oh my

our stockings are 1/3rd of the way sewn and they look awesome so far!

the turkey will be marinading very very soon!

i got my books in the mail yesterday!

my jury duty was canceled today!

i just yelled at my annoying across-the-way neighbor for continuing to block my van in and/or parking in my spot all the freaking time!

let the holidays begin!!!!!!



cha-hoooooooo!!!!!!

asher's first food

rice cereal... or the infant oatmeal version of that.

ambrose helped.

and he ate the whole bowl without any trouble or complaint.

until after.

his little tummy was very full. :)

he's sleeping it off now. him and his two new teeth.

life is flying by................

talented, talented friends

like angie wynes:



and mrs. shanae jones take these and make us look good :)

click on the links to see much more- especially on angie's blog and shanae's you might have already seen if you have facebook and i sent you the link.

love them!

thanks for the awesome deal ladies! you are amazing!

our westside story

we rolled up to the west side today. i'm always so fascinated. it looks nothing like the hawaii many of you imagine and yet, i really really love so much about it.

oh waipahu, quit glaring at me. i may not be filipino, but my son is named ambrose and i once knew a very kind and helpful man named ambrose who was, you guessed it, filipino, so that's got to count for something.

i love you waipahu.

today me and ambrose killed time at this lovely strip mall in waipahu while thomas and asher dropped off some stuff for work.





it was awesome to say the very least.

and then we went to the kapolei target and got the fluffiest towels you ever did feel for our new bathroom and had lunch. then it was on to kunia where i got all the supplies for our christmas stockings that i'm making hopefully soon.

oh relax. i know i still havent started the bedspread i told you i was making.

but i will.

these are more timely.

and then our van needed a little jumpy jump because the iPod drained it's battery so the boys and i played in a nearby field



while thomas took care of the car things men take care of.

and that's it. good saturday.

status update

20 tests, 20 papers, lesson plans until wednesday: DONE

NEW MOON midnight showing: AWESOME

really, really need new brown slippas but i can't find the same reef ones i have worn everyday for the past two years or more: BLEH

wearing actual shoes on a daily basis for the first time in six years: I'M LIKIN' IT


i've got some fresh avocados and leftover raspberry cheesecake pie waiting for me this evening.

brittany, i made your thai chicken stir fry and felt a little less homesick. sidenote: it's delicious with tofu.

ambrose tried on his halloween costume from when he was 7 months old: IT MYSTERIOUSLY SORTA FIT

i am officially freezing our ages. i really like right now and wish we could be 29, 25, 2.5, and 5 months forever. i really think we are all the perfect ages. 25 is a good place to be. don't you think?: THANKS FOR AGREEING

boring rambling post: OFFICIALLY OVER

happy aloha friday y'all.

in the spirit of procrastination

thomas said, "so you're not doing those i am thankful posts anymore?"

and i said, "oh i am. i am thankful."

and i am.

you'll see.

but tonight i am home alone (in-laws in kona, husband at band meeting) and i am procrastinating. 20 tests and 20 papers are in my teaching bag and are in the back of my mind. i'll finish the tests tonight at least.

we headed out to the library yesterday and found our next chapter book: and this exact copy too. the tiny illustrations pop up to say hello about every other page and are so random and scrawny and intriguing. it's enough to keep him interested and still begging for another chapter each night so i am excited.

it's fun to have kids. you can relive all this imaginative magic and enjoy seeing their first time with it all at the same time.

next we are reading this one:
it's an abridged version (just like the copy of peter pan we just finished) and is this exact copy- great illustrations: and i'm kinda looking froward to reading it since i am sure it is going to be so strange.

well, i have about forty sewing projects i am in the process of and i think they are all going to roll together in a big ball of houndstooth, stripe, bold, print, solid, and patchwork and swallow me whole.

what a way to go.

who do you think will win project runway? i think they're all pretty good, but none of them have me so inspired i want to study their lives and strive to copy or anything. does anyone else feel like the designers are just not as great as they used to be? or maybe i just dont know what is stylish. that's more likely. each week thomas and i go, REALLY? about what the judges rave over. i guess we've reached the point where we are no longer "in". i can live with that. :)

ok, ok. procrastination over. grading. grading. grading. bleh. :)

a quilting bee

just my mother-in-law and me......

