our friends

We have been having so much fun with our friends! Both Matix and Hawken love spending time with their friends, and luckily because of our island lifestyle, we see them everyday! We live in such a small area that we know every kid here. It is so much fun to walk down the street, or swim at the pool, or go to the store, or play at the CAC and run into so many people that we love. Lots of new friends joined us this semester. Here are of few of them... along with our old favorites too. :)

Also, yesterday with play group we went to Red Rock Haven. Pictures to come, but FYI, Red Rock is AMAZING every time we go. Just beautiful.

awesome video

I never do this (post other people's videos), but PLEASE watch this one. I LOVE it! :) My sister Robin sent it to me and I have to share it. It is SO much fun. Enjoy!

Lucky

Lazy afternoons at the pool...

Splashing in the puddles an earlier rain has left... Fun with friends... Shoulder ride home with Dad...

What a life. :)

fun kids

Hawken likes being tossed up in the air by Paul. I think it's really cute because Paul always wanted that in a baby, but Matix always hated it. :) So, luckily, Hawken thinks it's great.

Matix has recently discovered his shadow and loves to wave at himself, or turn in a circle quickly just to stop and see if it is still there... :) Cute.

all by myself

Matix can put on his own shoes now! Yay Matix! Of course, it is only this slip on kind, but I love that it is one less thing for me to do before we go out. He LOVES doing things independently, which sometimes takes a bit longer than if I were doing it, but I think it's important to let him try. He is just learning things SO fast. I am so proud of our big boy! :) This day, obviously, he was trying out a new style with one blue and one orange shoe...

just plain fun

Some of our favorite things to do lately...

Drinking all the fresh passion fruit juice we can get our hands on, eat your heart out Morgan...

Spending time with our friends exploring this beautiful island...

Trying lots of new fruits, like primrose, soursop and starfruit...

Baking cookies and bringing them to our friends...

playground

We were on campus and stopped at the playground for a bit. Usually Matix doesn't like the swings there, and has protested them by crying even when I ask if he wants to try... He really likes the one in our yard, so I never understood his fear of these, but anyway, NOW he likes them! YAY!

Both Hawken and Matix had a BLAST swinging.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture of Hawken. It completely captures his wonderful, happy, sunny personality. :)

I also discovered that Matix has learned how to climb ladders... What?! When did this happen?! He has had NO practice, EVER. Yet, he walked over to the slide, looked around for the way up to the top, and climbed right up! Smart boy! :)

black stuff

On multiple occasions lately, Matix has gotten into black stuff. One day he stuck his hand and arm into the tailpipe of our neighbor's car that was parked on the side of our house. Making his hand and arm completely black with soot or something. :( YUCK! It was a disgusting mess to clean. Although he thought it was hilarious fun to run from me as I was trying to get a closer look.

Another day, while I was nursing the baby Matix got into something else. I came out of the baby's room to hear nothing... A tell tale sign that Matix is doing something sneaky! :) When I spotted him, he was again covered in black. He had little stripes of my black mascara painted strategically on his fingers, lips and chin. This was a smaller mess, but equally difficult to clean.

"What mom? This? Oh, I thought it was for painting..."

After cleaning him up on those days, I thought that would be the end of it, but the next day he stuck his hand and arm in the tailpipe AGAIN! What?! I think he was trying it out again to see if would get black a second time... Oh, Matix! :)

A guilty look if I ever saw one!

perspective

Matix knows how to take pictures with our camera now. Here are some of the latest masterpieces of his.

I think it's obvious that he will one day make an AMAZING photographer! :) Better even than Howard Schatz (my favorite) or Annie Griffiths Belt (another fav)... I guess we will have to wait and see. :)

mango season

It's mango season again and our tree is going crazy! Plus we found a few other trees nearby to pick from. Here is the mango picking team: Paul, Matix and Phil (our neighbor and friend).

Oh how we love living here. Free mangos, fun adventures... Sure there are some things that take a little getting used to, but for the most part, I can't complain. I live in paradise! :)

we all scream for ice cream

Hooray! We have a REAL ice cream shop here now!!!! I love the way they painted it... making it completely irresistible to children and adults alike!

They sell Haagen Dazs ice cream in fairly large portions for only $5EC ($1.87US).

Paul and I went there on one of our date nights while some of our friends came over to listen for the kids if they woke up.

The ice cream was SO good, but as always, the company was even better. :)

silly silly silly

Is this Paul's son or what? Matix finds more ways than I ever thought of to be as silly as can be. Anything for a laugh.

dinner at Subway

Instead of going to the regular Beach Bash this semester, we went to a more kid friendly one at the CAC. Sadly, our boys couldn't wait until 7 to eat the free food they were providing, so we ate early at Subway. Everybody loves Subway. Hawken wishes he could eat this stuff. Yum! :) Looks good.

Matix will eat anything. He always impresses us with his ability to pack away SO much food into such a little guy. :)

Although we missed playing at the beach with Paul, it was still fun to hang out as a family all evening doing other things. We went to the CAC after Subway, played with friends, ate some chips, and then turned in for the night. We are almost up to mini 2 for the semester now. Crazy how fast things go around here.

Happy Father's Day!

This is Paul's second Father's Day. This time he has 2 boys, and is getting better and better at being a dad with each addition. I didn't think that was possible after seeing how amazing he was right off the bat when Matix joined our life, but now with Hawken too he is incredible. I am so impressed with the amount of work he puts into everything he does, especially his family. Matix and Hawken (and I) are SO lucky to have him in our lives.

A few days before Father's Day some of the play group kiddos (and their moms) had a special Father's Day party for all the dads. Here they all are. So fun.

It was a surprise and the kids had fun getting messy and creating lots of original pieces of artwork. :)

Here is Paul in the crown we made for him. It has each of the boy's handprints on it. Cute. :) Paul, being the good sport that he is, wore it ALL day, even to school.

The boys, in tradition with last year, made a video for Paul. We love you Paul! Happy Father's Day!