It's Aloha Friday, no work til Monday...

Oh wait, I'm a stay at home mom so I guess that doesn't apply to me since basically Saturday is my busiest working day..LOL.

~~~~~~sighs~~~~~~

Yesterday was the last day of school for the kids. As of today, they are officially on their Christmas vacation. Does anyone know what that means? Besides the noise and the constant refereeing that I have to do?! My favorite of all things when the kids are on school break.....I get to sleep in. No more getting up at five or five thirty-ish to drive kids to seminary and then hauling more kids off to school an hour or so later. I love me some sleep and haven't been able to enjoy some serious slumbering because of the early morning schedule my high school kids keep.

So today, I actually slept til ten thirty without anyone knocking on my door, jumping on my bed or calling my name to wake me up. I tell ya, it's heaven. And of course the kids were so happy to get a break from school, they practically laze around all morning doing, practically nothing, ok cross that, they were doing whatever their little hearts desire. And I get to sit around too after I woke up and just enjoy the slow and laziness of the day...no appointment to rush off to, no commitment to keep, Nada, zip, zilch.

I took my final yesterday so you could say I'm officially on a school break too...although since there was only one class I was taking, it didn't feel like much. And last night, our ward had a Christmas party. It was called a night in Bethlehem..we had to dress up in Biblical times and started off the evening with the Primary kids doing a skid of the Savior's birth. We were told in advance to bring canned goods to give to the Bishop, in turn, he and his helpers give us a bag of coins(those fake candy coins) that we can use in the market place to buy food and other merchandise. I tell ya, the activities committee did such a beautiful, it actually felt like you were in Jerusalem peddling goods or bargaining for goods. They even had a live nativity scene set up in the Primary room for anyone to go and have their pictures taken. (Kaitlin fell asleep and my boys each took off on different directions to enjoy the night, we didn't have our pictures taken. And I also forgot to take my camera with me...bummer!) I actually like the set up...there was no Santa in sight, which I think it's very fitting since this party was taken place in a place of worship. I'm glad that someone actually thought to plan a Christmas party where the main focus is on the Savior...not that I have anything against Santa, mind you.

Oh yeah, my daughter Jenn went to Sadie Hawkins and it was so cute she asked this cute boy to be her date. She actually put time, money and effort into this dance. You wanna know how she asked the guy to be her date? She got a shirt, wrote on the front "wash me" and on the back she wrote "Sadie's?". And then she wrote a bunch of girls' name with washable markers and she wrote her name with a permanent marker. And then she had some random person gave the shirt to the boy she wanted to be her date. You see how that worked right? When the boy washed the shirt...all the washable ink disappeared except for her name. He responded by texting one of Jenn's friend that "yes" he will go to Sadie's with her.

Jenn then went out and bought two red t-shirts(red is the boy's favorite color) and have their names written in blue(blue's Jenn's favorite color) on the shirts. So they went to the dance in matching t-shirts in their favorite colors combined. Now, you wanna see what her date looks like?

Don't they look cute together? Yeah, I think so too and I'm not just saying that cuz she's my daughter...LOL. Yep, while we were traveling the road to Bethlehem last night and bargaining for goods in Jerusalem, my daughter was hanging out and dancing her little feet off with some cutie..ahahah. Makes me all the more excited to see how her prom would pan out.

Now, I'm off to plan out a fun night with my hub. It's our date night and Steph's taken all the three little kids with her so I am free to go out and enjoy being with my hub. Hope you are all enjoying the season. Have a great weekend!! ☺

Love,

Sisterly Love

I came across this video my girls made and posted it on their FB. I thought it's kinda cute how they actually coordinate themselves on this video.

A Little Long-Winded..lol

It's been a while, hasn't it? So many things have been going on and with school's out for the summer, all the kids are home and practically every electronic equipment we have in the house has been completely taken over by one kid or another. I've had a couple of busy weeks and the summer has barely started but I'm enjoying myself. We will be going on a camp this week Friday til next week Wednesday so looks like I might be MIA again.

Since I last wrote, Jen's back from her trip and I think she's picked up a little bug because she looked completely tired and worn out and has been sleeping a lot. Of course they had a really busy week trying to cramp in as much sightseeing and preparing for their debut in NY that the earliest if they were at all lucky to go to bed for them was at midnight every night and getting up at six or even earlier in the morning. She's doing great and now she's attending Summer school. I will be posting later on how everyone is doing for the summer.

Today I thought I'd post a really cute video that y'all might enjoy. A week or so before school was out at the Elementary School my boys attend, there was an artist who came and made a couple of murals at a couple of the buildings...they were beautiful. On one of the walls, all the kids at the school were allowed a day to go and paint their favorite sea creature and it was a fun day for them all. I was able to go for an hour to watch my son Danny paint his sea creature. But anyways, the end result, with all the classes coming in one at a time to paint...you be the judge of that. One of the parents took this video and posted on You Tube so here it is..............



So what ya think? Isn't that artist incredibly talented? What about those future artists of America? LOL...those are some talented kids!

Here are the pictures of my three boys' sea creatures they drew....I think these are to die for and I'm not by any means being biased at all..nope!lol.

Here's Danny's fish...I don't know what you call that thing. They were told to find a fish they like and this is the one he found in a book from his classroom...look how colorful it is.
Jen came along to see her brothers' fishes and decided she wanted to show them off...didn't she do a great job? LOL...She's always been her brothers' biggest fan and supporters when it comes to any small accomplishments they made...what a big sister. That would explain why she was dubbed "The Favorite Sister" and she wore that title proudly.

