Aloha dear friends...

Today is the second day home from our 13 day trip to the Big Island in Hawaii! It feels surreal to be home again...just as it did to actually be there. I caught myself constantly thinking...I'm really here! We're in Hawaii!! I've wanted to go there my whole life and it seemed like everyone I knew had been there but me. Even my 6 year old sister had been 3 times before I made it over. :) We arrived on December 18th after a great and uneventful flight from LAX. Reese was antsy (what 21 month old isn't!?!) but overall did an amazing job on the 6 hour flight to Honolulu. After a quick 20 minute flight from Oahu to Kona we were met by my parents and 3 youngest siblings who had shell leis to put around our necks along with big hugs!!

Because 13 days is a lot to cram into one post, I'll just be putting up pictures and dialoging a little about each one. To put our trip in a little nutshell: It was wonderful to be with my family, incredible to experience the Island and two beaches we visited and there were some definite hard challenges too!

The first Challenge: These nasty HUGE roaches! And this is the smaller of the two we saw! :( :( Yuck! He also happened to be our first visitor the first morning we were in our condo and it took everything within me to stop gasping and get out words to tell Mat to kill it. I had to take a picture just so you all could share in my horror. You're welcome.

The second challenge...WAAAY cuter than that nasty bug is this little chunky love in the next picture! Kona is known for it's Kona Coffee and Hawaii is known for their macadamia nuts. Oh and it happened to be Christmas too so Costco had these great dark chocolate covered cookies. As soon as we got to my parent's condo I started chowing down...chocolate, coffee, chocolate covered nuts, coffee covered nuts, chocolate cookies...you get the picture. LOTS and LOTS of caffeine! Well this poor little girl had EnOuGh from her mama and simply refused to sleep...or at least sleep for any length of time. So we were up: 11pm, 1am, 4am, 6am! Yes, I felt like I had a newborn all over again. A few nights like that and I was a walking zombie with a wired baby. I'm so grateful to the Lord for my dad who finally figured out what was going on. I simply stopped eating and within 24 hours she was back to sleeping and sleeping hard to make up for all she lost. Poor poor sweetheart! It's definitely humbling to be the reason your baby is struggling.

The next set of pictures is from our mini field trip to Kona Joe's coffee. We had a great time learning about how Kona coffee is made and specifically how this place has used the technique of trellising (the way vineyards grow their grapes on a trellis) to grow their coffee trees.

I never knew there were so many different kinds of coffee beans!

Our first beach we visited was the beautiful Mauna Kea beach really close to our condo (about 15 min away). Such a gorgeous day...I think probably the warmest (87 degrees) and least windy day we had! Reese loved the sand...she could have played in it forever!

Our second beach, through the recommendation of our friends Aaron and Jen Tresham who just happened to be in Kona at the same time we were, was Kukio beach which proved to be GREAT for little ones! Matt, Tom and Joe wish there could have been more waves to ride boogie boards but it turned out to be a good spot for Reese and Elise as the rocks broke the waves and created a big wading pool. Again, a wonderful day in the warm sunshine!

To celebrate 5 amazing years together we bought tickets back in October for a Lu'au in downtown Kona. This was our one big splurge and we did it without kiddos! My parents graciously (or maybe the word is more "happily") watched Reese and Allie and from what we were told had a great time together. Matt and I felt like kids ourselves with the opportunity to get away AND to be on a tropical island in paradise together. The Lu'au's show after dinner was a hit for both of us! The dancers were incredible...I never knew you could move your hips like they did. :) We were pleasantly surprised at how modest, wholesome and family-friendly the entire evening was. A highlight for sure!

The view from our condo! Incredible to wake up to this every morning!

Matt bought me a real lei for the evening. :)

Yum! Shaved ice with ice cream on the bottom! It was so good, it was even hard to share with my almost 2 year old.

Love this picture of Nana, Allie, Elise and Poppy!

Chrstimas Day we opened stockings, went to the pool, grilled steaks and had a great day together! Little did I know that challenge number 3 was about to hit. This was my last healthy day on the island.

Our Condo: I did a lame-o job of capturing how wonderful this place was! So spacious, two bedrooms, 3 toilets (the third one I discovered a day before we left...who does that!?! Haha!) an amazing kitchen I wanted to pack in my bags and bring home with me and a washer and dryer! I literally was in paradise just by getting to do our laundry 20 feet away from the bedroom. Another wonderful perk...the lanai we got to read, hang out on, take naps and let Reese play "outside" in! I pretty much wish I could bottle that whole place up and move it to Castaic.

Our view I took through the screen while the sun was setting...forgive the blurriness of these two pictures.

And that sums up Hawaii! Mom and Dad...there really aren't enough words nor ways to express how thankful we are for you in making this trip a reality for us! We never could have done it without you...thank you for an amazing 7 days spent with you and even coming to our aid when I got sick and had to stay 3 extra days. We feel so blessed to have been able to do this and we'll have memories to last a lifetime!

A Stocking for Allie...

There's a new baby in our home this year and as previously stated HERE a stocking arrived just in time to hang next to her sister's. This was Allie's first Christmas present lovingly handmade by my sweet Great Aunt Jean (Allie's Great Great Aunt Jean).

A few favorites {baby edition}

As a mom, you start to pick up on things that make motherhood just a little bit easier and possibly more manageable. Since I appreciate it when others say, "Take Note!" here are a few of my favorites for the baby/young child stage.

