Project 52: | Remembering Our Angels

Motherhood is...

remembering our angels

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my grandpa's motorcycle accident.  I still can't get over how on earth it has been that long; I feel like it just happened yesterday.  There is not a day that goes by that I don't wish to God that Ke'alohi got to meet my grandparents.  They taught me the most important things you need in life: how to love your family, how to love your partner and how to love life.  The picture Ke'alohi is holding is of me when I was a baby with my grandparents.  This picture and frame was in my grandparents house and I cherish it, along with my memories of them, close to my heart.  

If you want to see more blogs also partaking in Project 52 check out Adventures in Mommyhood!, Aubrey My Love, Bugs and Boo-Boos, Candice Craves, Caynay Photography, Chronicles of KT, Courtney Kirkland Photography, The Crain's Nest, Dana Moran Photography, The Daulton Dabbler, Englexas, Everything Eatherton, Fairy Wings and Dinosaurs, Finding Joy, Firecracker Mama, From Stanwood to Seoul, Gin and Juice Boxes, Heather Marie Portraits, It's a Strange and Lovely Ride, Kate L Photography, Keeping Up With the Carters, Kim Percival Photography, Lizzi Photography, McLain Padilla Photography, Mist Moments, Moments and Impressions, The Mommyhood Memos, Moxie Made, My Tot Travels, Navigating the Mothership, Ohh the Places We'll Go, Phreckle Face Photography, Quiet Footsteps, Rachel Gray Photography, The Robersons, Shades of Bliss, Shutter Mama, Simply Us, StyleberryBlog, The Todd's, We Aren't Scared of Sugar, We're Better Together, Wicked Kate and Z as in Zebra.  If anyone else is doing Project 52 and want to link blogs, please leave a link to your website in the comments so that we can link together!

Hump Day Hop

If today wasn't exciting enough with the Liebster Award, Heather at Mommy Only Has 2 Hands!, let me know that I was chosen to be the spotlight blog for this Wednesday's Hump Day Hop. For those of you that don't know, a blog hop is a link to your blog on a host's blog where you can visit other blogs, follow blogs you like, and gain followers.

To everyone that is visiting from this Wednesday's Hump Day Hop, thank you for stopping by! And if you can, leave me a comment that let me know you did so I can stop by your blog and return the favor!

Thank you again Heather!

Liebster Blog Award

I really want to thank Brandi at Yee Wittle Things for nominating my blog for this award! Please check out her great blog about her beautiful family.

Liebster in German means dearest, beloved, or favorite, and it is for bloggers with under 200 followers.

The rules are:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.

2. Link back to the blogger who awarded you.

3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.

4. Reveal your five blog picks.

5. Let them know you chose them by leaving a comment on their blog.

My choices for the Liebster Blog Award are...

1. It's a Strange and Lovely Ride

2. Finding Joy

3. Making Mama Happy

4. The Crain's Nest

5. Chronicles of KT

I'm happy to present these five blogs with this award! I really enjoy following them and feel everyone should check them out!

Thank you again Brandi!!!

First Time Drinking Juice!

After Uncle Dean's Celebration of Life ceremony, there was a reception with some of his favorite Hawaiian goodies.  One of the things there was POG juice (Passion, Orange and Guava), a favorite of mine and very hard, if not impossible to find on the mainland.  Lucas and I watered some of it down and gave Ke'alohi some as a sweet treat to remember Uncle Dean, and...

She loved it!

Uncle Dean's Celebration of Life Ceremony

Today we headed down to the Four Seasons Aviara for Uncle Dean's Celebration of Life ceremony.  Uncle Dean passed away suddenly on a business trip in Beijing over this past Thanksgiving weekend. His sudden passing has completely shaken up family, friends and the Four Seasons staff.  We have known Uncle Dean, Auntie Cheryl and their daughter Miranda since I can remember.  Miranda went to elementary school with my brother and Mom and Auntie Cheryl have been close friends ever since.  We have always thought of them as close family and celebrated my college graduation and Lucas and I's wedding with them by our side.

Uncle Dean has worked at the Four Season for a while now, but it wasn't until today that I really grasped how much he did there and how integral he was for the company.  Whenever we would talk to him about his job he would just say, "I work for the hotel and I travel a lot."  When we heard person after person talk about how great of a person he was and just how much he did for them as a colleague and for the company, we finally realized just how much of an understatement that was.  Uncle Dean was instrumental in the success of the Four Seasons Residences at San Diego, Morocco, Costa Rica, Jackson Hole, Seychelles, Beijing and many others.

