one shabby chick

How can you be this old already?

Well, my firstborn is officially in double digits now. Today is the big 1-0. I was looking back at pictures and I can't believe how young hubby and I looked. And we were young too. We had been married for 2 years when our little guy came along and we were only 23!!

The pictures are all stuffed in photo albums and I can't find the one where he's really little...it must be somewhere...to find the last one's pictures all I have to do is scroll through the pictures on the computer! Man, how things have changed in only 10 years!

We didn't know much about being parents when we brought him home. He was such a good baby so it made it easy on us. We couldn't believe the doctors and nurses trusted us to take him home alone...didn't they know we didn't know what we were doing?

Well, he survived and so have we (so far) and brought home three more siblings to join the family. My husband is sure our oldest wishes he was an only child though!

We are just having a family dinner with my parents and brothers and sister-in-law. Birthday Boy has requested hamburgers. On Saturday a few friends are coming over to have a beach day and sleepover. One friend is pictured above and has been his best friend since they can remember.

So, Happy Birthday My Wonderful Boy! Thanks for being so sweet and sensitive and I pray your dad and I can help you become a wonderful man who loves God and others (and don't damage you too much in the meantime!). We love you!

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

Well, after WEEKS of the tooth barely hanging on, it's finally out. She told me she hopes she can still eat food :-)

Poor little baby..here she was walking around singing her version of the ABC song (since her big brother is learning it and I'm thinking they might both learn to read at the same time - not really, but kinda). She tried to climb onto a little plastic picnic table we have in the living room and missed the bench and fell straight into the side - there was some big crying!

In other news, I feel like I was in an accident or something yesterday. It was a brutal game (not because of the other team - I did it to myself pretty much). I didn't drink any water and got a bad migraine (blurry vision, vomiting, mean headache) as soon as I got home and also thought I had maybe broken/fractured something on my arm. I had a big lump and it hurt to move my wrist. I guess it's just a bad muscle bruise or something (I got hit on the arm). And then this morning I feel like I have whiplash (which I totally did to myself) - my neck feels really bruised. I fell backwards trying to keep the ball in play and hit my head hard on the ground. So yesterday was a bit of a bummer...but at least my arm feels better today so I'm ruling out fracture.

Sorry to be complaining - My hubby's already telling me maybe I should give it up.

Here's a photo from the birthday party. As soon as I pulled out my camera and took a couple shots, the battery died - ughh!

Finally doing some sewing again

Well, I've finally gotten back in to some sewing. I pre-ordered this book awhile back and it was waiting for me when we got back from Portland. I love it! It has so many cool projects in it. I made this bag.

I made it as a birthday present for a friend - her boyfriend is having a surprise b-day party for her tonight. It's a Mexican theme - I'm making Spanish rice and a big pot of black beans.

I modified it a little and added a small pocket in it. Just sewed it to the lining before I sewed it up. It was really easy to sew and great instructions to follow.

I bought the fabric in Portland at this wonderful fabric shop that is a couple BLOCKS from my sister's house. Seriously - I walked to it. I am so jealous of her (she doesn't sew though). Anyway I scored lots of fun fabric, patterns and notions there - very fun! There is a gorgeous yarn store next to it but I can't remember the name. Haven't learned how to knit yet so I didn't go in.
Well, have a great weekend - got another soccer game tomorrow! I have quite the bruise on my leg from last week's game!

Oh before I forget...Fred is undertaking a very cool challenge and is looking for people to send him material to help in the undertaking so if you feel like making a friend in England, email him :-)

Cacia and Chris

Well, here's the link to the photographer's blog....I can't wait until I can see all the pictures as he took a bunch of my kids too and we never have good pictures of our kids. I'm thinking for Christmas I want to hire our friend Marina (who is an AMAZING photographer) to take pictures of our family to give as presents.

So we started back into school today...but sadly did not do everything since I had to rush over to the trophy shop to order trophies for little guy's team today or they would not be ready by next Sat. which is the last game. And we all know how important a trophy is to a 5 year old.
We did make spice muffins this morning - I even managed to make them FOR breakfast. They were all very excited by this. I picked up some fingerling potatoes at Costco today - I've seen them in all the fancy cooking shows like Top Chef and all over here and have always wanted to use them.

So now I have my chance. I roasted them with a little olive oil and salt and pepper and am actually planning on eating them with cheese fondue for dinner. They had packs of fondue at Costco too and all you have to do is heat it up. Not sure how it will taste or if potatoes even go with fondue but it's worth a try....not exactly low carb but I've decided I'm not sure if I really care anymore. I love food...usually all the bad stuff too and as long I'm not getting too big I'm not worried. (At least not today)

Anyway, about the wedding. It was at Kruger's farm which was beautiful. We (well, my dad) had it catered from Salvador Molly's and the food was delicious and it was just a fun time. It wasn't very big and actually quite a few people flew up from Hawaii for the wedding. We had a bridal shower for her the night before the wedding and the boys all went out for mac and cheese! At the wedding, my boys turned out to be BIG dancers!! Like hilarious, entertainment-for-everyone dancers.

