December 2023 part 1

 Our December activities were MANY. These pictures and videos will just go up until Christmas Eve, for this post. 

The kittens have outgrown the little box almost and are doing pretty well, with the exception of tiny Taquito who needs extra loves and food from us.

One day after Curiosity Kids, before Christmas, Paul saw an advertisement for a free trampoline from a family who was moving off island. It was so exciting! So we went over and took it apart and brought it home and built it again, all in the same day. What a fun thing.

Sweet Hawken turned 14 and is just the best version of himself. So kind, and silly, and fun, all the time. Hawken is loving diving and scuba and hiking with Paul. He does well in his schoolwork, but doesn't love it and would rather be doing anything else. He works hard on the house with us and we can always depend on him to join in when we need an extra hand. Hawk has a great relationship with Solace, and the two of them are busy playing most of the time. Hawk and Matix are still close, but not as much as when they were little. Hawken and Lullaby get along if they are both chasing to be nice that day. They have the hardest relationship. Hawk loves to be with Paul, and still likes a snuggle from me. He still likes a kiss at night.  Hawky makes friends with everyone he meets, but is a little reserved at first. He is in 8th grade and doing well, straight A's. He loves playing games and usually beats everyone, including adults. He makes funny faces in pictures, he makes dad jokes almost as often as Paul does. Hawken is such an easy person to celebrate. We love you Hawken! 

Hawky's birthday trip to Fun Factory was a good one. The kids love it! Lots of fun and candy and prizes. 

Hawken opened presents and loved every one. He is such a cool kid. 

Cute little Taquito loves to cuddle.

Night time is the best for Mousey and the kittens. I love watching her sleep nursing, and these cute kittens enjoying all the milk. Taquito is still having a harder time figuring out how to nurse, but he's doing okay. 

We hired some of our friends, who are arborists, to come over and help us cut back the jungle. Our back yard has a mango tree, and starfruit, and jabong, but after this, we discovered a clementine, orange, avocado, and 2 more jabong. We also found a noni and java plum, but we got rid of those. Enthuse before pictures, you can barely see the fence. Our property extends down the hill, but the fence is where the ground begins to slope. 

They explained that the mango tree wouldn't produce unless we thinned out several of the other trees and cut the mango WAY down. This happened over a few days, and boy what a difference! Before pictures:

Beginning the work!

Here is the beautiful mango tree before any branches were cut. It was so tall, but never produced anything.

I watched from outside the fence for a while to see the progress. It took a LONG time. 

I watched from outside the fence for a while to see the progress. It took a LONG time. 

Paul let Solace give him a haircut, and this is what the back looked like for a while. He's such a good dad. 

I recorded one of the times that I syringe-fed Taquito. I had to do this about every 3 hours at first, and then I could stretch him up to every 5 hours. He was still eating far less than he was supposed to be eating at his age, but it was better than none. He and the other kittens kept getting eye infections too, which is a sign of malnutrition. We did everything we could to help save these sweet babies. 

Lullaby's hairstyle one Sunday. She wore the same dress for almost a month.

I got a new ornament with a small glass piece in the middle that you can peek into and see a picture. The picture inside mine is of me and my dad. I love it. 

Lullaby is happy to spend any time she can with the kittens. Everyone is, but her especially. She thinks of Mousey as HER kitty, so when she had babies, they of course became hers too. 

Paul started the construction of his Healing Hut. All the kids helped work on it, and learned so many new skills! The beams he used to build the base were huge and heavy. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation for a while!

The cute little kittens have free range of our room now, so Paul and I sleep in the office to make sure we don't step on them in the night. It works well and we will leave after Christmas for Kent Christmas and ski season afterward anyway. 

Paul and the kids started recording opening Pokemon packs, as if they had a YouTube channel for it, so fun. Maybe one day they'll upload it for fun.

Date night with my favorite guy. Ramen and a live show, yes please. 

I got all the ceiling trim put up in Paul's office.

Hawken was hired by a friend of ours to make an angled gas cover for his scooter. He had to write the code on his computer and take measurements and convert it into his program so he could 3D print this. It fit perfectly the first time, although he thought he may have to do it again once or twice more. I was so impressed. He earned $50, and the friend saved about $100 by having Hawk make it instead. So cool.

Fishtail braid for the princess baby. So sweet. 

The boys have been pulling down these giant avocados for me and I LOVE them. How lucky are we to have a tree behind the house?

Sully's art.  I just love his creativity. He created a game and these are the bosses he drew for it. So clever.

Matix has been really into RC cars. He takes them apart, modifies them and puts them back together. So smart! 

The kittens are growing, but all of them have to be supplemented a little because Mousey has started losing interest in nursing them very often. Poor little Taquito has the worst of it, so I still have to syringe feed him several times a day.

Mousey needed a break from the kittens and we found her sleeping in Pumpkin's usual spot. Lullaby was happy to play with the ever busy kittens. 

Solace and Swishy are happy with the new bed setup in Paul's office while the kittens run wild through our bedroom. Swishy is too big to get up on our couches or beds, but a mattress on the floor he can do. Sully boy still loves a morning cuddle, but will sometimes fall back asleep, cute thing.

Beach day at Lydgate and then out to eat with the missionaries. No shoes for the boys, but no one cares here. 

Solace's drawing of Ash Ketchum and a Pokemon he's trying to catch, maybe Pikachu. 

The boys hunting for more avocados for me, yum!

Matix wanted a long mohawk/mullet for about a week. I thought it looked really cool, but it took too much effort, so he didn't keep it for long.

Then, Matix wanted his hair cut again, and because the top was bleached and had grown out some with his dark roots, when I cut it how he wanted, he looked like Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell. So cute! 

