Birthdays!

It was Poata's birthday on Friday, (June 11th). It was also King Kamehameha Day, because Poata is a king, or at least gets treated like one everywhere he goes (I'll get into that later.) Anyways for his birthday he got a rigid job site ipod radio that he has been wanting for quite some time now. He was beyond stoked and preceded to lay in the yard with Luka's inflatable pool as a pillow with music blasting. While he was laying in the yard I was baking my little butt off! I actually baked his birthday cake the night before because I had tons of baking to do on his birthday for my SECOND cupcake order!! My first order was only for 24 cupcakes and this order was for 75 cupcakes!! The party was an incredible hulk theme so I made "green" velvet cupcakes. Later on that day we headed to town for dinner and there was nightmare-ish traffic and we had no idea why so we finally found parking and walked to the waikiki strip and realized the entire road was closed for a festival! They were celebrating Poata and his king-hood. The festival booths were still setting up so we headed to dinner first at the Cheesecake Factory. Delicious as usual. The best part of dinner was how amazingly well behaved Luka was for us! At the cheesecake factory they make a little butterfly out of bread and bananas for kids and Luka was so content with that for his dinner. He is getting so good at chewing now and we also figured out that night that he can drink perfectly out of a straw! After dinner we headed out to that festival and watched a few of the performers, there was drumming and dancing and live bands as well as a lot of fun vendors. We then headed to our favorite store Babys R us. We spoiled Luka rotten as if it were his birthday! But we went there with a mission to stock up on our new favorite jean diapers in case they stop making them. We also had to get a present for the birthday that I was baking for the following day. On Saturday morning I packaged the cupcakes up and we headed to the party. We had a lot of fun there chatting with our friends and avoiding the water balloon fight. Everyone said they loved the cupcakes! Then on Sunday we taught our primary class for the first time. One word. HILARIOUS!!! I love these crazy kids! It was better than watching T.V.!! I can't wait until next week's episode! Favorite quote: " I don't know why my mom had that brother of mine! He is bad because when he was born he tried to come out the wrong way!! When babies are born they are supposed to come out head first but he tried to come out feet first! And then my mom had to get cut open!!" Then a few of the other girls chimed in... "my mom had to get cut open too!" "mine too!" Then a little boy, "I hate it when that happens!" I was literally in tears laughing!! I am not kidding you! TEARS! Anyways the cutest part was that I taught the days lesson on gratitude and I had the kids draw a picture of what they were grateful for and why and one little girl drew a picture of her mother and explained that she was grateful for her because she gives her hugs before she goes to bed. SO CUTE! Anyways we had a great weekend! Poata said it was one of the best birthdays he has ever had. Oh Wait! I forgot to mention what I baked for Poata's birthday cake... A SIX (6) LAYER CHOCOLATE CAKE!! It was six layers and in between each layer was a layer of chocolate ganache and a layer of cream cheese frosting, then the cake was covered in chocolate fudge frosting. It was awesome and he was very impressed! I love him! Oh and one more thing, Poata gets treated like a king EVERYWHERE we go! It's almost getting funny! We went to the hare krsna temple last week for the feast and this Indian guy just started showering Poata with garlands and food and cookies and praiseing him, then on his birthday we were looking into the quicksilver store because there was something going on and the girl at the front door informed us it was a private party and as we started to walk away the bouncer was like do you guys want to come in? Come in, it's a private party, I'll let you go in. And many other times that I can't recall right now because I have the worlds craziest memory. The end. AHH okay, ONE more thing! I promise! Luka had his first shave ice! haha. It had no flavor, just the ice but he loved it! We always feel bad for him when we go to matsumotos but this time he was very satisfied with his ice. okay... THE END!