My youngest was doing the robot and some sort of "I don't even know what to call it" dance - he'd start moving his leg just a little and then another leg and then bust out on the dance floor. They both were doing some big "breakdancing" too. Their clothes were filthy after the wedding. It was just the funniest thing ever.

I had to do the toast since she didn't have any bridesmaids or attendants. I was a little nervous but think I managed to do a good one...a little humor along with some sentimental parts.
I managed to boss my brother around some too as you can tell by this picture....

I don't know if I've ever mentioned my sister-in-law here but she is an excellent songwriter/singer. Some free advertising for you, Hope!!

Ok well, I have to sign-off and get ready for soccer practice. I have somehow become my daughter's coach without even volunteering for it...

Ok just one more pic of the wedding......

Lazy baking day

I know..no posts for almost a month and then two in the same day. I felt a "little" productive today and since tomorrow we start in to school full swing again I did some baking. I made some pizza dough from this cookbook (which I use a lot) and made mini-pizzas with olive oil and garlic. They had a little too much salt in the dough but other than that they turned out great. I used the Cuisinart and it was really fast. Think I'll be whipping up some pizza dough for some big pizzas one of these days.

I also made some cookies from Giada's cookbook.

They turned out yummy although it called for hazelnuts (which I did not have) and also semi-sweet chips (which somehow have disappeared). So I improvised with a few semi-sweet chunks that I ground up in the Cuisinart and the last two Almond Roca's in the can. The recipe actually made a lot of cookies. The kids were very excited about the "baking" mommy and are begging me to make some more things. I told them two items were enough for one day and we'd make something else tomorrow. My eldest is dying to make spice muffins from this same cookbook and I've put him off long enough. So tomorrow Spice Muffins are on the menu...probably as a mid-morning snack.

I'm waiting to put up photos of the wedding until the photographer puts them on his blog and I can link to that. My sister looked beautiful - like 50's pin-up style glamour. She's so much cuter (and smaller) than me - darn her! It was a beautiful day although there were thunderstorms predicted all day and it only rained a tiny bit as we were walking from the wedding site to the reception tent. On the way to the wedding the groom called us to say it was hailing while they were driving. Crazy weather but in the end it turned out beautiful. Here's a link to a few pictures a friend of ours took of the wedding.....

Been so long

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted. I do have lots to share from our wonderful trip to Portland. We had so much fun! The kids were very good on the airplane (thank goodness, I was dreading that!) and we had a whole house to ourselves so that helped. It was freezing there (to us anyway - who put on sweatshirts when it is in the 70's). AND WE SAW SNOW - Whoo-hoo!!
Everyone said there wouldn't be any and so we prepared ourselves for being disappointed. Bela kept asking as we were diving to Mt Hood if there would be snow and I told her probably not. We stopped at Government Camp at the bathrooms and asked a man if he tought there was snow and he told us no, there's no snow. We thought about just driving back to Portland and looked at a map and saw there was another lodge, Timberline Lodge, higher up and so we decided - why not..let's head up there. Our first glimpse came as a jeep came driving down the road - covered in snow! We knew we had hit the jackpot.
The higher up we drove, the more snow was on the ground. By the time we got to the parking lot, everything was covered in snow! We got out of the car and ran around, making snowballs and just tromping around in the snow (which was a few inches deep). I was taking pictures of the kids..and then IT STARTED SNOWING!

I have lived in Hawaii all my life and so have never seen snow so I am very excited about this (if you can't tell). The kids had never been in snow either and my husband had only seen snow once so it was a huge thrill for us all. I put the camera back in the car as I wasn't sure if the snow would hurt it - I wish I had taken more pictures (ughh!). We didn't want to stay too long since it was snowing hard and we weren't sure how hard it would be to get the minivan we had rented out of it. I wish we had stayed longer but we had lots of fun and the kids are still talking about it.
We crammed as much as we could into that week in Portland..which is probably why we are still recovering. We went to so many cool restaurants (they are everywhere in Portland). We had a GPS which was nice to just type in the name or address of the place and head off. We went to Crema (wonderful coffee and baked goods), Helser's (yummy breakfasts) and of course Trader Joe's (I love this store- oh, to have one here. Although this store is coming, eventually). Oh and we are getting a Target eventually too. I think it's coming next year sometime.
I did some shopping...of course! I had to hit Anthropologie. Got this and this (which I wore to the wedding) and this plus some other goodies. I had fun!
I also visited here (fun store), here, and of course Powell's. I picked up this book and have read it all week. It's great and has made me get in the cooking mood. So yesterday I made this for breakfast..man, it's a lot of work. And my hollandaise sauce turned out a little tangy (too much lemon juice!). I also got in the cooking/baking mood from the cute bakery where my sister works. It is called Di Prima Dolci and is so yummy and cozy. The entire place closed the day of the wedding and they all came and had made all the desserts for the reception, including the cake. The lemon bars are unbelievable. Ok so I'm going to save the wedding for another post but here's a pic of all of us at the wedding.....

Don't you love how the flower girl's tummy is peeking (well, more than peeking) out of her outfit?