How was your Christmas morning?

I think this photo of Oliver says it all for ours:

This makes me happy

I know it doesn't look like much but this little Christmas decor makes me happy every time I look over at our table. Ever since the twins were born I feel like I have been in survival mode. Its been all I can do to just take care of my kids and sometimes clean my house. But after moving to Hawaii, settling in and then getting Oliver to sleep through the night, I finally feel like I can do just a little more than what is absolutely essential. Hence my table. It didn't take much, I just bought a runner from Target (I love their holiday stuff) along with a poinsettia and two candles. Then I polished my silver candlesticks and voila, I have a pretty table. I'm taking baby steps just like Oliver!!

Oliver

Oh how I love my Oliver. He just makes me smile. I love going in and getting him in the morning, he gives me the biggest smile and stands right up for me to pick him up. Then he nestles his little head in my shoulder. Its often a highlight of my day.

Its hard being the younger sibling of twins, especially when they are still pretty little as well. But Parker and Penelope both love Oliver and are starting to play with him more and more rather than just yell when he touches 'their' stuff. They love to make him laugh and Parker has started to wrestle with Oliver a little bit. Oliver loves it and laughs and laughs. I keep a close watch and break it up when Oliver quits laughing! The twins are good about giving Ollie hugs, its so cute, these pictures don't do it justice but they are the best I can do:


As mom, I find myself in the kitchen quite a bit. That means Oliver finds me in the kitchen and loves to play there so he is near me (he's still quite a mama's boy). He has discovered the cupboards and loves exploring. One day he found the onions:

Oliver is a BIG fan of the park. We go almost every day and some days we go twice. However, for some reason, Hawaii doesn't believe in swings and I haven't seen swings since we moved here. But on Saturday we found some and Oliver, who had only been in a swing a handful of times in his young life, got to really experience the joy of swinging.


Luckily the parks all have slides and Oliver is all over them, literally. He loves to climb up them, down them and around them. We even have a small slide in our backyard that entertains him greatly.



Over the past month or so, Oliver has learned to laugh easily. The simplest things make him laugh and laugh.





Oh and did I mention this little toot is walking? Well, taking steps, I should say. He's been doing it for a few weeks and while he still crawls to get places for the most part, he does like to practice his mad walking skills. Every time he does it, the twins come running to me and say 'Baby walk!!' Its so cute.

He is also sleeping through the night, let me hear a hallelujah!! I now get a full night's sleep for the most part (with three under 3, someone wakes up in the night and needs comforting occasionally). I am starting to feel like a real person and actually have the energy to do slightly more than what is absolutely necessary (i.e. my house is starting to get a little organized).

I am so blessed to have this little munchkin. While he was quite a surprise, we are so blessed to have him in our home. Oh how I love my Oliver.

A typical lunch

Parker enjoyed his rice and beans, he is my good eater, pretty consistent and will eat a variety of things. When he is hungry, he just says 'eat, eat' and climbs up into his chair.

Then there is Penelope. She is a tough nut to crack. She would eat cold cereal and milk for every meal if I let her. Back in San Diego, she pretty much had half an avocado every day for lunch. In Hawaii, avocados are a bit more expensive so I've been trying to get her to branch out. But I had a couple ripe avocados today so I cut one up and gave it to her for lunch. Well she would have none of it, that stinker. So she ended up eating a banana on the go (please excuse the mess in the background).

I didn't want the avocado to go to waste so I gave it to Oliver. I've tried avocado before and he hasn't liked it. Well today he decided it was delicious!! He ate almost all that I had cut up for Penelope.
And here is another of Ollie just because he is so cute!!