live laugh love GROW

Luka is learning at a rapid rate now! He is AMAZING! He is nine months and counting and his first birthday is sneaking up on me like a ninja. Speaking of sneaky ninjas Luka is quite a little sneak himself! So here is a little update on his life:
Things he LOVES:
-His dad (and his mom of course)
-The beach (he kicks his legs until we let him in the water)
-Being outside in general
-Grocery shopping (He stands up in the shopping cart and yells at everyone)
-Dancing (He holds on to anything he can and shakes his upper body and moves his feet as fast as he possibly can)
-Singing (His favorite song to dance or sing to is the lion sleeps tonight- in the jungle song)
-Playing the guitar and ukalele
-Reading books (I have all of his books lined up against the wall on the floor in his room and he will crawl to them daily and pick them up and make weird noises and flip them around)
-Drinking anything he can get his hands on (he yells for whatever we are drinking and he can drink pretty well out of a cup now so we give him water and once and a while a sip of our smoothies and juices, he would do anything for a sip!
-His Grandma Jenna (He cries for her when she leaves!)
Things he HATES:
-Green beans
-Putting his pajamas on when it's time for bed
-When we don't give him what he is asking for
-When dad leaves for work in the morning
-Sitting in his car seat for too long
-Dogs (He is pretty scared of them)
Things he has accomplished:
-Standing unsupported
-Dancing
-Clapping his hands
-Waving hello and goodbye
-Plays peekaboo with us
-Understands a lot of what we are saying to him, like "no" "dont eat that" "come here"
-Kisses us!! (my favorite!)
-Hugs us!
-Cruises around while holding on to furniture
-Says dada to his dada
-Mimics a lot of things Poata or I do (It's really easy to teach him things now)
-Eats about 3 jars of baby food a day now!
-Almost has his first teeth! (I know it is pretty late but I can see a few about to pop out!!)
-Almost took his first steps! (a couple of days ago he kind of took his first steps, it happened so fast we don't even know!)


Luka is so smart and aware of everything around him. Him dancing is probably the cutest thing Poata and I have ever seen! Right when we put a song on he just starts rocking out! It's the best part of the day!

My First Mother's Day

Mother's Day Weekend started on Friday morning. Poata has a new schedule with his job where he works 10 hours a day instead of 8 and now he has Fridays off because he makes 40 hours by Thursday. It's way cool! So Friday morning instead of Luka and I going on our alligator's walk just the two of us, we had daddy come along too! And we stayed a while and some of our friends happened to be there too! And that means there were babies! Since allll of my friends have babies! Jen an old co-worker of mine was there with her 7 week old little baby girl that I haven't gotten a chance to meet yet so it was great to see her! Next up on our Mother's Day weekend was our ward's Samoan Sunday school class's Mother's Day dinner. It was surprisingly super fun, I think due to the fact that Luka was a crazy party animal! He was singing and dancing out of control! He busted all these new moves he had never done before! He was the life of the party! Poata was also in heaven because they served crab and shrimp and I was in heaven because they had every single flavor of Ted's Bakery pie, my flavor of choice being chocolate haupia of course. Saturday started off with a shopping trip to get my mom a gift and then to the grocery store to get all the ingredients to make a special treat for her. After that we had a kids rager to go to! It was the coolest thing I have ever been to! ok well the coolest kids thing that I have ever been to! It was a rock and roll/ reggae party especially for little toddlers! There were live bands playing rock and roll and reggae lullabies and numbers and colors songs. There were at least 50 kids there rocking out. There was even a little baby drum set for the kids to play on while the band was playing. It was a pot luck so I made cookie monster cupcakes again and they were a big hit with the kids! So after the party we went home and I started making my mom's mother's day cake. It was a 6 layer rainbow cake! Each layer was a different flavor, red-strawberry orange-orange yellow-lemon green-kiwi blue-blueberry purple-grape. The frosting was a lemon cream cheese frosting. My mom is obsessed with rainbows, she has been since her mom (my oma-grandma) died and thinks it's my grandma's way of saying hi. yeah she is a little crazy. But anyways I figured for mothers day it was perfect! My mom loved it!! So Sunday she came over and cut her cake and was thrilled! Then we headed to the beach! She took Luka along with them and Poata and I kayaked to the beach and met them there. It was so beautiful out and super clear! We saw tons of turtles! We brought some snacks with us to the beach and stayed all day! Then we went home and had another collaboration dinner. My mom made pasta salad, ceasar salad and furikake ahi and I made tofu, broccoli and asparagus stir fry and rice. Everything was super good! Mother's day may be my new favorite holiday! Poata is such an amazing husband and always makes me feel special and appreciated!

btw recipe and directions for the rainbow cake will be on my other blog. http://beachfrontbakery.blogspot.com

Bakery Blog!