It was a beautiful afternoon of sharing stories (my favorite was how his favorite board to surf with was pink!) and tears of how great of a person Uncle Dean was and he will truly be missed. We love you Uncle Dean!

Project 52:3 | Mouthy

Motherhood is...

mouthy

Yes, we feed our little girl! Though judging by the picture, you may think she's a bit hungry. Ke'alohi is going through a stage right now where she gnaws on everything and especially likes the edges of tables.  We think it helps her with the soreness from teething, so in the mean time we will be wiping everything and anything we think she can get her hands or mouth on!

If you want to see more blogs also partaking in Project 52 check out Adventures in Mommyhood!, Aubrey My Love, Bugs and Boo-Boos, Candice Craves, Caynay Photography, Chronicles of KT, Courtney Kirkland Photography, The Crain's Nest, Dana Moran Photography, The Daulton Dabbler, Englexas, Everything Eatherton, Fairy Wings and Dinosaurs, Finding Joy, Firecracker Mama, From Stanwood to Seoul, Gin and Juice Boxes, Heather Marie Portraits, It's a Strange and Lovely Ride, Kate L Photography, Keeping Up With the Carters, Kim Percival Photography, Lizzi Photography, McLain Padilla Photography, Mist Moments, Moments and Impressions, The Mommyhood Memos, Moxie Made, My Tot Travels, Navigating the Mothership, Ohh the Places We'll Go, Phreckle Face Photography, Quiet Footsteps, Rachel Gray Photography, The Robersons, Shades of Bliss, Shutter Mama, Simply Us, StyleberryBlog, The Todd's, We Aren't Scared of Sugar, Wicked Kate and Z as in Zebra.  If anyone else is doing Project 52 and want to link blogs, please leave a link to your website in the comments so that we can link together!

My Newest Obsession, Instagram...

My new found love since going back to the iPhone, is the app Instagram.  This is such a great app to use with the Camera+ app to take pictures.  The reason I love the Camera+ app to take pictures is that you can zoom and edit the photos after the take them but before you save them.  So I still use that app as my primary camera app.

The cool thing about Instagram, is that after you save those pictures, you can open them up in this app and really get to tweak the colors, lighting and borders.  This app can give an "okay" photo some life and pizzazz.  I haven't used it as my sole camera app yet, but might one day.  Sometimes it amazes me how much the iPhone can do and makes me wonder if we really need to take the camera around everywhere while we wait for the next cute thing Ke'alohi does.  

Isn't there such a difference between the two photos of Ke'alohi reading her "morning paper?"

My Baby is Sick...

Ke'alohi woke up this morning wheezing pretty bad and seeming to have a harder time breathing clearly.  Since I was taking the day off of work to stay with her because the daycare was closed, Lucas and I decided it would be smart for me to call Dr. Ouchi to see if I could bring her in.  After talking to the doctor's office, they said that I need to bring her in right away and that Dr. Miller, who was in the office already, would see her.

We packed up the car and headed to the doctor's office and spent the morning having her checked out.  Dr. Miller found that she had an upper respiratory infection and that was the cause of her wheezing and labored breathing.  He told me to keep her hydrated, get a humidifier for her nursery and give her a little extra loving today.  Well he didn't tell me to do the "extra loving," but I knew it was definitely necessary.  Cross your fingers that she feels better soon!

Visiting Little Juliette Penelope

I cannot believe that it has been almost two months since Kasey gave birth to Juliette!  With all the craziness of the holidays, we haven't had a time with both of us free to see each other and have the girls meet up.  Today, we decided that we had to have Ke'alohi and Juliette meet.  We needed to start the playing and bonding since they are going to be friends and hopefully future Theta sisters! Hahaha. It was crazy to see a baby that small again even though that was Ke'alohi just a couple months ago.  Juliette was as cute as ever drifting in and out of sleep.  

We had a great time talking about motherhood, while the dads watched the football game and talked about how much they love being dads to their little girls.  One thing is for sure, any boys that even think about dating our daughters, will have to go through some tough dads; Lucas and Connor aren't just going to let anyone near our girls!

We are so happy for Kasey and Connor and can't wait for Ke'alohi and Juliette to grow up together!

Christina and Jeff are Married!

I am so very happy to say that my freshman year room-mate, Christina, is officially married!!! I don't know Jeff super well, but I do know one thing, he is one LUCKY guy.  It is crazy to think that I have been friends with Christina for almost eight and a half years, bonding over many things, especially our love for the University of Oregon Ducks.  They got engaged last November and decided to get married right away instead of having a long engagement through Jeff's baseball season. 