Temple Open House

The LDS temple here on Oahu has been undergoing a renovation for a while and was just completed a few weeks ago. They are currently having an open house so the public can come and tour the newly renovated temple. Parker and Penelope LOVE temples, in fact, any spire they see, they start yelling 'temple, temple!!' So I thought it might be fun for them to go see the inside of a temple (once a temple is dedicated, its only open to adult members of our church.) We went last weekend. The drive up was ok (its about an hour and a half away), Oliver isn't a huge fan of the car and he's getting over being sick so he wasn't too excited to spend that much time in the car but we survived. We started watching a movie about the history of the temple but we didn't quite make it to the end, the twins were trying every chair in the little tent where they were showing it and I'm sure the rest of the people had a hard time concentrating on the viewing. So we headed up to the entrance of the temple. They have booties to wear over your shoes (think shower cap but on your feet) that everyone wears to keep the carpets clean. Well Parker took one look at those things and would have nothing to do with them, he was totally freaked out and nothing was going to cover up his 'Car' shoes. One of the nice tour guides tried to take Oliver as we sorted this out which in theory would be great. However, he is still quite the mama's boy and immediately let everyone know his displeasure. So I took Oliver back, got Penelope and my booties on and told Tory he was going to have to carry Parker for the tour. The tour was just stressful, Parker wanted to be put down so he was not happy the whole tour. Penelope decided it was a great time to sing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" at the top of her lungs and she wanted to climb on everything. We were VERY glad to get to the end of the tour. The best part (for the kids) was the cookies after the tour. I wanted to take a couple pictures after but Parker and Penelope were just too excited to play around a fountain to hold still for a photo so it was just me and my Ollie:

The drive home was long, ending with Oliver screaming for the last 20 minutes. So my kids saw the inside of a temple but frankly, I think they would have liked going to Target and hanging out in the toy aisle better and it would have been a lot easier on me. You win some and you lose some.

7:46am in the Randall House

A typical Wednesday morning:

Parker already finished breakfast and is out on our patio playing with his trains (man, I LOVE that train table, it keeps Parker entertained for hours).


Penelope isn't feeling too well this morning. She ate a little breakfast and has been sitting in her chair for the last 30 minutes. She doesn't want to get down which is VERY unusual. Poor girl.


And then there is a this cutey-patootie. He is so busy these days, he's starting to take steps and just wants to be in everything. I'm having to pull out 12-18 month clothes because he is such a big boy.
And that is our 7:46am on this Wednesday!!

Happy Halloween

This was the first Halloween we decided to do costumes for the twins. There was a trunk-or-treat at our church Saturday evening. So Friday evening we drove all around looking for costumes......note to self, don't wait 'til the last second to get costumes. Everything was pretty picked over so Penelope ended up being Wonder Woman and Parker was a Prince of Persia.






The trunk-or-treat was crazy, lots of people and lots of trunks. Looking back, we should have been prepping our kids before we went. They wouldn't say 'trick-or-treat' but they did say (most of the time) 'thank you.'

They got to eat a kit-kat on the way home and some popcorn while holding their loot. They were pretty excited. And they stayed up way past their bedtime, they didn't get to bed until 8:30pm!!

Apparently folks in Hawaii are all about Halloween and houses have been decorated for weeks now. On our walks, we get to see pumpkins and all sorts of Halloween fare and the kids have really gotten into pumpkins. So we decided to go to a local farm on Saturday and see their pumpkin patch. We picked out some pumpkins:



Then we got to go on a hayride:

The kids are still talking about their trip to the pumpkin patch!!

Look what Oliver can do

Blow-up Furniture

Our furniture is still not here (we just met a couple at the park who have been here for 2 months and they still don't have their stuff so I can't complain.......yet) so we are trying to get by with some lovely blow-up furniture. Parker and Penelope enjoy lounging in these blow-up easy chairs we found at Sears while watching a little Backyardigans.





And here they are listening to dad read them a story (I love their new pjs!!). Note the diaper box that is subbing for a toy bin in side of the photo:


As much as the kids like our temporary furniture, I can't wait to get our real stuff. Sleeping on a bed that needs a little air put in it every night is getting old.

