Hawaii (9 year anniversary trip)

Adam and I decided to take a trip to Hawaii for our ten year anniversary next year. But when we found an amazing deal at one of the nicest hotels in Hawaii, we decided to take the trip for our 9 year anniversary instead. It was an easy decision for us to go to the Big Island. We've heard amazing things about it and I had been dying to see the volcano there. We left the kids home in the care of both sets of grandparents. I have to say, the kids did sooo good while we were gone. I worried so much about them being sad (especially Ethan, he doesn't handle being apart from me too well), but they barely noticed we were gone! The grandmas did such a great job keeping them happy!
Our hotel was the Fairmont Orchid; it was amazing! We did a lot of relaxing, and a lot of fun sight seeing as well. Adam went golfing, we did a helicopter tour over the volcano and waterfalls, we went to Volcanoes National Park, hiked to see lava, went snorkeling at Captain Cook's monument, did night time snorkeling to see the manta rays (but didn't see a single one!), saw turtles laying on the rocks at the hotel, saw dolphins playing in the ocean by our boat, and so much more! It was a perfect trip, and I hope to go back again some day. Maybe we'll bring the kids next time... or maybe not. :)

At the dock ready to leave on our boat ride to snorkel at Captain Cook's Monument

Hole 15 at Mauna Lani South course, so beautiful! I came along for this golf outing so I could take pictures.



Adam and I at Mauna Lani South golf course


Hapuna Beach


Our hotel at sunset


Sunset from our hotel






At the top of Kilauea volcano, looking at the volcanic gases and steam come out of the caldera. Kilauea is the most active volcano in the world!


Ready to take our helicopter tour


We drove to the closest spot you can get to the lava flow. The neighborhood that used to be here has been covered and destroyed many times by lava. The people still own the land there, so a few of them rebuild their homes. Just a few weeks ago one of the homes was destroyed by lava again. Apparently this person is trying to sell their recently lava covered property, complete with "ocean views"! Good luck with that!


Depending on where the lava is flowing that day, you can sometimes get a look at lava flow from the viewing area. But most days it is too dangerous or on private property, so you can't get close enough to see it. After we drove as close as we could to the lava (2.5 miles away), we met a local guy whose family owned some of the property that has recently been covered with lava. They have a company that does private hikes out to the lava flow at the edge of the ocean. We decided it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so we did it. It was a 2.5 mile way each way, in the pitch black, over jagged razor sharp lava rock, with sheer cliffs for a lot of the way. But it was all worth it when we got to where the lava was flowing into the ocean. We were able to get so close, it was sooo amazing!

6, 3, 1

I took the kids to get their pictures taken about a month ago, and they turned out AMAZING! It's the fourth time we've used Mindy (www.mindyyoungphotography.com) for the kids' pictures, which I love because they always remember her and are happy and cooperative for her (as opposed to how they are with me... impossible to take pictures of!). I've included TONS of pictures here, so sorry if it's a long post, but there were seriously a lot more that I love that I didn't include for this post.

12 months

Kylee is finally crawling!! She has been scooting around for months; rolling, pushing, etc. but not crawling. While Adam and I were on our trip to Hawaii a couple weeks ago, she finally started doing it!
She had her 1 year checkup recently, and she weighs 22 pounds. She loves to pick up phones (or anything that looks like one) and hold it up to her ear and say, "Hello?" She also loves to brush her hair and turn the DVD player on and off. She's starting to act like more of a toddler and less of a baby. :( We love this silly girl!

Halloween

This year for Halloween, Kylee dressed as Supergirl, Ethan dressed up as a football player, and Austin dressed up as... well one night it was Winnie the Pooh and the rest of the time it was a cowboy. Poor kid, he was soooo excited about wearing his Winnie the Pooh costume. For about two months before Halloween, he carried it around the house, tried it on and admired himself in the mirror, and told everyone who asked that he was going to be Winnie the Pooh. Then on Friday before Halloween he had to dress up to go to preschool and he panicked! He was so embarrassed to dress up in ANYTHING! I couldn't get him to put on his Pooh costume or any of Ethan's old costumes. I FINALLY convinced him to wear a cowboy hat and cowboy shirt. I had a cute cowboy vest, chaps, scarf, and boots, but he was too embarrassed to wear any of that. How is a 3 year old embarrassed of something like this??!! So that night at our church Halloween party I practically forced him to wear his Pooh costume, and even then he was mortified at the thought of letting Adam see him in it. So we had to avoid Adam the whole night at the party. And on Halloween I could barely get him to wear the cowboy costume to trick-or-treat in. What a funny kid.

The kids LOVE getting Halloween jammies every year


Here's the pumpkin Ethan and I worked on together


Here's Austin with his pumpkin making his "spooky face"


Aunt Kristin came over to help carve pumpkins


This was all Kylee could think about doing while we were carving pumpkins


Austin trunk-or-treating at church, in one of the only shots we got in the Winnie the Pooh costume


Daddy and Supergirl at the church trunk-or-treat


Austin refused to wear any of his costumes for this picture



Home after trick-or-treating, tired and cold

Pretty in Pink

We celebrated Kylee's first birthday a week before her actual birthday since we knew everyone would be trick-or-treating the weekend of her real birthday. The theme for the party was "Pretty in Pink." We chose that because Adam, Ethan, and Austin have always sung this cute little song they made up to her called Pretty in Pink, so we thought it was a fitting theme.
Everything was pink for the party: the invitations, her clothes, the cake, the chocolate covered strawberries, all the decorations, etc. She got so many cute clothes and some fun toys, too. And she LOVED eating her own little cake. She shoved her hands right into it, and by the end was smashing it everywhere! The boys were SO excited about her party, you would've thought it was Christmas. They love her so much. We are so happy and blessed to have her in our family; she is the sweetest baby anyone could ask for!



I love this picture because I was just trying to take a picture of the Happy Birthday banner I made, but behind it you can see everyone gathered around Kylee laughing and smiling as she eats her cake.


She LOVED her baby doll



Reading her new book with Papa Steve


Smashing that cake


She alternated between stuffing her face with the cake and kissing her pink balloon





Ethan singing happy birthday to Kylee


Kylee's mini cake


The main cake! I love it! No, I didn't make it. My mother-in-law knows a very talented cake maker.


Everyone's parting gift...