So two months later, they got married at the fabulous Shade Hotel in Manhattan Beach in a small, perfect candlelit ceremony.  Doesn't she look gorgeous?

Honey's Bridal Shower

My hula sister, Honey, is getting married in March. So, today we celebrated the upcoming wedding by showering her with presents and playing games.  All the hula sisters had way too much fun eating, talking story and dressing Michelle up as a toilet paper bride.  When we played the game "How well do you know the bride?" I rocked the competition.  I think I might have known Honey for the shortest amount of time since I just started dancing less than two years ago, but our Kamehameha background and love for country music made me shine!

The highlight of the day had to be the cake that our other hula sister, Kat, made.  It was a delicious marble cake with heavenly frosting and was ohh so good!  Can't wait for Honey and Andrew's wedding in March!

Project 52:2 | Sleepless Nights

Motherhood is...

sleepless nights

I'm not going to lie, this week has been quite a struggle for us in the sleep department.  With Ke'alohi's second tooth coming in, she has been extremely fussy and has been waking up two or three times on most nights.  Though we are tired and at times delirious, I'm taking these moments as an opportunity to take some photos of our sweet little girl.

If you want to see more blogs also partaking in Project 52 check out Adventures in Mommyhood!, Aubrey My Love, Bugs and Boo-Boos, Candice Craves, Caynay Photography, Chronicles of KT, Courtney Kirkland Photography, The Crain's Nest, Dana Moran Photography, The Daulton Dabbler, Englexas, Everything Eatherton, Fairy Wings and Dinosaurs, Finding Joy, Firecracker Mama, Gin and Juice Boxes, Heather Marie Portraits, It's a Strange and Lovely Ride, Kate L Photography, Keeping Up With the Carters, Kim Percival Photography, Mist Moments, Moments and Impressions, The Mommyhood Memos, Moxie Made, Navigating the Mothership, Phreckle Face Photography, Quiet Footsteps, Rachel Gray Photography, The Robersons, Shades of Bliss, Simply Us, StyleberryBlog, The Todd's, We Aren't Scared of Sugar, Wicked Kate and Z as in Zebra.  If anyone else is doing Project 52 and want to link blogs, please leave a link to your website in the comments so that we can link together!

First Haircut!

I have been "fighting" with Lucas to cut Ke'alohi's hair for some time now.  Don't get me wrong, I thing she is just about the cutest thing I have ever seen, but she has a mullet.  There is no denying that this girl has a head of hair.  Since the day she was born we have had to wash it, comb it and style it, but for the last couple weeks it has gotten a bit out of hand.  Her bangs are starting to go into her eyes and the back of her hair is so long, that she looks like an 80's rock band baby groupie.  

Lucas reluctantly agreed to let me get her hair cut but I was only allowed to cut the bangs and bag and trim the sides to make it even.  We went up to Encino to Lollicut, and they did a fabulous job on Ke'alohi.  She is cute as a button and we are loving her little bob.

And Then There Were 2...

Just as I was getting adjusted to the fact that Ke'alohi had a tooth, another one showed up!  I can't believe that now she has TEETH.  She is such a little cutie-patootie, I can't even contain myself.

Do you see the two little teeth popping out?

Project 52:1 | All About the Hands

Motherhood is...

all about the hands

For babies and moms, it really is all about the hands.  It is always a constant juggle to get out of the house every morning with everything she needs, along with everything I need for work.

It feels like I have been waiting a while now for the new year to start so that I can begin my Project 52. I have been following Shawna, from Styleberry Blog, for a while now and got the great idea from her.  My search for a theme kept coming back to ways to incorporate Ke'alohi and being a mom.  So since this is my first full year being a mom my theme for this year is "motherhood."  I know it isn't the most original theme but it's the most important theme in my life.

If you want to see more blogs also partaking in Project 52 check out Bugs and Boo-Boos, Chronicles of KT, Courtney Kirkland Photography, The Crain's Nest, Everything Eatherton, Finding Joy, Firecracker Mama, Gin and Juice Boxes, It's a Strange and Lovely Ride, Keeping Up With the Carters, Mist Moments, The Mommyhood Memos, Phreckle Face Photography, Quiet Footsteps, StyleberryBlog, We Aren't Scared of Sugar, and Z as in Zebra.  If anyone else is doing Project 52 and want to link blogs, please leave a link to your website in the comments so that we can link together!

