Anela, Anela and more Anela!!

Can you tell that she loves her tongue?!

Past due pictures of her blessing dress that mom made.

What a high tech world we live in when a 7 month old uses a computer!

Cute little bear. Snuggly outfit that aunty Fa'atonu got her for Christmas.

Daddy's girl

Anela loves her daddy. I just had to take pictures of her cuddling with him today. Every time she hears his voice she tries to go to him. It's so cute, except when I am holding her and she's trying to jump out of my arms to get to him!

Boys will be boys!

A few days ago, while I was at work, Gerry ran out of the house while Fa'atonu was busy with the baby. She called for him to get back in the house, but the next thing she knows Ariana is screaming that Gerry is bleeding. He had fallen down and hit his eye on the cement. Of course when Afa got home he was freaking out, and he wanted me to come home from work. But I know him too well to miss work for this, he thinks the kids need to go to the hospital when they have a cough, and he can't stand the sight of blood. There was A LOT of blood, but that's to be expected from a cut on the head. Anyway, he's fine, just a nasty owy and black eye. What would a boy be without battle scars?

Twilight!

Girls Night Out!

Yesterday my friend Kirah and I drove down to Provo to our friend Lauren's house. The three of us met in 7th grade when we were 12 years old, and still try to get together as often as possible. Lauren and her sister-in-law had gone on line and got a bunch of tickets to the November 20th midnight premier of Twilight, and she had invited us to go with her and a bunch of other friends. We went out to her house and hung out for a few hours while we waited for some of the others, then we all went out to dinner at Olive Garden. After dinner we went to the theater at Thanks Giving point to wait for the movie to start. The movie was very good, but not surprisingly it was very different from the book. They had to cut a lot out for time, and to my surprise they actually added in a few things that were not in the book. I know that sometimes they do that when converting a book to a movie because they have to take a lot out, so they add something in so it all still flows and makes sence. But there were a few things in there that just seemed completely random that didn't really need to be there. It didn't make the movie bad, just even more different from the book, and if they didn't add those things in, they wouldn't have had to take as much out. Over all I did enjoy the movie and I will see it again, but if I had not read the book I don't think I would have liked it. Of course like most book to movies, I like to book a lot better, but it is always fun to see the chatacters come to life. I will defenately be there to see the next three movies.
I had a lot of fun last night, not just because I was so excited to see the movie that I had been waiting so long for (I started the books over a year ago and have read them all several times) but also because it has been such a long time since I actally went out without the kids. I love my kids and have a lot of fun with them at home and taking them out, but it is so nice to have a whole night were I don't have to be a mommy or a wife, I was just one of the girls.

Sleeping In

The movie didn't start till midnight and was two hours and quite a ways from home, so by the time I got home it was 3:00am. I of course went straight to bed, but had to get right back up at 5:30am to take Afa to work since his truck isn't working and I need my car to get to work later today. So when I got home from taking him to work at about 6:30am, I of course went right back to bed. Then Ariana and Gerry got up at about 7:30 or so ( I was too tired to really notice the exact time). Being the good kids they are they let me stay in bed. Of course it wasn't really good sleep then knowing they were up, but I just couldn't drag myself out of bed yet. They knew that I was very tired so they said that they would just watch cartoons until I got up. When I did finally get up at about 10:00 am, I found Gerry cleaning the kitchen, of course it was a 4 year old's defenition of cleaning. He had gotten up to the sink and used the hose to spray A TON of water all over the floor, and was in the process of moping when I came in. He wanted to finish for me, but since he doesn't know how to rinse the water out of the mop, I told him thanks, but I would go ahaid and finish. So I spent about half an hour moping up the swimming pool that had been my kitchen. At least the floor is clean, but I have learned my leason not to try to sleep in when my 4 and 5 year olds are up! Usually they just try to make me breakfast and I get up to a ketchup and hunny butter sandwich, but I just stayed in bed way too long today! At least they are trying to be nice and help, I'm sure it could have been a lot worse.

Gerry's Birthday!