Here's Joey's sea creature...a turtle. He was soo proud of his drawing, he couldn't wait to show it off. {Good job Joey...I ♥ your turtle.}
Here he is, showing off his turtle...isn't that a proud "you like my turtle?" look.


This last one is Jonathan's fish. The yellow fish with the black stripes. He said he wasn't really sure what he wanted to draw when he started and when he was drawing his fish, the kids and teachers kept asking him if that was an angel fish he was drawing so he figure, what the heck, an angel fish it is..lol.

I ♥ all three sea creature the same...I'm just so proud of them. I guess they get this little bit of creativity from me, eh? LOL Hope y'all like my little show and tell today. And here's hoping your week and the rest of the week will be a great one for ya!

She's Singing her way to New York

My daughter, Jen, left last night for her Smithsonian & Carnegie Hall Festival trip. When I dropped her off with her group, she said she was so excited that the day has finally arrived that she couldn't sleep a wink the night before. And well she should be excited...it was a long almost two years preparation for this trip...all the practice on her part, the money spent and fundraising we had to do make the trip possible, I am so glad to finally got some exciting reaction out of her.

As I'm writing this post, they are in Washington, D.C. somewhere near the capitol putting on a show for Senator Akaka....Hawaii State Senator. The choir will be making their way to New York in a couple of days to attend the Carnegie Hall festival and our Ko'olauloa Children Chorus will be performing on Saturday. Any of you readers out there reading this who live close to New York or around there, go check them out. Their choir will be only one who comes with hula dancers so it would be worth it to check them out...just saying.

See, this trip of hers actually mean a little more to me than probably anyone else going on the trip because 21 years ago, I was about my daughter's age when I took the same route and gone on a trip like this. We went to Washington, D.C. on a Smithsonian tour too and spent a week there. It was very exciting to walk in nation's capitol and see some of the beautiful historical sight. After the D.C. tour, we went to PA to see the Liberty Bell...the choir is also going to see the Liberty bell...and of course, we visited Colonial Williamsburg to get a glimpse of early America and then on to New York. See, the significance? My daughter will be walking those same streets, same route I took at her age twenty one years ago. I know things have changed and there might be a lot of different changes but still, just the thought about her actually visiting the same sights I visited at her age...totally exciting.

One of the chaperones on the tour created a blog just for this tour so those of us who were not fortunate to join them on this trip can keep tabs of how their doing...right now there are only two entries on that blog but she will be adding more everyday or whenever the time permits. If you're interested, you can go here. I borrowed some pictures from their Spring and Winter concert so feel free to feast your eyes on them..lol.

(Jen is on the top..the second girl on the left. Click on images if you want a close-up.)



(The choir singing while the Halau dancers do the hula...Jen {one of the dancers} in the very back row on the far left hand side.)

(The KCC and Jubilate...Jen on the very top.)

(Jen & Jas, my friend's daughter, doing the hula.)

These are just a few of the pictures of the choir...I borrowed these from the new blog. Hope you enjoy this. Sorry I haven't been posting...school's out and kids are home and therefore, any visible computers in the house are occupied by them. Hope all is well with everyone and hope you have a great week.

♥ you all and God bless!!

A Brag Post

Meet my daughter Jennifer. She's 15 and is a Freshman in High School. She is the second child born into this family of seven kids. Some of her interests are hanging out on virtual places like MySpace and Facebook, hanging out with friends, talking on the phone and entertaining her family with some creative jokes she may have heard or read somewhere. She's a very mild manner child but very expressive in her opinions. Her absolute favorite thing to do is singing.

In fact, she belongs to a choir called Ko'olauloa Children Choir and their choir will be leaving the island the second week of June to go to Washington, DC to tour there for a couple of days and then on to New York to participate in the Carnegie Hall Festival. There they will be singing their hearts out. It's been a real fun and hard year of fundraising to send these beautiful talented kids to participate in something so special and I'm sure the experience will be memorable one for them.

Anyways, the reason for this post and introduction is because I feel like bragging a little about this daughter of mine. As I'm sure most of you know, this past weekend was General Conference for our church. I love conference because I love listening to all the wonderful speakers with the message that each of them delivered.

And because we live in Hawaii and with the time difference, to watch the Conference live the first session comes on at six o'clock in the morning and then the second one comes on at ten.

I know, too early and I am not a morning person. Well, Jen got up on both days, Saturday and Sunday a little before six and watched both early morning sessions all by herself. I didn't wake up til seven to watch so I missed out on the earlier speakers. I was really impressed with her and so proud of her that I could not pass this moment up to come on here and brag about her.

Usually during conference, I was the one who would get up and roused people out of bed to watch but it's not that way this time around. I just love it when kids do things of their own free will and choice without being told. I think as moms when any of our kids do something out of the ordinary, we feel this overwhelming sense of joy and satisfaction and in some small measure an assurance that we are probably doing the right thing.

This is especially true to me because this daughter and I have been at each other for a while with our difference of opinions. She being a teenager usually thinks I don't know what I am talking about or don't understand anything that is going on when I try to teach her what is right or wrong and try to guide her along the right path. I often feel frustrated with her because I feel that most of the time she just tunes me out when I am trying to talk to her so when she does something like this, it totally blows my mind and makes me all teary about it. It's moment like this that makes being a mommy all worthwhile. I am so very proud of her.

I'm not saying that we will never have any hard times with each other but at least now I know that even if she does appear like she may have been tuning me out when I am giving her advice or scolding her, I know she's listening and paying attention.

So there you go, my little ramblings for the day. Hope y'all are enjoying your week.

God bless!!