Mommy's Newest Toy

Lucas, the wonderful husband that he is, has really encouraged me to start on my goal for 2012.  At this point in our lives, its not really realistic for me to jump straight to a DSLR camera and try to become a professional photographer, wife and working mom.  I think in the next year or two once I get more familiar with cameras and what exactly I want, I will take the plunge into getting a new camera, a "badass camera."

For now, Lucas and I got a Canon PowerShot SX230 HS, one of Canon's better point and shoot cameras on the market.  This will definitely be better for us since we are already towing around so much for Ke'alohi since she is so small.  I can't imagine having a camera bag on top of everything we already have.  If anyone knows of a photography class in Los Angeles, please let me know.

One of the main reasons why I want a new camera is so I can start my new project for 2012; It's called Project 52.  I found this project through one of my favorite blogs, Styleberry Blog. After picking a theme, you take a photo at least once a week that illustrates and captures that theme for the week over the course of the year.  Stay tuned for more posts and hopefully better pictures this year!

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!

Happy New Year!  I'm sure that you all aren't surprised that we weren't partying it up to ring in the new year.  I did however make it to midnight this year.  I think I was passed out by 10 pm last year, but I'm going to blame that on the pregnancy. Hey, growing a baby is hard work!  Lucas and I stayed up to watch the ball drop and shared our New Year's kiss in bed and softly told Ke'alohi "Happy New Year" on the monitor as she slept.

This year is already looking like it is going to be a busy and exciting year.  So far we have four weddings and at least two trips planned and I can't wait for them.  The first trip is to see my brother graduate from the Naval Academy and the second one is for Ke'alohi's first birthday baby luau.  The three weddings we are thrilled for are Honey and Andrew's in March, Dave and Katie's in July, Caley and Ryan's in September and Elijah and Diana's in September.  Love is definitely in the air!  I can't wait for all the exciting things 2012 has to offer!

Our Goals for 2012:

Lucas - Get his CPA license (only one more test to go!).

Mahina - Take a photography class to take better photos of Ke'alohi.

Ke'alohi - Eat more fruits and veggies and to walk.

Reflections on 2011...

This year has gone by so fast!  I still can't believe everything that has happened in the last 12 months.  We've been able to experience some of the highest highs we have ever had with Ke'alohi.  She has brought more joy into our lives that I thought possible.  I look back at my life and there are certain milestones that I feel like defined me, but nothing has defined me more than having her.  Yes, I can be labeled a Hawaiian, a college graduate, a daughter and a wife, but no label means more to me than "mom."

With every great year brings some sad times.  The joy that Ke'alohi brings eases but doesn't completely mend the pain from losing my last two grandparents this year.  Grandpa Pauline was such a strong and great woman and I am so lucky to have known her.  Grandpa Ben was taken from us so suddenly that there are still times when I forget for an instant that he is no longer here. More than anything, I wish they could have both met Ke'alohi.

2011 was an incredible year and one that we will never forget.  I can only hope that 2012 bring us as much joy!

Lunch with Uncle Dan, Aunt Karen and The Kids

Uncle Dan, Aunt Karen and the kids were on the east coast for Christmas and got back into LAX today.  They came over to our place to hang out a little and then we all went to lunch.  Thankfully we were able to clean up enough that they didn't see how messy our place was since coming back from Hawaii.  We brought so much stuff back it was a bit ridiculous.  The car service that picked us up had to fill his truck and even had to put our box in the front seat next to him.

We grabbed lunch at the CPK near us and had a blast together.  Jocelyn and Ke'alohi really bonded, so much so that Ke'alohi fell asleep in her arms and stayed there for at least an hour.  She doesn't even do that with me!  It was so nice to see her bonding with all her cousins and she was just loving all the attention.  Can't wait to see them again!

Riverside Mission Inn Lights

We met Lucas' parents tonight for dinner and to pick up the dogs.  Boy, I've missed Duke and Harley running around us.  We met up at Applebee's to grab a quick dinner so we could go to the Riverside Mission Inn and see the Christmas lights they set up every year.  The lights were just as bright and gorgeous as last year but this year it was a little easier to get around now that I'm not tired and pregnant.  Last year, I was so tired by the end of our walk around downtown Riverside that Lucas was practically pulling me to move.  Hahaha.  

Ke'alohi was bundled tight in her stroller so that she could stay warm and still enjoy the lights.  We had a nice time taking in the end of the holiday season and marveling at all the Christmas decorations.  After we were done walking around, we went to their place to pick up the dogs.  I don't know who was more excited, us or them!  It is so nice to have our whole family all together again!