The Move

Well we did it. We left San Diego with 10 pieces of checked luggage (plus two checked carseats), 4 carry-ons (including one carseat), 2 toddlers (in a double stroller when they didn't insist on walking), and 1 baby. The flight to Honolulu was not awful but not great. Penelope hadn't slept well the night before and with a 5am wake-up, she fell asleep which we were not anticipating (but was a blessing). Other than her nap, she and Parker pretty much watched DVDs the whole way. Oliver, on the other hand, did not like the flight. He and I walked the aisles for most of the flight except 2 naps he took. We all were very ready to land by the end of the flight.

The idea to move to Hawaii began about a year ago when Tory came home from a work conference in Hawaii. Apparently, some talk had been had about a job opening over there. Anyway much time passed and while the opportunity was never squelched, it hadn't come to fruition. Then, all of the sudden, things started to happen this summer and now here we are.

Tory came over about month ago and found us a place to live and then two days before we left movers came and packed up our house (the best way to move) and we hopped our flight. We will miss our friends in San Diego but are excited for life in Hawaii.

So the details are this: we now live in the state of Hawaii, on the island of Oahu, toward the 'leeward' side. Tory is working at Pearl Harbor. We are still getting to know our surroundings but so far, I think we are going to like it here!!

Some Big News

Parker and Penelope have something to share:

Our trip to Utah

One of the highlights of the trip was Sunday dinner at Tory's parent's house. All the Randalls were there (except a brother and his wife whom I haven't seen since Tory and I got married). So we took tons of pictures. This is one of my favorites. Here are Grandpa and Grandma Randall with ALL their grandchildren. What a fun bunch!!


Helping grandpa water his plants:


What a way to drink your milk; the kids loved their cousin Preston's backyard and had a great time in his kiddie pool:
Reading stories with Uncle Jacob:
Tory and his siblings (re: his sisters) threw a surprise party for their mom. Penelope enjoyed playing with her cousin Jackson on the floor while there:
Playing in Grandpa and Grandma Randall's great backyard:
Getting to go out to eat (I think they stayed in their chairs for all of 30 seconds):
We went to temple square and the kids LOVED the fountains:
This is the best shot we could get of the kids:
All in all a good trip, traveling does seem to be getting a little easier. We have an airplane trip coming up so we'll see how that kind of traveling goes!!

One more tidbit about our drive

Oliver learned how to play peek-a-boo while we were driving, it was quite cute. So I guess the drive wasn't all bad!!

Driving to Utah

When I was young, my parents piled all SIX of their children into a car and drove from Alaska to Utah, camping the whole way. And not just once, we did this every other summer for a good number of years. So either my parents are crazy (crazy for travel, they are getting ready to head to China to teach over there for a year) or we are pathetic because we can barely survive driving to UT from San Diego. Its probably a combination of the two. Tory and I just drove to Utah with only three children and while it was better than the last time we did it, I really did NOT enjoy the traveling portion of our trip. These three pictures constitute my favorite 30 minutes of the whole drive:







Thankfully they all slept at the same time. And the time in Utah was great, lots better than last time. The twins were mostly happy playing with their cousins and all the toys they had never seen. Every night when we drove 'home' to Preston's house (Preston is their cousin closest in age) Parker would name all the toys he was looking forward to playing with. And Penelope LOVED Preston's train book:





She danced to this book the whole week we were there. My brother Jacob (who we were staying with) threatened to send it home with us but Tory didn't think he could survive the trip hearing that little song the whole way home.

More on our trip to UT to come....

A tubful of kids

Fun times at the Randalls

Our neighbors had a garage sale the other Saturday and was selling all their train stuff for a steal of a deal so we bought it. Parker and Penelope have been in train heaven!!





Then this past weekend when the temperature was rising we took to our backyard and had lots of fun with water:








In case you were wondering where Oliver was, don't worry he was out watching all the fun: