Happy Halloween

Brody is 2 today!

All he wants for his birthday is Cake.

He’s a big talker. “Justin exclaimed under his breath the other day and Brody kept repeating it, Crap! Crap! Crap!” We can understand him almost all of the time.

His top and bottom teeth don’t meet in the middle. That’s probably why he’s not a very good chewer.

His imagination is growing every day. The other morning he ran up to me and excitedly exclaimed, “Bunnies!” while nodding his head up and down. He led me into the family room where he showed me how the shapes on the border of the rug look like bunnies.

He sometimes likes me to sing to him. But he sometimes protests, holding his hands to his ears and saying, "No way, singing."

He lives for trains, planes and autos. Grandpa often takes him down to the tracks looking for trains. On more than one occasion he has sat up from a dead sleep and said, “Thomas!” and then gone right back to sleep. “Thomas” and ‘Train” are often the first words out of his mouth in the morning. His favorite movie is ‘Queen’ (Cars) and he requests to watch it every day, although we only let him about once a week. He hears planes, helicopters and sirens from inside the house when I haven’t even noticed and he always wants to go outside to see.

He loves people. In public he often stretches out his arms to complete strangers asking to be held. He likes to make friends with other kids and he always makes sure to point out his mommy to them! Ah I love it.

He’s a little small for his age, wearing 18 month clothes. But he’s healthy so no complaints here.

He shows absolutely no interest in coloring or crafts.

He has an excellent sense of direction. He used to get upset every time we didn't take the turn off to grandpa's house.

His favorite place to play is on mom and dad’s bed.

He is really interested in hiding. A few times lately he’s been so quiet that I have looked for him for several minutes before he jumped out from behind his hiding place.

I don’t know why but he gets scared and runs to me every time a phone rings or someone knocks at the door.

He likes to climb on top of things and then get your attention and show off. It hasn’t occurred to him that he could climb out of his crib if he wanted to (my fingers are crossed).

HAWAII!!! (Week One)

See all Hawaii pictures HERE.

We made great memories in November in Hawaii. Too bad Justin and I will have to do all the remembering for Brody since he's so little, but his littleness sure was to our advantage when it came to buying airfare. We stayed with Blake and Sara Dunn and their boys Jacob and Joshua in their home on the Army base in Oahu. Dunns, Thank You so much for making our trip possible!

We flew in on a Saturday and went for a drive to the nearest coast on Sunday evening to get a sneak peek at the ensuing fun. We stopped by the Laie temple grounds on the way home and also visited Katie who lives only a couple blocks from the temple.

On Monday Sara and I did major grocery shopping and by the time we got back in the early afternoon Justin was chomping at the bit to explore so we checked out the Dole Plantation which is only about 10 minutes from the Dunn's house. We did a little shopping, ate fresh pineapple soft serve and fed the huge fish in the coy pond. Brody often likes to be the center of attention. If there is music, he's moving to it. He climbed up on this table and busted a move and everyone was oogling over the dancing baby.

Then we took a drive out to the northwest corner of the island to see the beautiful but rugged coastline until the road stopped right before Ka'ena Point. By this point Justin was really eager to get on the beach so we stopped no where in particular and Justin put on his snorkeling gear and went for it. That random beach (I think it was Mokuleia) ended up being some of the best snorkeling of our whole trip. Right away we met two huge sea turtles - it was sooo cool just chillin with the turtles. There was also some huge, white and yellowish brain coral and lots of small, colorful fish. Brody got the hang of sand snorkeling on his very first attempt. He accidentally fell in the shallow surf while Justin and I were several feet away and it was a couple seconds before he was rescued. He was pretty shy from the water for the rest of the trip.

Blake had Tuesday off work so we all went to Malaekahana Bay and Justin and Blake swam for quite a while while Sara and I mostly stayed on the sand with the boys. Then we went over to Turtle Bay and took turns snorkeling. It wasn't the best snorkeling of the trip, but there was still lots to see. Jacob ate sand and was very upset about it.

I can't find any pictures of Wednesday so I can't remember what we did except that we bought a waterproof camera and Hawaiian shirts at Walmart and ate at a ramen restaurant. On Thursday Blake and Sara went to help out with the temple open house in the morning and in the afternoon we all went to the Polynesian Cultural Center which was lots of fun. Brody really enjoyed the Samoan hut because we got to bang the big sticks on the ground to make music. We ate at the luau and then took the kids over to Katie's apartment and she watched them while we went to the Night Show, which was very cool and different since I saw it in 2002.

We spent Friday on the north shore. We stopped by Waimea Bay which was one of my favorite beaches when I was at BYUH but the waves were so monstrous that day that it wasn't fun with a toddler. So we went to Shark's cove and swam around in the tide pools which was amazing. Justin and I took turns snorkeling while the other floated on Brody on a boogie board and the water was so clear that he really enjoyed seeing all of the fish. We played with hermit crabs and took a rest under the shade of the palm trees. Then later that night we celebrated Jacob's 2nd birthday with the Dunns.

Katie spent the night with us and then on Saturday morning Justin and Blake went back to Sharks Cove and snorkeled in the actual cove, not just the tide pools. They said it was so calm and tranquil and that the underwater sights were amazing. Huge, colorful fish, eels, Justin's favorite was the moorish idol (like Scar from Finding Nemo). Later in the trip we went back to the cove but the big waves never allowed us to go venture past the protection of the rocks into the cove. After the boys returned Katie, Sara and I hit the swap meet. I did nearly all of my Christmas shopping. The swap meet prices are so great that we spent way less on Christmas than we normally do. We even brought an extra duffel bag to take all back home in. I suggested to Justin that we plan a trip every year just for this purpose. Wouldn't that be the life :)

Well that's just one of 2 weeks. It's now more than 5 months later so let's face it - I may never get around posting the rest!

Trees

We bought some trees in the fall and Justin has been planting them one by one. Brody loves to help by dad by hand shoveling dirt, playing king of the dirt hill, making dirt angels, sitting in the dirt hole, and refilling the hole with dirt. He even ate it a few times. Yes, more than once. I sometimes wonder if his taste buds work - for dinner the other night we had baked potatoes and the only thing he ate was the raw green onions!

I really like the trees, even though they are still small they already seem to add so much to the landscape. My favorite is the scarlet oak outside our back window; it has beautifully bright red leaves. There are 2 liquid ambers and a cara cara (pink) orange along the fence in back and 2 fantasy maples in front. We are hoping for vibrant fall colors next year.