I am super excited about having another blog to share recipes! I am on this cupcake kick right now and I'm enjoying every bite of it! If you haven't checked out my blog do so NOW! And become a follower! And share some recipes with me! I made some cupcakes tonight and they were probably my best yet! "Guittard and Ghirardelli chocolate cupcakes dipped in ganache and topped with cream cheese frosting. Yum! Get the recipe at:
http://beachfrontbakery.blogspot.com
On another note we went to Lanikai again this Saturday. Super fun! We went to the Lanikai Spring Festival which is like an art fair. Then we went to Fromaggios to eat and it was soo good! We have only eaten there once before because we don't get out to that side much but I want to go all the time! Anyways after that we met up with my brother and his new little cutie kitten named rachel/musubi/victoria. We are still deciding on a name obviously. Anyways to end the weekend today I had my family come over and I made enchiladas filled with cheese, corn, black beans, cilantro, onions, tomatoes, jalepenos and orange bell peppers and they came out great!! I wish I got a picture before they were devoured because they looked really yummy too! Every once and a while we try to do this collaboration dinner with my mom where she brings half the dinner and I make half the dinner and it works out really well! So this time time I made the enchiladas and guacamole and she made spanish rice and beans. Everything was super good and it was fun to have everyone over. Jai brought rachel/musubi/victoria and I usually don't like cats but she is a sweetheart! Anyways I hope everyone has a great new week! xoxo

Beach, Sleep, Eat, Beach, Sleep, Eat...

Okay, I'm going to try out this numbering thing...

1. Luka turned 9 months and we went to his 9 months appointment and everything went well, he got two shots and the first one he didn't even cry and the second he cried a little but got over it as soon as we walked out of the door. He is such a big boy!
2. We LOVE our kayak!! We took it out at sunset beach last weekend and it was so much fun! The weather has been amazing the past week and we are hoping to take it out again this weekend!
3. We had an adventure day! On Tuesday Poata was sick and really didn't want to go to work so I told him that he could take the day off if he took me to Cake Couture, a cupcake shop in Aina Haina that I have been dying to go to, he obviously would rather get cupcakes then work so that's what we did and it turned into an adventure day. Our fist stop was Cake Couture and they were AMAZING! I even said that I should just resign from baking because I can never make my cupcakes as good as them, but I'm not resigning I just have to work really hard to make them better, or at least as good! Then instead of driving the normal boring way home we drove through Waimanalo, Kailua, Lanikai and on to Kaneohe and we made every tourist stop on the way. SO. MUCH. FUN. We did a little dream house hunting in Lanikai then we ate at this little cafe/deli called Kalapawai and it was delish! We also stopped at the Halona Blowholes and sandy beach, super windy and super beautiful!
4. I started a NEW BLOG! I obviously love baking so I started a blog just for my baked goods and their recipes of course! I hope you'll check it out and become a follower and make some of the yummy treats! The address is:
http://www.beachfrontbakery.blogspot.com

We met a Luka but he was a Luca

We went to the beach, Alligators of course and there was a cute little boy. We said hi to the cute little boy, we asked how old he was. He counted for us. All the way up to 8! He made us soup (sand in a bucket with some fresh salt water swirled around with a shovel and mmmmmmm mmmmm yummy soup). Then we asked his name. Luca! Wait what, how did you know my son's name?? No wait, what, your son's name is Luka too! Wait Luca. Crazytown. I mean Luka/LucaTown. And wait... you live right by me! Like 1 road over! FUN

swingtime fun

okay so in my last post I mention a video of Luka laughing in his swing. For some dumb reason it didn't upload soooo here it is =) hopefully.