Memorial Day Fun

It was a beautiful day here today. The kids wanted to "camp" in the front yard with the neighbor kids. Bob cleaned the car, inside and out, and I did some cleaning inside. That was about it for our holiday. :) Hope everyone enjoyed their day off.

A Kenzie story....

Since we live on base we have to go through a gate where they check our id everytime we come home. Well, Kenzie always wants her window down to say goodbye to the nice guard at the gate. They contract with a security company so some of the guards are a little bit older. This one particular gentleman is so friendly and nice all the time. He always says "Hi Sugar" to her. She just giggles and loves the attention. Well, apparently she misunderstood what he was saying because one day at the gate she told a different guard "Bye Sucker!" Oops! We had to explain that it was sugar and not sucker.
Today she got it right and said "Bye sugar" . Which honestly is a little bit embarrasing when it's the wrong guard! Finally tonight we got to see the "sugar-man" as she now refers to him.

Anyway, sorry no pictures. If I would have had my camera at McDonalds today I could have posted a picture of the "throw-up" the kids found it the place-place tube. But that's a whole different story. Luckily it wasn't from either of my children. Needless to say playtime was cut short!
I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow.

Sorry it's been so long!!

My goodness, I can't believe I haven't posted since Monday! This week has flew by so quickly.
Today was Mackenzie's preschool graduation. Daddy and I both went since he was off work today. The class said their prayer (picture 2 above) and they sang the "Baby bumble bee" song. Remember that one... "I'm pickin up a baby bumble bee won't my mommy be so proud of me..."
Isn't it great to re-live your childhood memories through your own kids?
Besides today I feel like it's just been a very busy week, but in a good way. Tuesday my friend Christi took me to breakfast at the Ko'Olina Resort for my birthday. To me it's one of the most beautiful places on the whole island. We had such a great, peaceful, relaxing time. (Thanks Christi!)
Thursday morning I had coffee with a friend and then for lunch Kenzie and I went to another friends house with 3 other girlfriends. They surprised me with flowers and a birthday cake. They even sang happy birthday! I guess when you're in your thirties you get a week of celebrating! :)
As you can tell I had a wonderfully fun week and since I spent all week having fun I need to spend tomorrow morning cleaning this house!
Have a great weekend everyone!

I am truly blessed..

Thanks everyone for the sweet birthday wishes. I had a great day with my family. We went to church and then out to lunch at Sam Choys with our good friends the Cochruns. Here are a few pictures from yesterday. Lora surprised me with having the waitresses and waiters sing to me. I had a wonderful banana bread pudding cake for dessert.
The last picture is truly an answer to prayer. Kenzie seems to be OK with dairy and peanuts now. I don't think she was ever allergic to peanuts but the doctor recommended that we don't even try it since Mason is allergic, but since she turned three we have slowly been trying peanut butter and she actually loves it! She was definately allergic to dairy products and would break out in a rash but is now eating ice cream and sometimes yogert and cheese. I haven't given her milk to drink yet because she really likes soy milk. It does make it hard on Mason that she gets to eat things like ice cream, but he is so good about accepting his allergies. I pray that in time he will also be able to eat dairy products and maybe someday peanuts too.
Anyway, I hope you all have a great Monday!

Preschool Graduation

Kenzie and I attended her friend Chloe's preschool graduation this morning. (Congratulations, Chloe!)

Wow! I knew high school graduations were a big deal here in Hawaii but I didn't realize that they go all out for even preschool! The kids wore little caps and announced their name and were given little diplomas. Many parents had bunches of those big mylar balloons and of course each little one received leis. Kenzie and I got Chloe the flower lei. As we pulled up to the lei stand this morning I asked Kenzie what color she wanted to get and she didn't even hesitate to say "purple". She knew that was Chloe's favorite color. (Although I'm betting Chloe gets more enjoyment out of the gumball lei!)

The sanctuary (Chloe's preschool is at our church) was just as crowded as it is on Sunday mornings. I couldn't believe how many people freed up their Friday morning schedule to come to a preschool graduation. It was very sweet and fun for both Kenzie and I, even though we made 2 trips to the bathroom and one to the water fountain! :)

Tonight we did one of our favorite Friday night activities. We went to Round Table Pizza in Waikiki (Bob's absolute favorite Pizza next to his mom's homemade pizza!) and then they have fireworks on the beach at 8pm on Friday nights. The kids enjoy playing in the sand while we wait for it to get dark. Of course we then top off the evening with a quick stop by Starbucks. It's becoming a great Friday night tradition. :)

Well, I think I've "talked" enough tonight. I better go wake Bob. He layed down with Kenzie about 15 minutes ago. I'm pretty sure they are both out cold! :)

Have a great weekend everybody!

Top 10 Places to go when I visit NE.....

10. Don and Millie's
9. IHOP
8. Sonic
7. Amarillo Barbeque
6. Oak View Mall
5. Village Point Mall
4. Mama Alvinos
4. Kohls
3. Olive Garden
2. Panara
1. TARGET!

Sorry no pictures today. I have been thinking a lot though about all of the places that I want to go when I get home. We don't have any of these places on the entire Island! So, if anyone wants to go with me on my quest for restraunts and shopping, I'd love the company! :)
(I'll probably gain 20 lbs in these three weeks!)

