Time w/o Dad

Cliff had to leave again for Samoa. He went for his grandmother's funeral. This is the most time he has spent away from us ever. Within the last two months, the first month of his new job, he had to be in California 3 times. The last time he left for California, he was gone for almost a week. This time he is gone for at least a week and that is if he makes all the flights...welcome to standby (the only way we could afford for him to go down).

So, what have we done without him...ABSOLUTELY NOTHING the first couple of days. Finally, by Friday, I had it with the mess in the house and had the kids clean up their toys so I could vacuum. I also cleaned up the kitchen. We ordered pizza that night and watched a couple of movies. Yesterday, I gave the boys haircuts and they look so much better. Of course, I go to use the clippers and they won't work. So I tried to just trim Lavea'i's with scissors on the bottom, but it didn't look so nice. I finally broke down and thought of one of my neighbors who I know would have a set instead of paying the price for a boys haircut. She saved the morning and let me use them.

After the haircuts, we went out to eat at Winger's. People probably think I am crazy to take all the kids by myself, but they were really well behaved. It is probably the cleanest we have ever left the table. The kids at almost all of their food, maybe because I starved them until 2:30p.m. Right after that, we were going to catch the movie "Tangled." SOLD OUT, so onto option 2, "Megamind." The kids liked it and it kept them awake. I was ready to fall asleep, but then went and got some treats for the kids and that woke me up. By the time we got home, I sat down and realized how exhausted I was from not getting much sleep the previous night. Sleeping on the couch...NOT COMFORTABLE!

This morning, I woke up with Tula'i and we have been hanging out. He has told me about 20 times already that he loves me. He is always the one to take time to say it no matter what is going on at the moment. We ate pancakes together and now I am just waiting for the other kids to wake up. I am feeling tired again and ready to go back to bed. These sleepless nights are beginning to get me. We'll see how church goes today, I hope not too bad.

This is TALENT

I absolutely LOVE the help that Kalena can give me at times. Last night, I was so tired and just being plain lazy. Tula'i had said that Lavea'i was stinky...but his sense of smell isn't one that I trust too often. So, I didn't do anything about it, but Kalena decided to take matters into her own hands and change his diaper. I was so grateful for her doing it! When Lavea'i came out this morning he was all wet up the front of his shirt (no big surprise) because of all his pee throughout the night. Well, I went to change his diaper and get him dressed for the day and this is how I found his diaper put on...



Now this is pure talent!

28 weeks 2 days

I haven't been very faithful about posting lately. I just am extremely tired all of the time and don't want to have to think or use my brain at all! Needless to say, I still have to use my brain quite a bit, but I wanted to post more memories about this pregnancy for posterity sake.

From the beginning, I was playing basketball to get some exercise and was LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT! Before the morning (ALL DAY) sickness would hit me mid morning, it was great to get in the exercise, but then it just got worse and worse. Smells didn't really bother me much with any of the other kids, but this little girl put me over the edge. I ABSOLUTELY COULDN'T stand the smell of anything: perfume, shampoo, raw meat, laundry detergent, you name it...I didn't like it. That left me with not wanting to cook anything at all. If I had the choice and money, I would have eaten out every day, ALL DAY LONG. But, even the smell of restaurants didn't hit me too well.

For Halloween, we took the kids to a pumpkin patch and they had a bonfire outside. It was okay until we get back into the car. I hung my head out the window the whole way home to get the smell of fresh air. I had to wash everyones clothes that night and take a bath to get the smell off of me. This is just one instance and poor Cliff was sooooo sick of eating out he decided to take matters into his own hands and cook. One night he cooked some chicken in teriyaki sauce and that put me over the edge. I had to sit out in the freezing cold on the porch to stay out of the smell. The kids would keep coming to talk to me and every breath was making me want to bow to the porcelain god.

So the sickness wore off finally after my mother came and rescued me for a good 2+ weeks. She did the cooking and I could actually eat the food. I didn't throw up once while she was here. But, after she left, I started having pelvic pressure and some bleeding. I was so scared about losing the baby, but also knew that there wasn't much I could do to prevent anything from happening if it did. I went in to see the doctor and they told me that I could NO LONGER EXERCISE! Now, that was a bummer. Not only now had I put Cliff through eating out almost every night, but now I couldn't lift anything heavy...MY KIDS and I felt like a wimpy pregnant lady who has never had any of these problems before. So, after learning through 3 ultrasounds that everything was okay, I decided to start walking/easily jogging. After that one day, I had more pelvic pressure and since have decided I better not do anything just in case.

Now entering the 3rd trimester, I have the wonderful heartburn and ligament pains. My sciatic nerve is being pinched, sending pain down my leg. Oh, the joys of being pregnant! Is it worth it? YES, indeed it is with the end result in mind, but definitely not easy to go through...for anyone in the family.

So, with all this being said and done, this will be our last child. It was hard to come to that conclusion. But, I am very excited, just like Kalena, to have the opportunity to have one more girl come to our family. In fact she is so excited that for her superstar week at school we put on her poster a couple of the ultra sound pictures with the due date and for her 100 day project we made a 100 day count down chain. She pulls one of the chains off every day.

Happy 6th Birthday!

I can't believe how fast time goes by with the kids growing up. Kalena turned 6 on January 28th and how excited she is to be that old. I kept asking her what she wanted to do for her birthday and she could never settle on one thing until a couple of nights before. She decided she wanted a snowflake cake and pizza for dinner (bring on the Little Ceasars). She also wanted a couple of her friends from school to come over along with her 2 cousins, Ana and Gracie, who stayed the night.

From the time she got up in the morning, she woke me up, she kept wanting everyone to tell her happy birthday. With the kids in their jammies, we went to "I-Hoppers" for breakfast and she made sure that the waitress knew the purpose for our eating out.

She was the superstar (notice in the picture below the star sticker on her shirt) for the week at school and so she got to take treats for her class. She chose fruit snacks...not to junky and easy to stuff in her back pack. While she was at school she made sure to let Cliff and I know our responsibility was to make homemade paper snowflakes so we could decorate the house. We even went beyond that and blew up some leftover red, pink and white balloons. They were simple decorations, but it sure did make her day. She still has snowflakes hanging up in her room and one in her window.

I didn't make a cake for her, just cupcakes which was much easier to clean up and decorate. Anyway, she loved it and had a FABULOUS day!

After cupcakes and ice cream, we did some face painting with the girls. I can't believe how tall Kalena is compared to everyone else.

I was trying to get a shot of Kalena with all her gifts, but Maika decided to keep stepping in front of the camera and on this particular shot do some self defense pose.

PLAY, PLAY, PLAY!!!

This specific day, I was quite tired and the boys had been begging me for a couple of days to let them go out and play in the snow. I finally gave in and got them all geared up to go. I had chores to do, but remembered my mom saying over Christmas break, "Forget the chores. I will clean up while you go out and play with the kids in the snow. It isn't too often that you get to do this, so go and enjoy it while you can." Well, I ended up playing for few minutes that day, but went to shoveling the snow instead. So, this particular day, I put all the chores and nap times aside and went to make a lasting day of memories with my boys. I am so thankful I did it, because it was fun and just what I needed to do! So, there are tons of pictures that I had taken because we made a snow man, that turned into a chair immediately after they beat the snowman down, and then into a slide to finish off our time outside. Then, of course, we came in and enjoyed a cup of hot cocoa.