a quiet day, santa came and the boys opened all their gifts and then we ate some breakfast and headed out to the beach and swimming pool cause thats what the boys wanted to do. The day was about just being with them and making memories that will last forever!

Happy 3rd Birthday to our sweet little Kiptin....

my sweet little boy turns 3 today. i cant believe how fast the years go by. right now we are sitting at the turtle bay hotel beach building sand castles, watching the 3 boys i love the most in life melts my heart. kiptin is such a strong minded and so independent little boy, he is feisty but so sweet when he wants to be. the times he come up and snuggles with me our my favorite moments.  some of my favorite things he says now are: "i love u too mom" he just come up and hugs me and says that he doesnt just say i love u, he adds the "too" in there which makes it so cute. another all time favorite is "thank me" he says this instead of "thank you"...its also my favorite, the way it come out of his mouth is so darn cute!  he is for sure our spitfire child, he takes no crap from anyone..you make him mad and he lets you know for sure!
 i couldnt live life with out this sweet little boy, he has brought so much joy and love to our family, kaylin and him are such good little buddies...kaylin says he will always have a friend to play with even when none of his out side friends can play because he has a brother :) thats exactly what nick and i wanted for them in life is to always have eachother! kiptin is so lucky to have sucha great big brother like kaylin he takes such good care of him and is always thinking of him no matter what he is doing!
we love u so much kiptin, you have brought us more joy then you will ever know. thank you for choosing us as your family, always remember how much we care for you and love you and we will always try to do the best by you and always do the best for you. as your mom my heart and life is so full with you in it, love you forever my son!

12.12.12...arriving in Hawaii!

we finally made it. kaylin loves it and is so hyper because of all the excitedness he cant hold in. it feels like we never left and moved back to utah from here...everything is mostly the same but its not as green as it always has been so thats the only bummer part. 7 years seems so long to have been away and then to come back and remember everything like we were just here is awesome.  more to come but i wanted to post on 12.12.12 since its a lucky day for us as our first big family vacation, although utah time is already december 13th, here it is still december 12th 9 pm.

25 Weeks...

This little boy is SO wanting more room lol...he stretches and kicks and pushes from hip to hip, and it hurts :)
I love that i feel him. How awesome (most of the time) it is to share that just him and I. Trying to guess what he is doing in there is always fun!
I feel like im finally getting a little bigger because my belly is tight and I cant believe how the skin can stretch like that and then go back to pre baby belly :)
We have had many ultra sounds now and we were able to have another one done to check on his size last week, i thought this was a great time and another chance to get a peek at him, but YET AGAIN he stayed hidden from us and didnt want to show us his cute little face AT ALL. I want a little peek at him but I think he wants to keep us in suspense of who he looks like, the LITTLE TINY bit we saw looks like the other two boys and they are adorable so if he looks like his brothers we will be perfectly happy!
I have been feeling really good the past few weeks, going to the Chiro and taking my meds have really been helping me stay a lot more calm and in a lot less pain and not very many headaches at all which is such a nice change.
This little boys moves all the time. I have not been craving anything but im ALWAYS hungry, when i eat i cant eat very much before im full but then an hour later its like i didnt eat at all :)
Its crazy very very crazy to think in just 12 to 15 weeks we will be parents of 3 kids and all boys at that. we are so excited for them to all grow up together and be little buddies. We still dont have a for sure name picked out, its hard choosing a name for a child to live with their whole life.
Im slacking on the pictures but i hope i can snap one in the morning before we head out!

The boys Early Christmas....

Since we leave for our family vacation to Oahu tomorrow we wanted to get the boys some stuff that would help with the 7 hours on the plane, so we wrapped up the gifts from mom and dad and let them open them early...they are pretty excited to have 3 christmas's this year lol!
Here are some pictures from their first little Christmas:

Our Christmas Jar....

Last Christmas I bought our family the "Christmas Jar" book and the jar that goes with it so that we as a family could start our own christmas jar each year and help who ever we can at the end of the year. We started a little late with saving our coins since we were never really using cash, about may we said we needed to start using more cash so we could get the change and put it in the jar. We saved from May to December we saved all the coins we could get and were able to get over $80.00 of coins! Grandpa and Grandma Haslem also did the jar with us as well and together we were able to pick 3 kids off the Angel Tree and buy them Christmas! It was such a good feeling and the boys loved picking out the gifts. There was only one little boy 6 years old, left on the tree so we picked him and 2 girls, a little 3yrs and 7yrs old. I have to admit I thought the girls would be a piece of cake to buy for but when nick and I walked into the "PINK GIRL" isle we were TOTALLY OUT OF OUR COMFORT ZONE, we had no idea what to buy besides dolls, but which doll and which barbies and all that jumbo, it was crazy but I hope we managed to get them some good things!
I love that we are starting this tradition as a family, it really helps keep the meaning of christmas with us through out the year!
Here are some pictures i managed to catch while we were out shopping!