Not much new here....

Hi All! Here are a few pictures that I took Friday and Saturday. Kenzie loves to ride her scooter all decked out in her safety gear. In the meantime the boys opted for the "sport" of video gaming!

Both kids have been sick with coughs and nasal congestion the last couple of days. Mason stayed home from school Monday but went back today. Kenzie has it a bit worse and stayed home from preschool today. Both act fine and don't even cough that much during the day. It's at night when we hear the hacking! Everyone I talk to says this cough lingers for weeks. Ugh!

Anyway, that's about all the excitement at the Stanley household this week. We are counting down to our trip home and I am trying to plan for 9 hours of flying! Luckily we leave here around 5:30 in the evening so we can sleep through most of the first flight. Hopefully that's the way it will go! :)

Can you tell they're related?

Happy Mother's Day!

Here I am with my two precious gifts from God! I can't put into words how special it is to be a mother. I am truly blessed to spend each and every day with Mason and Mackenzie. They bring me amazing joy!
I also am blessed to have a wonderful godly mother and mother-in-law. Thank you, Mom for loving me unconditionally and for being a great role model to me. And, thank you Pearl for raising such a wonderful man to be my husband. My children are blessed to have two beautiful grandmothers and three beautiful great-grandmothers. Thank you all for the influence that you have had on Bob and I to make us the people we are. We have grown up seeing great models of parenting!
Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's in our families! :)

Getting rid of the evidence....

Can you tell Bob and I love to watch CSI?!

Not much going on today. We are taking the kids bowling tonight so I should have some good pictures to post soon.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Day at the Pool with Dad!

Here are the pictures that I promised! These were taken while I was gone this weekend. Bob, the kids, Ricky, his mom, his sister and a friend of hers went to the pool on Saturday. As you can see they had way too much fun! :) Both kids are such water lovers. (I guess that's a good thing when you live on an island in the middle of the ocean!) I think in July when we get back from NE I'm going to get them both in swim lessons, although Bob is doing a really good job teaching Mason how to swim. You can see that he is learning to dive in from the side. I think being thrown in the air is probably his favorite though. :) I think the last pictures sums up how much fun they had. Bob said that when he took Kenzie's hand out of the bag she was holding a chip in her hand! It's only a five minute drive from the pool to home. She must have been exhausted!

Happy Birthday, Grandma Kaup!

From your grandchildren who desperately need baths!

Yea, it's my moms birthday today. I won't put her age on the www. :)

By the way, I had a great time at my Women's Encounter. It was absolutely wonderful.

Tomorrow I'll try to post some pictures of what Bob and the kids did this weekend. They fared just fine without me, but we were all excited to see each other on Sunday.

I'm taking today to catch up on quite a few things so I don't have a lot of time to write.

God Bless!

Study Time!

Just 4 more weeks of Kindergarden!

Happy Friday Everyone! I wanted to get a post in today. I leave in a couple of hours for a Women's encounter with our church so I probably won't post again until Sunday or Monday.

I'm not sure what Bob and the kids will be doing this weekend, besides going to McDonalds. :)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tsunami Advisory

Another "first" for us happened this morning. I woke up to the news that we were in a Tsunami watch. You may have heard on CNN that because of an earthquake in Tonga (not even sure where exactly that is) there was a possibility that we would have a Tsunami. Within a short time we were down graded to an advisory. My neighbor and I were on the phone with each other several times. Do we send the kids to school? Should we be preparing for something? Anyway, I think the national news blew up the story to be bigger than it really was. Some schools that are closer to the coast closed as a precaution but everything is fine. We didn't even get any high winds or anything.
All is well here and we were not really in any danger. :)

Gymnastics Day!

Monday's are Kenzie's gymnastics day and I finally remembered to bring the camera. She really does enjoy it. At first I always had a hard time getting her to go into the class by herself but now that she is more comfortable with it she does pretty good.

Today she fell off the mat doing a log roll. The floor is carpeted so she didn't get hurt too bad. She cried for quite a while but I didn't see a bump on her head. Isn't it funny how a child can get hurt really bad, but if they're having fun they forget about the pain and want to play again. But, if the boo-boo gets someone's attention and it can get them out of doing something they don't want to do, it ends up hurting so bad you would think they need the ER! Mackenzie is pretty tough, but she is also a drama queen. She can play it up for all it's worth! Whenever it's time to clean up toys her leg starts to hurt so bad that she can't even walk! (Reb, she hasn't tried "I have a tummy ache" yet) :)

Anyway, pray for Mason tonight. He had a slight fever this evening. He is acting fine and just sounds a little bit stuffed up. When we prayed tonight he wanted me to pray that his fever would stay. He's already trying to use it as an excuse to stay home from school tomorrow! He must not be feeling too bad if he wants to have a fever. Do all kids try to use injury and sickness to get out of things or is it just mine? :)

I guess that's it for tonight. I am trying to get back into my walking at 5:30am routine now that sunrise is around 6. Today was day one. If I'm going to keep it up I have got to get to bed much earlier than I have been! Good Night All!