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.

Hockey Pictures

 We are so lucky to have found a competitive roller hockey league here on the island.

One that challenges to the kids by playing other teams and holding tournaments.

(When we first moved here, we put them into ICE hockey and there aren't enough players to even have two teams- on the whole island! So they just practice and play each other. While they like the aspect of ICE hockey... it's not much fun just playing yourself week after week, month after month, year after year.....)

So we switched to Roller Hockey.

(Another factor was as the kids advanced up in the program the game days were switching to Sunday and we try to keep that day set apart for worship.)

 

So it was a good change.

We could get all our hockey fix in on Saturdays and the kids get to play multiple teams on multiple islands.

BUT NOW.

My two oldest sons (because their teams are so good-- not to brag or anything....)have the opportunity to travel to the MAINLAND and compete in

San Jose (SHARK territory) and compete
with other teams in our "region"!

HOW exciting and COOL is

THAT?!?!

We are very excited!

Boy- OH- Boy-- Soccer!

So as you probably know-- we are a hockey family.

I drive insaine distances on a daily basis to get my kids to HOCKEY .. here in Hawaii.

{yes.. hockey can be found .. even in hawaii if you are willing to drive.}

So naturally- we have one son who would like to play soccer and basket ball. He thinks he stinks at Hockey.

It's your classic 3rd child syndrome- I am sure.

He is always comparing himself to his two older brothers and so he doesn't feel like he measures up... never mind that he is 3-6 years YOUNGER than them!

He is actually really good at hockey-- skating circles around his peers.. so naturally the league won't let him play with his peers.. he plays with older boys.

Anyway-- juggling soccer and hockey is a trick. But just look at the joy on his face!
(I think he likes playing with kids his own age.)

Our youngest.. gets a bit tired of being toted around to brothers games. He can't wait until it is HIS turn to play---> enough already of watching!

And then this last picture is just for CRASH and her fan club. She use to take pictures of all the famous people you bump into while at soccer games.

I don't usually bug or bother the rich & famous but Natasha (Soccer gold Olympian) parked herself right next to my blanket! Her nephew was playing on the other team. I guess I was sitting on the wrong side of the field..

I am all about comfort people... I found a semi shady spot to spread my blanket and that is where I planted myself.

She was very nice and not at all "in -my- face" for cheering for the opposing team...

I love, in general, the family feel of living in a small town-- although I don't know everyone.. the people born and raised here do. Everyone is laughing and joking and heckling the ref and each other. It's nice.

I understand now why my mom hated to watch our athletic events growing up.

I hate it when the feeling in the air is SO COMPETITIVE and we are watching 6 year olds play a game!!!

All I can say is-- even for a Polynesian-- she's got alot of TAT's ...
I mean- historically/culturally tattoos were important. In some Polynesian cultures that was how they preserved their genealogy and the stories of significant events. In one culture-- the oldest boy would have his ENTIRE body tattooed with this important information to keep it preserved from one generation to the next. (Those of you who are genealogy buffs should admire the length they go to to preserve this information... )

Some of Natasha's tat's are names... a motto/mantra type saying...

I personally wouldn't like people taking the time to " read my body" .. I kinda sorta hate t-shirts that have alot of words on them.. because I don't like people "reading" my chest. (No matter how much I try to promote reading.. )

I've been reading all weekend and have a few books to post about.

Hope everyone is doing well.