Lately...

These are cookie monster cupcakes that I made for a pot luck that we went to this weekend. (My brothers girlfriends sisters birthday party in Waikiki)
Luka with his new ukalele from uncle Jai.
This is my step-dad Donnie's guitar, he even yells for Donnie's guitar when I go over to my mom's house. It's the first thing he notices when we get there.
Poata and Luka at Haleiwa Joe's for dinner a few nights ago.
With Grandpa Donnie at alligators

At Alligators with Grandma Jenna (Jema: my mom's grandma name, like jlo but Jema lol) and Grandpa Donnie.


At the library in the toy bucket =)

So lately we have been spending a lot of time with my mom and it has been sooooo nice! I can't tell you how much I love having family near by! For a while Poata and I were the only members of either of our families on this island and it was pretty lame. Now we have my mom, and step dad, my brother, little sister and cousin Rama! It is so much fun! Jai usually comes over on the weekends and Rama and her boyfriend Ky usually come on their days off of work. My mom on the other hand comes over almost everyday and if she doesn't come to my house I go to hers. She lives right at three tables so it's really convenient! A couple of days ago Luka and I took a walk over to her house and surprised them. We had our usual walk to alligators and back to our house but the day was so beautiful that we didn't want to go back home just yet so we just kept walking and we ended up at my moms house. My mom and I have also been shopping quite a few times which as you all know is my favorite thing to do! Especially when it's with my mom =). We also took Luka to the library for the first time! It was so much fun! They have a whole "kiddie" section with stuffed animals and mini tables and everything. We have been going to the beach a lot too. The waves are starting to settle down as it gets closer to summer and I can't wait for those perfectly flat summer days at Waimea Bay to take Luka in! He is such a little water baby. He loves taking baths and even tries to climb in the bath tub all by himself now! He crawls to the bathroom then stands up holding on to the tub, then lifts up one leg and tries to climb in, it is so cute! He is so strong! Oh and by the way he is EIGHT months now! He is a professional crawler and is moving on to bigger and better things, he is trying to move around while holding onto things like the couch or his crib. He is also saying mama and dada! Poata and I spaz out every time he says either. We look at each other with a big eyed crazy face but really we mean did you hear that?? He still has no teeth but I'm not really looking forward to nursing with him having teeth anyways. He absolutely loves his dad! When Poata gets home from work everyday Luka beams! He has the cutest smile and is totally ready to start playing. He loves to play with his dad, especially with the guitar! He is OBSESSED with guitars. I don't remember if I have already mentioned this but he plays the guitar like a little rock star! If he see's the guitar somewhere he will either yell until you give it to him or wiggle his way out of your arms so he can crawl to it. My brother bought him a little ukalele so he could have one his own size and he loves it! He is too funny! Another funny thing he did the other day was yell at me! Poata had just finished drinking a bottle of cocacola and Luka really wanted some so Poata put the lid back on and gave the bottle to Luka to play with. I didn't realize the lid was on it so I yelled to Poata to take it away from him, so he did. Luka, sitting back towards me, turns around and yelled at me, "eaaahhhh waaah eeuu raauuuwwwhhh" translation: "Mom! WTH Let me have that! Mind your own business!" It was hilarious! Anyways He is just the best thing that has ever happened to us! He is so much fun to be around and he cracks us up all the time! He just amazes us with his strength, intelligence and sense of humor, yes he has a really good sense of humor. Here are a few pictures of our adventures lately.

Par-tay =)

Really awesome balloon guy! Made Luka Elmo and me a tiffany key (they are my new obsession)
Luka making his new silly face with his elmo balloon
Koa blowing out his candles
All of the mommy's! I can't believe we all had babies around the same time! So cool!

This was the first picture but it kept growing! So many of us have children now.
The borthday boy with his mommy, Priscilla
Merekete's cutie.
The little Tamangaro family.
Jennifer and Nona-Vee
Luka with his "team mate" Roaden.

Walking into the party =)

A turtle at Alligator's yesterday.
Luka ready to go to the movies
Me and Poata taking Luka on a walk on Ke Nui on the bike path.
Luka loving his guitar.
At the body boarding contest

Today was Luka's bestie Koa's first birthday! It was so much fun to see my friends and their babies, it's funny to see how "grown up" we all are now! The party was "sports" themed so we got Luka a little soccer jersey and shorts. His other little friend Roaden had the exact outfit on, it was like they were a little team, so cute! The party was a blast and Luka was such a little "fun haver" in Poata's words. I said aka he had fun but Poata said no, he was a fun haver lol. I cannot wait for Luka's first birthday party! His is going to be construction themed. It's pretty much planned already even though I have about 5 more months to go. Anyways here are a few random pictures from this past week and a bunch of pictures from the party today. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention Luka is definitely going to be a famous guitar player!! He absolutely LOVES playing the guitar. Poata's favorite thing to do to relax is grab the guitar and play a few songs, sometimes even until he falls asleep with guitar in hand lol. He has played the guitar for Luka since he was born. Luka will crawl from across the house if he see's the guitar. He then kneels or stands against it and strums it! All by himself! He sometimes sings along (yells along) and it entertains him forever! And when Poata plays it and Luka hears it he stops whatever he is doing and crawls over to his dad and starts strumming it, interrupting Poata's song. The other day Poata said to me, Hunny can you please take him, I havn't played an entire song in soooo long! So we borrowed Donnie's (my other dad) guitar so they can both play =) It's really awesome that Luka is so interested in the guitar because Poata plays, both of my dad's play, and Poata's dad plays! I'll get a new video up of him playing one of these days.

Videos

A few videos mainly just of Luka laughing and me having a mega-loud voice.

