May DAY!

Here are my boys- in their May Day costumes.

My fourth son enjoyed running around the stage-- performing the LIMBO and the Mexican Hat Dance.

Then I don't know what it is about my third son.

People look at him.. ... and just envision muscles.

He does have the heart and attitude of a warrior.

His class performed the New Zealand Haka

My second son-- strutted his stuff... performing

Rag Time to represent United States.

How dapper he looks in a hat- what a stud!

What a fun performance.

It is always great to see the community out supporting

the kids.

Always amazing to see the costumes

and dances the parent helpers come up with!

Like I've always said- we live in an amazing community.

I know you friends and family are ASTOUNDED I got these pictures posted so fast!

Neither my camera, nor my computer gave me any trouble! It's a miracle!

highlights of Peter Pani Po Po

Here we are at a Hukilau... a huki- huki-huki- huki - huki- huki lau...

Here are the warriors doing the Haka- and threatening to throw pirates into the sea.

Here are Pirates... singing "yo ho a pirates life for me..."

Mermaids tempting Peter to swim with them... they had a really adorable dance with streamers etc.. but Micheal scares them away-- by doing a cannon ball dive...



Peter Pan was a stud. He was brilliant! Here he is with his lost kids...

A funny thing happened... Beth T offered to take care of the program, so she forwarded it to Crash on the mainland. (since Crash helped with the original script). Crash didn't know it was a school wide production-- she thought I had asked her to just write a skit for our townhouse kids to perform in my living room.

Poor Crash-- she has already forgotten how BIG and OVER THE TOP we are here in Hawaii....

no small production... no no no... that would NEVER do!

It was wonderful!!!

Thanks to all the parents who helped! ( not that I really think they visit my blog... but if they do.. or did... I want them all to know how amazing I think our small community is. )

{Whew!} It's over...

Kids are wondering... What play is next?

But I think we'll let parents regroup and rest before we spring another play on them..

No Poem as lovely as a Tree

At one of the hockey rinks we play games at
there is this
AMAZING
tree!


So perfect for climbing and hiding in.



This tree me and my siblings would be all over!









I love how it reaches it's branches down.. inviting kids and the young at heart to crawl in it's arms.











If only I were small again!


I could fit in it's trunk--




what a great hiding place....









I took some time to play with photo shop and enhance a portrait of this beautiful tree.
When I say beautiful-- I acknowledge- it's kinda mangled and ugly
with all it's twists and knots...
it looks like an old dinosaur almost..
it's probably as old as a dinosaur...
but it's the LOVE...
that makes it beautiful.

If you stand next to it--
you cannot resist it

to hang off it's odd shaped branches


I don't even know really what I did...
I just kept trying different techniques..
until I got this ..
But I love the texture... it kinda looks like a Seurat Dot painting... especially the background.
Yeah! I really like it!
I might have to get a hard copy and frame it!

Art

 

Years ago- I gave up doing art.. because I expected everything I did... be frame worthy. I want a frame-able product when I was done.. and I lost the joy in just playing and experimenting and creating.

So I try to play with art and just play. I also try to encourage my kids to play with art.

The concentration...

 

son two is was inspired by our surroundings-- this is the scene as we drive to hockey every day. And it was funny-- at the time.. I thought, "why is the WHITE on the bottom?" When I think of clouds-- they are in the blue-- or above the blue....

But this weekend- we were driving and I said, "SON! There's your painting!" The clouds were low above the mountains with BRIGHT blue sky above.

My oldest son is inspired by hockey....

while my youngest is inspired by.... ketchup?

Just kidding.

It was a fun painting session as we all played with paint and color.

This is my second painting-- trying to capture the rolling hills as we drive home from hockey through the pineapple fields.

Turning into a TEENAGER!

My oldest just turned 13!
ThirTEEN!
a teenager- am I ready for this?


Here he is - 5 years ago when we first moved here to Hawaii.


This was at Ward Camp and these two rascals became

best buds.


(awe anjeny- aren't they adorable?)

How did this teenager want to spend his birthday?
Having a HUGE day of Nerf dart gun wars and playing Hockey.




Here they were rearranging teams and gathering ammo....
Nerf guns-- what a life saver!

Our ORIGINAL plan was to
go on a hike,
play hockey,
eat pizza
then walk to the beach




come back and have brownies and ice cream.
But as my luck has it-

it rained.

