BINGO!

Every Christmas Eve, since I can remember, we get together with my Mom's family for dinner and Bingo. I know it may sound a little funny to some, but everyone looks forward to it, kids and adults. Dinner is a potluck, with everyone bringing their "best", and we all gorge ourselves. Our numbers are growing every year, with marriages and babies, and I think we were somewhere around 40 this year.

The minute everyone has finished eating the food dissapears and the piles and piles (literally) of presents appear. The last few years we have started sectioning the piles, with seperate areas for adult, male, female, and anyones, and then each of the kids has a pile of presents especially for them. They usually end up with more gifts than bingos, but who's counting?

Because we don't open any presents until Christmas morning, this is everyones chance to get their "unwrapping fix". The kids have a great time opening their toys, and it's always fun to see who gets the rotating can of Vienna Sausages. Apparently this year Cam and Blair had more fun with Kainoa and Lilo's undercover police toys than they did.

Once the last present is gone everyone puts in a dollar and we play blackout for the whole pot. It seems like it's been 15 years since someone in our family has won it, but this year Tracy broke our losing streak. Way to play Tracy!

Christmas Performance

With this being the first year that the boys are in preschool, we got to go to their first Christmas performance. Most of the teachers at the school are from different countries in South America, so they sang Christmas songs in spanish and did different dances from those countries.

Both of the boys love to dance, so they had a great time learning the dances and even practiced at home. They both danced with partners, and it was so fun to watch them. I can't wait to show them the video when they're older.

I'm not quite sure who made the choices, but Kainoa was picked to be Joseph for the Nativity scene. He did such a good job! He really enjoyed getting dressed up in his "costume" (really it was a small tablecloth with holes cut in it for his head and arms and a pillowcase for his head.).

As you can tell, a fun time was had by all!

That Hair

Everywhere we go people comment on Lilo's hair. At Costco, at the grocery store, the scrapbook store, church, it doesn't matter where we are, people love his hair. They want to touch it, too. "Can I touch THAT HAIR?" Some people want to rub it, others just want a closer look at the ringlets. Either way, it drives him crazy. He will swat at your hand or just try to run away. Poor guy, women always wanted to touch him and get a closer look at him. I'm sure he'll just hate that when he's a teenager.

I LOVE his curls. I sometimes wonder how I'm going to manage them, when half of them are nothing but frizz and the other half is nothing but knots, but I just can't bear to cut them. He's three years old and has never had a haircut. Not even a trim. Luckily his hair is so curly that you can't tell unless you straighten out a ringlet. Some time I'll take pictures of him with his wet hair in the bath and you can all see how long it really is. It's down to the bottom of his shoulder blades- I'm not kidding. I just hope that one day he realizes just how lucky he is to have such beautiful curls. I love THAT HAIR!

Fall

I love this time of year! Football, holidays, etc. It has been so nice lately that I've been spending all my time out and about and not blogging. Sorry! We've been cleaning up the yard, spending the cool evenings inside reading books, stuff like that. I'll be sure to be better about it from now on!

Halloween

This year Halloween was great! It was the warmest Halloween night I can remember. There were none of the "coats over costumes" or "sweats under costumes" that I had to endure as a kid. It was really fun for the kids to run around in the warm (high 60's) air. Payge was a candy corn, and walked around the neighborhood with us. She is not eating candy for a year, so she just walked around and said hi to the neighbors before she headed off to a friend's halloween party. She is getting so old, it really freaks me out! Kainoa was a vampire and Lilo was a spider this year. We only trick or treated around the circle before their bags were full, so instead of going to other neighborhoods we hopped in the car and went to Lagoon. It was so much fun! There was hardly anyone there, so the kids didn't have to wait in any lines, and were sometimes the only ones on the rides. It was a great way to end such a fun day!

Lemon Juice

I know I just made a new post, but I just figured out how to out videos on this, and I have the best one. A couple of weeks ago we had fish sticks for dinner. We were out of tartar sauce, so I got some lemon juice out to put on my fish sticks. Well, Kainoa heard "juice", and wanted a drink. I tried to warn him that he didn't want any, but he wouldn't be talked out of it. I think he knew something was up when I got the camera out to film him doing it, but Lilo was clueless. It was pretty funny!

Kidnapped Seals

I woke up this morning and while I was in the bathroom getting ready I heard a horrible noise coming from the bedroom. Apparently in my sleep last night I hopped a plane to Sea World and kidnapped a seal and was stowing it away in my bedroom. It was barking very loud and seemed to be coming towards me. I was ready to run away when around the corner came Lilo. The horrible noises were coming from him. I was shocked to see such crazy noises coming out of his little body. Poor little guy! He ended up going to daycare anyway, (cause I had a huge Chemistry test today), but the daycare had to call Yaya at work and have her come get him and take him to the Dr. He has croup! Hopefully he will stop fevering in time to go trick or treating tomorrow night. Luckily the steroids that they gave him are doing wonders, and except for the barking, you would never know he was sick. What a brave little guy!