don't look ashley jones! that blue one may or may not be for your soon-to-be baby boy! :)

my great awakening! haha! :)

i didn't even think i needed this or maybe i just didn't want to admit it...because, well, we are happy. things aren't always perfect, but we try our best and we each fill certain roles in our relationship and things are rolling along as they should, BUT then my good friend matti (who is very wise) suggested that we read this book for our november choice in a book club i am a part of.

my reaction: a big fat eye roll.

dr. laura??? yuck. i tried listening to her program a couple of years ago and was amused at first, but then it was too much to stomach and until recently i thought it was because i hated her and her approach to helping people.

and then yesterday after finishing her book i realized, nope. i can't stand the people who call in time and time again determined to be unhappy in their lives.

we all have things that we love to hold on to even though deep down we KNOW they hold us back from our truest potential and from all the happiness that is ours if we will take it.

some people love to gossip even though they know it just leaves them feeling critical and unhappy about others when they are done. (that's me sometimes.)

some people love to binge on tons of junk food in one sitting even though they know they will have to run for 40 miles to work it off, feel sick, and be a big old fatty and look bad in their clothes. (oops, that's also me sometimes.)

some people love to blame everyone else for everything bad in their lives even though they know deep down that we all have it hard in different ways and if they tweaked their attitude a bit they would be a lot happier. (uh oh, me again. crap.)

and others love to feel mistreated when they are in their pajamas at noon, with kids screaming around them because their mothers aren't paying attention to them, in a messy house, feeling punished and oppressed because their husbands are so "free" and get to be at work all day with adults feeling important even though they know their men have it hard at work a lot of the time and there is nothing more rewarding or important than working hard and raising your own child (that's every stay at home mom i know at one time at least in their lives if we are going to be honest.)

you get the idea. i could go on and on. there are so many of these things that make us feel good at the time, a pity party for one or a destructive behavior that we feel entitled to that ultimately keep us from REALLY being happy.

i didn't even think about it that much until i read this book by dr. laura and i would have never picked it up on my own matti so i am singing your praises to the high heavens because just the title alone would send me straight for the nearest barf bag.

and WHY?????

don't i love my wonderful, sweet, hardworking husband more than anyone or anything in this whole wide world????

because i was married so young i think i feel self-conscious about looking too traditional or like i have a 50's housewife mentality. i don't want anyone thinking that i am in any way oppressed because i married young and had children after graduating instead of chasing a career.

and what the hell for? honestly.

it may seem like i am ranting at this point, but i am having a great awakening so bare with me here.

the things that matter most are my husband, my children, and our home.

any idiot can agree that those things matter 100 times more than anything material and that goes for paying off debt or buying a house (because what on earth is the point of buying a house if you can't stay home to raise the children you created in it?).

therefore, i choose to embrace that. more than i ever have before because careers are hollow and you don't take them with you into the next life.

sometimes this book was hard for me to read, but i swallowed it and got through the parts that irritated me (and asked myself why it irritated me which may have been the hardest part of all) and then i used the things i learned and we are already so much happier for it. already.

and i finished the book yesterday. pretty fast results. haha :)

just read it. or continue on and hope for the best. ha! but, do yourself and your family a favor and read it.

i love you and want you to be happy too.

did i say thank you yet matti? thanks. :)

today i am thankful for matti for suggesting this book to me and for a huge dose of clarity!

we've spent the better part of the last nine days indoors

first asher had a weird virus for a week, then i had it for two days, and now ambrose is green booger city. but we will be better tomorrow i hope!

i don't know how people stay inside all day. we're going a little crazy.

but really it has been nice to have a reason to simplify life by hanging around home more lately. we've been reading a lot. including some library books that i was so happy to find because they are books from my childhood:

and i decided to start a little experiement and see if a wild two year old would sit through a chapter book. i was going to start with james and the giant peach since i have read that that is the first chapter book you should introduce to children, but instead i found the original peter pan by j.m. barrie in a great edition with hand-drawn black and white pictures on just about every other page.

i didnt think he would sit through it, but he totally does! we talk about the pictures briefly and then i read. if he ever seems to get restless then we talk about the pictures some more or i say, "are you done?" and he always begs for more. i love hearing him say, "one more tractor!" (meaning "chapter" haha) it has been a lot of fun.

i read at least one chapter before bed, but usually two or three now that he has gotten used to sitting and listening and is enjoying it so much. he's even talked me into reading a chapter at nap time. needless to say, we are almost done and i'm having as much fun as he is.