They were able to get in a short game of hockey.

It was hard core- half the kids had roller blades and the other half ran around barefoot!
luckily no toes were lost in the process.



Here he is ...
in his element..
sharing his love of hockey
with his friends.

Happy Birthday!

Typical 4 Year Old birthday

So my baby isn't a baby any more

We celebrated his 4th birthday!

This was his first friend party. I planned it short and sweet.
(One Hour)

My friends teased...






"Oh it's a drive by.. drop a gift off and pick up a cupcake kind of party."

Basically.


Actually- that would have been EVEN BETTER! We could have set up a Mc Donalds type "Drive Thru Window" and he could take the present and then given out the goodie bags and cupcakes.
(Mc Donalds is his FAVORITE restaurant right now because of the chipmunk toys inside the happy meals. ) Chipmunks are his FAVORITE movie! (Be it the first or the Squeekwal.)
(We've moved on from Kung fu Panda and before that.. it was Cars...)


I had planned playing at the park and a piñata...
but naturally it was raining for the one hour our party was planned.
SO we had balloon fun inside first.

And then he remembered he was turning 4


And you shouldn't have too much fun at your own birthday party.

And what is a party without the birthday boy

tantruming for a good half hour?

He ran upstairs-- yelling down, "LEAVE ME ALONE! I NEED A TIME OUT!"

So we went on with our Party plans and next decorated cupcakes.

This is one of my more brilliant ideas.

Why decorate the cupcakes in advance? Decorating cupcakes is half the fun of eating a cupcake! All the sprinkles and decorations etc...

So I just passed out paper plates with a dollop of frosting and they passed around the sprinkles and candy to decorate their own.

I couldn't get my son to come downstairs... so we just started singing Happy Birthday without him.

It was too funny! He came tearing down the stairs by the end of our song--

There was NO WAY he was going to miss blowing out the candles!

And here he is..

happy again...

He must have realized "oh yeah! It's Happy Birthday to me... not have a screaming tantrum fit- of a birthday..."

We jimmy-rigged the Pinata in our garage...

Took a million turns at whacking it- until we gave up and just had the kids pull the legs off Optimus Prime... so all the candy could fall out.

Put the candy in the goodie bags and ...

before I knew it

His first birthday party was over.

{WHEW!}

look at those dimples! He knows how to melt my heart.


Happy Birthday!

Christmas pics!

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas!
I never knew I had so many creative neighbors!

Bradshaw family dropped by this pineapple-Santa- I thought he was too cool.
(I then cut him up- to serve at our Christmas Eve party.)

The Tuller family had their free car wash for neighbors. You can see pictures on their website here.

Then the Scotts family- dropped in on our Christmas Eve party for the BYUH students and brought a pkg of popcorn and a list of DVD/VHS tapes they have that we can borrow the up coming year.

( I thought that was a great idea- between all us families- we probably have a great pool of videos to share. We could all save $ on movie rentals. )


I've only been a Bishops wife for 6 months but I'm getting the hang of this entertaining bit.

luckily I made a TON of food thinking we would eat left overs Christmas day- it turned out to be just right.




We munched on Sweet n sour meatballs, rice
Blow-torch (7 layer dip) with chips
some other little finger foods- using puffed pastry and cheese/spinach
Decorated Christmas cookies- played Rock Band
Then sang Christmas carols- and read Luke 2



It was really fun having students spend Christmas Eve with us. They were all so funny and entertaining!


Rock band seems to be a good activity- that crosses multitudes of cultures.

(I don't know if you remember when we had some Chinese girls staying with us for a week- they LOVED rockin out!)

Hubby and I didn't craw into bed until 2 am- then to have the kids wake us at 6:30 it was rough.
We tried to stall them until 7:00- but my oldest reminded us that WE wake THEM up at 6:30 every morning for scriptures.....

it did seem a bit hypocritical... so we dragged our bones out of bed....


































I got the most awful sweater from my mother & Sister.

This photo doesn't even come close to "capturing" it.

The pineapples are all sequenced.
the palm trees are free dangling across my chest-- and the details don't stop there!
There is a bigger pineapple on my back-- sequenced naturally.
And if you look closely you can see the palm tree on the sleeves too! Of course the palm trees have big beads for Coconuts on them...
IT is just plain AWFUL and obnoxious! I so wish I had opened it up to wear at our Christmas Eve party. I would have been the Bell at the Ball.