Alligators

I think I've mentioned Alligator beach in previous posts but I really love this place!! Luka and I walk there daily and it does not get old! It is so beautiful and changes all of the time! Some mornings we will see turtles, some mornings we see giant black and red crabs, some mornings we see whales jumping and sometimes there are beautiful shells on the sand, sometimes the waves are huge and there is some surfing to watch but some days the water is flat and crystal clear. Alligators has become one of my favorite places to be! I think Luka agrees with me on this one. He loves the sand, the water and the action. It's nearly impossible to get a good shot of Luka when I set him on the sand, usually he loves to pose for the camera and he knows the meaning of "smile" so he will usually give me a big grin to take a shot of but put him on a pile of sand and there are a lot better things he wants to be doing than looking up for me but I managed to get a couple of him to represent his seventh month. Yeah that's right, Luka is 7 months! I can't believe it! He is crawling like a pro now! It is so cute! He follows us from room to room and destroys! He can get into pretty much anything now with the combination of crawling and standing. It's really fun to watch him though. He has also been trying to talk a lot lately. He says mama but he is still working on his next word, his words are starting to sound more and more like real ones. He is starting to eat a lot of baby foods now. It is so fun to see his facial expression when he tries a new food. Peaches was his best expression yet. And he hates papaya. Anyways here are some pictures of our beloved Alligator beach and some random pictures of this week.

Life of a 6 month old

Driving to the beach for Luka's 6th month celebration =) I later made a cake and we sang happy birthday lol
Dogtown baby. My dad got him this onsie.

silly kid

Luka and daddy hanging out with his bestie Koali'i and his dad
chilling by the pool
cutest baby ever

Ocean
Ocean and Luka
Ocean and Luka in Luka's new pool
My Valentines Day. Best hubby ever!
Strawberry cupcakes w/ triple berry frosting
My uncle Jon with his daughter Sterling and my Luka.
Sterling
Ocean

Luka is 6 months old! He has been for almost a month, he is almost 7 months so before he turns a month older I have to blog about his 6Th month. He is growing like crazy, one of his nurses said I have high octane breast milk. He is over the one hundredth percentile for his weight and height and he is in the 58Th percentile for a one year old for height and weight! He is crawling now and standing up in his crib and starting to get into all of the things he is not supposed to be touching. His personality grows each day and he is so much fun to be around! He officially said his first word! And of course it's mama!!! He has said it a few times now and I feel overjoyed each time. Luka is really cuddly with me and he loves to play with his dad. Poata is the best dad I have ever seen! He loves to carry Luka and kiss him and play with him, he does anything for Luka. He always wants to take him along no matter where he is going. When he leaves for work he asks if he can take Luka with him, I answer that it's fine with me but I don't think your boss would appreciate it and I don't think you'll get much work done and Poata gets so disappointed because he doesn't want to be away from Luka all day. The day Luka turned 6 months we took him to the beach and got him wet in the ocean for the first time. He didn't love it but he didn't hate it so we tried again a few days later and he loved it. We go to the beach pretty regularly now and he splashes around in the water and smiles and talks to the waves, it's a ton of fun! Now that he can get wet I can too! It had been a while for me. This month has been really fun because my mom moved back to Oahu! She was visiting almost every other week to see Luka so she decided to just move back. She lives less than 5 minutes away, Poata walked Luka there a couple of days ago to surprise her. She has so much fun with Luka and buys him new toys all of the time, she even has a set of toys, a baby bathtub and a diaper changing kit at her house just for when we visit her there. She is the best grandma! And because she decided to move back I have decided to go back to school! She said she would babysit so I applied to BYUH for fall semester. I am excited and nervous to go back but Luka will be a year old by the time school starts so I feel pretty confident that I can handle the task and also that he can handle being without me for a couple of hours. We recently had my uncle visit us with his 2 daughters, Ocean (3) and Sterling (1). They are so cute and well behaved. Ocean was hilarious! She wanted to share EVERYTHING with Luka from pringles, cheetos and cookies to juice and soda! I would have him in his walker and her playing and I would turn my back for a second and look back and catch her trying to share random snacks with him, it was bad! But Luka loved having them around! He would be crying about something and one of them would walk in and he would instantly stop crying and start trying to act like a big boy. He has been better at crawling since they left. It was nice to have them here because I had never met Sterling before and they had never met Luka. It was a short stay though, just 2 days. We had a really good Valentines Day, I woke up with 2 vases of roses at my doorstep, one from Poata and a smaller one from Luka with a little card saying " To mommy thanks for everything! Love, Luka." It was such a cute idea! Then I made Poata breakfast in bed, a Mexican style omelet with rice. Then I baked some cupcakes of course and later my brother and his girlfriend Leah stopped by then we went to eat at Auntie Pastos and a friend of mine was our server. Dinner was so good and Poata was so good to me. He was romantic and sweet all day. Lately I have been baking a lot and it is so much fun for me! I love making cupcakes! I usually bake a batch each time the previous batch disappears. I am thinking about starting another blog for my cupcake recipes. I have been experimenting a lot with new recipes and additions to old recipes and it has been a lot of fun and Poata has been a very happy husband. I recently made chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate chocolate chip frosting and chocolate macadamia cupcakes with strawberry frosting, strawberry cupcakes with triple berry frosting and pumpkin pecan cupcakes with cinnamon ginger frosting to name a few. We have nicknamed Luka cupcake because he cracks up when you say the word. It is so funny! Anytime you want to make him smile you just have to say cupcake in a silly voice. When I bake I have my back facing him so I do a little dance and say shake shake shake and turn around and say cupcake and it keeps him entertained while I'm whipping up a batch of cupcakes. He has a bunch of other nick names too; little man, rumble pants, monkey, Luka Buka and Luka Badooka but cupcake is a favorite among both me and Poata. Here are some pictures of Luka's 6Th month, enjoy.