Today Gerry is four years old! We celebrated his birthday yesterday because Afa works this morning and I work tonight, I didn't work last night. Yesterday morning I made German pancakes for breakfast. Then Ariana and I went shopping so she could get something for Gerry. While we were out we decided to pick up pizza for lunch, I had told Gerry that he gets to have whatever he wanted to eat that day, but he couldn't decide. He was very excited about the pizza. By the time we were done eating it was about 3:00pm, Ariana was very excited to see what Gerry was getting and kept asking if he could open his presents, Gerry didn't ask once! I told Ariana that we had to wait for daddy to come home, so she called him to see if he was comming, or if we could just go ahead without him. I couldn't believe that she was so much more excited than Gerry. Afa wasn't able anwer his phone though, and by the time he called back he was off, so of course we waited for him. Gerry got a lot of games, Hungry Hungry Hippos (which they had both been asking for) Guess Who, Go Fish and Backyardigans Memory. He also got a couple of winter outfits, church shoes, sport shoes, a spider man back pack, lots of play doh with activity mats and a V-tech lap top. We all had a lot of fun playing games last night, and foud out that Afa is very good at Hungy Hungry Hippos, though I did beat him once! We didn't have any games before that we could all play together, so this was a lot of fun. We just need to teach Gerry to stop picking up Hippo marbles with his hands, and Ariana to be a good sport when she loses. The first game of Hippos that she played she only got two marbles, so she cried! After that Gerry kept saying, "It's not about winning, it's just to have fun!" as he's using his hands to get more marbles!! I'll post more pictures of them soon, I just wanted to let you all know about his birthday.

Side note: This has nothing to do with the post but I just realized something yesterday. As I was holding Anela and loving how cuddly and small she is I realized that when Ariana was this age I was pregnant with Gerry! I didn't know it for a few more weeks of course, but just remembering that I thought that I would go crazy if I were pregnant again now!!

Happy Halloween!

This is our Halloween. We went to the church for "trunk or treat". It was a lot of fun. Of course Ariana was happy to see Jessa, who was exited to wear makeup with her Ariel bride costume, and they went around together a lot. Ariana was so exited to get her hair colored. She kept saying "Wow, I never had pink and purple hair before!" Gerry kept telling her how pretty she looked. And he was very happy with his super man costume and the simple mask face paint. The kids both have a lot of friends at church, there are so many little kids! Anela didn't really care about what was going on. With her laid back personality she was OK with people carrying her all around, or just hanging out with me by the car. Afa and Fa'atonu and a couple of our close friends took turns taking her around to see everyone. She hasn't been feeling well so she wasn't her smilly self, but she didn't fuss at all. She didn't keep her face paint on very well because she kept putting her fist in her mouth so the makeup came off on her sleeve!

Ariana and Gerry both took a few turns handing out candy when they needed a break from walking around. I think they had more fun passing out candy than they did going around to get it! After about an hour in the parking lot we went into the church and they had pizza for the kids. Then we left and stopped at Kirah's house on the way home. While we were there some trick or treaters came and the kids passed out her candy too! When we got home it was about 8:00pm, so the kids had to clean up and get ready for bed right away. Of course they didn't really want to calm down. But they at least got cleaned up and got in bed, even if they didn't actually sleep for a while! Now I have to go through all the candy and divide it all up, so they wont have it all for breakfast tomorrow! :)

socks

Every holliday my mom sends socks to the kids. That's her grandma thing, socks. So anyway, we got the Halloween socks today. Anela got one Halloween, and one mini mouse pair. Ariana and Gerry each got two pair of Halloween socks. So here are both of Anela's, and one pair each of Ari and Gerry.

More Anela

What can I say? She's just so cute, I can't stop taking pictures!! And I always have to get a picture of Daddy sleeping with the baby. I have tonz with the other two.

Anela

Lately Anela has started reaching out and grabbing things, like the toys on her walker. This morning I sat her up and put her boppy around her so she wouldn't tip over, and she kept reaching out trying to grab the dots! I just thought that it was cute so I decided to take pictures and post it. Of course I couldn't get a good one of her grabbing dots, but you get the picture.

White Sunday

In Samoa they have a thing called "White Sunday". It is a Sunday in October where all the children wear white and do a church program. Since we go to a Samoan ward, we have our version of white sunday every year. The primary kids memorize a line or phrase (depending on age) and they do their progam during sacrament meeting. This is all done in Samoan. I'm very proud of my kids for memorizing their lines in Samoan! These are the kids right after church in their new white clothes.

Cutie water babies

Just some more pictures of the kids. The water slide is at mom's house. We went down for a visit about a month ago, we all had so much fun! Ariana said that we have to move to Washington so we don't have to "drive a long day" to see grandma! Anela didn't get in the water of course, so I just added this picture of her cus she's so cute!

Playing House

Anela is Ariana's favorite "doll"!!

Ok everyone, here is the family! This is us a few minutes ago, just after church. Afa's sister Fa'atonu has moved in with us, and is a big help with the kids while I work. She has been going to church with us and seeing the missionaries a couple of times a week, and has decided to be babtized. She is going to contunue learning about the church and finish the Book of Mormon first, and be babtized in January.

For those of you living far away, today was our first snow of the season! We woke up with a couple of inches covering our yard and car! I would have taken a picture, but didn't think of it before church, and now most of it is gone. This was the first time Fa'atonu has ever seen snow!