i love barrie's style of writing. thomas read to ambrose one night when i was at sewing class and commented that the book is enjoyable on many levels. i had to make ambrose sit through the chapter i missed that night again just so i wouldnt be left out.

in other words, we are loving it.

the publisher is dalmatian press for anyone interested. small children like ambrose obviously wont absorb everything and understand it all, but can follow along through the pictures and pick up on the story as they listen and start to put things together. i have been amazed. oh yeah, and the best part? i found this at borders on sale for about $2 i believe. i am going back soon to see if they have any others since we are almost done with this one.

anyway, i love reading but it was time to get outside today before we lost our minds so we headed out! and made it partway down the street. and then my little peter pan got distracted. by a split open coconut. and ol chubby feet over there was intrigued too.
so we people and coconut watched for a bit and headed home. try not to be jealous. ;)

these are gonna be a bedspread

just you wait and see.

where do i wish i could be this weekend?

well, here if you must know.

wouldn't it be rad?

all i want for christmas.

are you reading this mom? thomas?





you can find them here of course. pricey but beautiful and so well made! worth it.

thankful for...........

lots of things.

but right now blogging isn't one of them.

see ya!

thankful for my jobs

teaching eng 101, sec 2 is a special little hobby of mine. a time where i can reconnect with the old geeky literary version of myself and enjoy helping my students see how they can find themselves in the pieces we are reading. i feel like the lord knew that waiting for the apartment to be done would be an exercise in patience for little-old-impatient-me and so he gave me a little treat to help keep life moving and busy in the form of this teaching opportunity.

when it is done on december 16th i will be sad because i truly have enjoyed it, but there will be some relief too. i have another job, i think you know what i am referring to, the one that involves the raising of two little pups named ambrose and asher. i am looking forward to slowing down and dedicating even more time to these two and not having anything extra to distract me. this fleeting time with my babies is precious.

admittedly the extra money each month has been pretty awesome and we have set it aside for purchases like these:

glad to be able to have it through such enjoyable means, but i must say, given the choice i would take the chubby toddler in the middle over the fancy rug surrounding him any day of the week.

today i am thankful for my jobs: one for now and the other for eternity.

thankful for good friends

and not just good, but thoughtful and generous.

i wrote a VERY long post about all my wonderful friends that have really been kind, supportive, giving, understanding, and fun to be around and i named a bunch of people by name. don't worry, you made the list.

and then i got to thinking that what if i missed someone reeeeeal important and so i deleted that monster of a post and soooooo-

if you are my friend, and a good one at that, i hope you know how very grateful i am for you. even if we don't get to see each other very often - i hope you know that you mean a lot to me.

and speaking of generous friends:

check out this!


today i am thankful for good friends.

thankful for bedrooms and a new bathroom too!

oh yessiree framing is coming right along, roofing put on, plumbing being worked on as i type this, and i just found some charming possible bedspreads and rugs on target.com. this is so much fun. wanna see?

here are some pictures of the framing of the stairs and the addition. you can get a good idea of what the house will look like once those stairs are actually in...etc.


the painter came and did everything he could do at this stage of construction so a good portion of the house is now a lovely green color.


the rest will of course be painted green as soon as it exists. :)
ambrose and asher's room is the front bedroom with a big window that gives them an upclose view of that ulu tree you can see in this picture:

my sister-in-law saw this picture and commented that she likes thinking of them looking out at the ulu tree and feeling like they live in a tree house- i love that! so fun!
here is the bathroom, not much to look at now, but a little bigger than the old one and boy do we have some fun plans for in there.... just you wait!

and finally, the master bedroom:

isn't she a beauty? i feel ready to move in today. i won't mind the draft.

yesterday i braved the ladder and went up there for the first time since the stairs were knocked down and i just had to take deep breaths i was so excited. i could just see it all organzied like we have been planning. the paint colors, the wall hangings, all the finishing touches (yep, both of those) we have been gathering and working on.

i looked at the little kitchen that i have already cooked so much in and pictured myself whipping up a nice sunday dinner with the apron melissa made me. :) and the rug i found today would compliment the sewing cabinet so well- right next to the "keep calm and carry on" poster i just got in the mail (thank you good day sunshine ladies!) i want to move in NOW!

it's nice to live with my in-laws because they help me out a lot and they are very gracious, but it will be so wonderful to just be our own little family again and in a very stylish new little place too!

today i am thankful for my in-laws for letting us be their first tenants in a most awesome new living space. i can't wait!