Sometimes, just before my timer rings to feed Taquito, he wakes up from a snuggle and tries to nurse on my face. Sweet thing. I cannot believe we didn't keep him. I love him.

We went to see Lullaby's long-time friend, Alana, dancing the Nutcracker with her ballet studio. It was so fun. They have been friends since they were 5. Afterward, we ate a picnic dinner with her and her family. 

Here they are when they were 5. Cute things.

Our backyard looks naked! The last of the jabong are left on the ground, and the mango tree is barely recognizable. We're hoping it comes back to life!

Matix asked where his "Matty wax" was and it gave me the giggles. Now that's what we call it. 

Date night with my favorite guy. Dessert first. 

We find the kittens in all different places all over the ground in our room. 

Extra snuggles for Taquito. 

Hawken opened his own bank account.

Lullaby (and I) babysat a few different days for the Wilde family before their move. The kids came over and played with Lullaby mostly, but the boys played too, and sometimes I even took them on errands. It was a fun adjustment to go back to that toddler/preschool age.

Beach days are sometimes just for sitting and watching the waves. I love it here. 

Matix and Owen went to their company Christmas party together, and the coconut guy on the beach stopped them when he saw I was trying to get a picture and told them to go hold a coconut or a pineapple for the picture, so they did. Silly. 

Trying to decide on a small backsplash for the kitchen behind the sink and on the side of the pantry. I didn't have a measuring tape, so I took pictures with my hand to see the size when I got home before I made my choice. I ended up going with a totally different one. 

The actual one that I ended up buying was this, and I love how it turned out. Interesting looking, and fast to put up. A great combination. Before: 

During:

After:

Looking like one of Santa's helpers! We got all the boxes ready to mail out with plenty of time. Woohoo!

The bathroom magna doodle messages continue. So funny. 

We sometimes bring the kittens out into the living room, and they are so curious! 

Auntie Stella brought the kids a bag of her famous musubi. They love it! 

Sweet little Taquito needs a lot of extra help to grow, and it was hard for him to maintain body heat, so I wore hoodies backward and let him cuddle in the hood after I fed him his extra milk via syringe. I think it helped him feel loved.

Out to eat with Paul at a Thai place we love. I ordered it a little too spicy this time and was sweating it was so hot. I don't know how they do it!  As always, dessert first. 

We are becoming a Pokemon family. All the kids love to collect the cards, and Paul and Solace record box opening. 

The kids had Career Day at Curiosity Kids, followed by the Enterprenuership market. Rebecca couldn't make it, but Sarah, Paul, Vivianne and I held the fort down. It was a fun day.

This spider egg sack showed up on our car and was BRIGHT green. You usually don't see that color in nature. 

Such a great Christmas gift from our friends, so we made chili to go with their cornbread and it was delicious. 

Lullaby in her favorite place, the library. She reads SO much. 

We found the most beautiful feather! 

Kittens are getting bigger! 

My friend Brandi invited me to a craft night at her church. We made little angel ornaments and they turned out so cute. Then we did a silly angel game, similar to wedding showers, where you have limited materials and have to create an outfit. We tried to make one person from each group look like an angel.

Spending some birthday money on Pokemon, of course. 

Sometimes when Mousey is alone, we will bring Taquito to her to get a little milk. He needs it the most, and she's more tolerant of just one versus all three. 

Paul has been working on the guitar in the evenings when he's done working and he's getting really good. 

The trampoline has become a very popular place! Lullaby reads out there, several days of the week, and everyone spends time jumping every day. 

With only a few days before leaving for Kent Christmas and New Years and ski season in Utah, this little Taquito learned how to eat! After days and days of force feeding him to keep him alive, he started doing this and I was SO happy about it! He sucked on the wet food more than he bit it, but he was getting some of the nutrients and that's all that mattered. 

Matix cut his foot open on a mug that Solace had left on the floor. Matix stepped down on it and it broke and sliced open his foot. Paul cleaned it and dressed it and glued it together, but he still has a big scar. Poor thing.  Paul checked it and re-bandaged it up and it had already healed a ton in a couple days. Here are some progress pictures. 

Poor Mousey is so tired of being a momma. The kittens aren't big enough or strong enough to be weaned, but she only nurses them a couple times a day now. 

At Curiosity Kids, we made lots of different crafts and artwork that could be given as gifts, and then I had the kids decorate brown paper bags with white paint markers to look like gingerbread houses. It's hard as a kid to want to give a gift but you have little or no money, so they were encouraged to give these as gifts, rather than keep them, and most of them did. These are pictures from my art classes and Lullaby's hula class. 

Lullaby and Ellie Gardner from church. They were dropping off cookies to some of the families in our ward as a Young Women's activity. 

The coconut that Hawken brought back from the beach rooted and started growing. 

I made Christmas cookies to give out to the women in Relief Society. Each cookie was one of 8 Christmas symbols that had something to do with Jesus Christ. Stella gave the lesson and then we handed these out to everyone and enjoyed a little lunch together. So fun.

Christmas Sunday in 2023 was on Christmas Eve. Church was lovely, and we got a few pictures of the family, both at church and on the way home at a beach park.

We made cute little reindeer doughnuts, as is the tradition.  We had just gotten home from church so some of us look fancier than usual. 

Solace's awesome Primary teacher, Kathleen Meyer - a sweet auntie in the ward, made this little gift for her students. She tells me often of how special she thinks Solace is. She individually wrapped little pictures she printed and cut around chocolates that follow the story of the birth of Jesus. Paul read it and Solace found the right pieces to put onto the mat. Such a thoughtful gift.