the holidays

thanksgiving dinner

in my moms yard on thanksgivng

our family and my mom's friends family on thanksgiving

honolulu city lights

luka's favorite display at honolulu city lights, the surfing snowmen

honolulu city lights christmas tree

us <3

luka and daddy

hawaiian mr and mrs. clause

winter pj's

just starting to decorate our tree

as a tradition each year we collect one of the "le bien" ornaments, which are glass ornaments painted from the inside of the glass ball through the small hole at the top. they are so beautiful! each year after we pick out our tree we go straight to pick out our new le bien ornament. each year they make about 8 or so in the collection and we just pick our favorite one. this year we got one with the three wise men on it and i'm in love with it.

last years le bien ornament

this years le bien ornament

a little closer look at some of the ornaments on our tree. the heart is 2008's le bien ornament

big boy lennon

he looks like he is totally posing here

lennon's bubble toes

lennon the santa and luka the reindeer at our ward party

on christmas eve on our way to cheesecake factory

christmas morning

santa came

 

i think he likes his piano =)

so I haven't blogged since before thanksgiving but luckily I didn't really take any pictures at thanksgiving so I won't overload you with pics in that category. we did have a great thanksgiving though. we spent it at my moms house and she also had a high school friend and her family join us. (the husband of my moms friend is a photographer and he did take a few pictures so i'll share a couple of those) everything was delicious and it was a beautiful sunny day so we ate our thanksgiving in my mom's beautiful yard. Christmas and all the festivities leading up to it were amazing. we had a blessed month of december and we are really humbled and thankful for everything in our lives! To kick off the Christmas spirit we visited the Honolulu city lights which was beautiful as usual but this time around we had a lot more fun because Luka is at a perfect age to enjoy it. When we drove past the lights on our way to park luka said "I'm excited!!! My FAVORITE lights!" Poata and I cracked up, it was so funny and cute! we also had a good time at our ward christmas party! we love our bishop so much, he is such an awesome person! he dressed up as santa and shook his big booty around and luka was so excited! luka got a goody bag from him and talked about how santa gave it to him for days. on Christmas Eve we have a funny tradition of going to eat at the cheesecake factory. Obviously this started before we had the boys and also my parents lived on the big island but nonetheless it is a yummy tradition. When I was younger and visited California for Christmas each year we had Christmas at my grandmothers house and she traditionally makes tamales for christmas dinner so at cheesecake factory I order the sweet corn tamale cakes to have somewhat of a taste of my grandmothers amazing tamales. We might have to change our tradition next year though because the boys get tired and fall asleep on the way home and then we can't put out cookies for santa together and read "twas the night before christmas." Poata worked so hard to make sure our Christmas was amazing and that luka especially had a memorable Christmas. we bought Luka a baby grand piano and it's so cute! we have wanted it for him for some time now and we were really happy that we finally got it for him. he loves to sing jingle bells accompanied by the piano. he looks so cute sitting on the tiny bench made perfectly for him. i can't wait till lennon gets to enjoy it too. on Christmas morning my parents, younger sister and grandpa came over and we had piles of presents for each person and had fun opening them all together. Luka would get so excited for each present that it took him forever to finish opening all of his gifts because he would play with each one for a while before he wanted to open another one. I made french toast for everyone and we had a great morning. I made a small christmas dinner that night and we had a sweet and mellow night together. I love my little family so much and I'm so thankful for a hardworking and loving husband. both boys are so in love with their daddy and it melts my heart. we are so thankful for the church in our lives and the humility and love it teaches us.