I had no idea how much I would appreciate this gift when it was given back before Reese arrived. There's nothing to sanitize, no clothes have to be removed and instantly you can know what your baby's temp is. It is a little on the pricey side but in my opinion so worth it! 

Diaper rash be gone! This stuff is incredible. Who needs Desitin when you can have Aquaphor? No funny smell, goes on clear and literally works after one application. AND you don't have to be a mom to appreciate the perks! I use it all the time for my dry lips. Aquaphor, where have you been all my life? Thanks to my friend Kelly for pointing me to this life-changing stuff!

Especially when on the go, feeding times have the potential to be messy, require lots of "extra's" added to your diaper bag and then leave you needing your kitchen sink to clean up. Not with this amazing contraption made by Boon called the "Squirt." I'm considering getting another one when Allie starts on solids so that I can have one filled with her vegetables and the other fruit. My friend Yesenia introduced this to me and it's one of my favorite baby doo-dads!

Love, love, love my Vera Bradley diaper bag! It's definitely more on the "nice to have" list of things and less of a necessity. This was a gift from my grandmother and I love thinking about her when I use it. It's the perfect size for having two little ones, wipes clean on the inside and can be thrown in the wash if necessary.

Yes, I'm one of "those" moms! Again, not really necessary but I really prefer putting a warm wipe on my baby's bottom compared to a cold, startling one! This was a hand-me-down, otherwise I probably would never have thought to use it but I seriously won't go back! As long as you rinse out the pad weekly that keeps the wipes wet, you're good to go.

I don't know what we'd do without this guy! Since we have babies so close together, this is Allie's crib for the foreseeable future. The fact that it has wheels is the cherry on top. I take it to and from the girls' bedroom for when it's Allie's bedtime out in the living room.

As a nursing mom with a very young older child, I am so so grateful for Baby Einstein! Reese is learning her numbers, shapes, animals and the sounds those animals make from these videos while I take care of Allie. It's definitely monitored with how much she sees but I'm thankful for the distraction when I can't be everywhere at once.

Finally, these are probably my most favorite clothing item for the girls...Robeez shoes! A friend from church let us borrow a pair when Reese was just learning how to walk and now I don't put anything else on her (well except for church shoes). They're soft, genuine leather and allow baby's feet to grip the floor as they toddle around. Reese is well beyond that stage but they are still the best because of how easy they are to put on and she can't take them off! :)

Girls 'N Costumes

Celebrating Reformation Day this year was simple and sweet! We went the day before to Smart and Final to pick out our pumpkin {we plan to go to the pumpkin patch...it just didn't work out to go before October 31} and mom borrowed a costume from some friends for Reese to use. Dad is our official pumpkin carver...he went so far as to get a kit from Walmart...and he let me choose which face to cut out.

Reese thought it was the CooLest thing to sit in the kitchen next to her daddy and play while he worked. Normally the kitchen is off-limits so to get in on the fun and to pretend she had things to do was just oh so cute!

So fun to compare...

Such a booger! She wasn't the happiest to oblige mom for a picture.

But still...probably the cutest little dinosaur you'll see!

Here's one for her wedding slideshow one day. Hehe! 

I couldn't resist.

And our sweet little pumpkin. It's so amazing to look back on the pictures from last year with Reese in this same outfit, not knowing that our Allie treasure was growing inside me. God's plans are higher and more wise than our own! I'm thankful for that promise.

Reese girl last year.

God's grace in my life...

Today was one of those days you wish you could just freeze in time. Where every minute was really an hour and it went on from there. I miss my best {girl} friend more than words can say! We've been the dearest of friends for 17 years with incredible memories from my 10th birthday slumber party, work crew girls and leadership trainees at Solid Rock Bible Camp, our first crushes, Katy being on the JV basketball team, the two of us leading worship for High School youth group, singing for the Christmas program together, learning to drive stick-shift before we could get our licenses, figuring out how to avoid a certain guy interested in her, planning Katy's sweet 16th surprise birthday party {successfully without her having a clue}, football games, going to Junior prom together, being the one a few years later to sell that same guy her engagement ring and finally standing next to her as the best friend status went from me to her husband. 

The Lord chose to take Katy and Tyler away from Alaska, right after their wedding, to Idaho where Tyler became stationed in the Air Force. Four years later, they were assigned orders to Italy where they are living currently. Our visits have been short and sweet ever since but I praise the Lord that despite the long distance for 9 years, we've still stayed close and managed to see one another.

Today felt like we'd never been apart. Sure there was much to catch up on, things to fill each other in about and even for us to meet each other's girls! {She had both my daughter's to meet and I hadn't yet been able to see and love on Danielle, her baby girl born in June} But the closeness hasn't changed, the love, memories, and dearness of being precious friends to each other hasn't altered. God is so kind to give us friends on this earth that paint a dim picture of what glorified relationships will be like in Heaven. Katy is that friendship to me.

These are pictures from two years ago when we saw each other in Palm Springs. I was still pregnant with Reese and Kiarra was 4 months old.

And today...

Love this last "cheek to cheek" picture...our tradition!

Tyler...you're doing an awesome job as the husband to Katy and daddy to two beautiful girls! Thank you for taking such good care of my dearest friend.

All God's richest blessings to you, Tyler, Katy, Kiarra and Danielle! Thank you for traveling 2 hours to meet up and bless us with on an incredible day in San Pedro! We love you!