the kids lately

Well baby girl had her one month today!  one month!!  I can't believe she's so old already, time is flying!


The doctor said everything is looking really good.  After being so sick for the last few weeks she's finally over her cough, sore eyes/pink eye, and fever.  She went into the hospital but now everything is looking good.  She weighs 10 lbs 10 ounces and 22 1/4 inches.  She's in the 99% for height and 75% for weight.  I forget the number for her head measurement but it's in the 50th percentile.  


Finau's teachers in Sunbeams had a lesson about their bodies last Sunday.  They traced their bodies out on cardstock posters and wrote out all their stats.  Finau currently weighs 53 lbs and is 3 feet 8 inches (44 inches).  I realized just how big he's getting the other night.  I'm still not cleared to pick up anything more than baby or do any physical activity but the other night I cheated a little bit when Finau woke up crying and I went in the room and had him crawl in my lap.  I literally didn't realize just how big he was getting until he crawled in my lap and he was bigger than me.  He is getting so big.


My aunt said as soon as the second child comes along you see your first grow up so much.  I really see that with Finau.  We went to this community yard sale last Saturday and there was this couple selling all these really nice toys.  Usually Finau would sit down and play and throw a huge fit when we left but when I said it was time to go he just got right up and walked away.  He doesn't throw tantrums and listens a lot better than before.  He is always helping out with baby...picking out her clothes, getting her diapers and throwing away the dirty ones, feeding her, and rocking her to sleep.  He is such a good big brother.  Finau is still in speech and talking more and more every day.  He is too funny.  Since he always hears my parents and I calling Filipo by his first name he's started to call him "Bee-po" lol....He's always going "Where's Bipo? Where's Baby?"  The other day Filipo was asking him "Where's Mommy? Where's Allie?  Where's Baby?  Where's Grandpa?  Where's Grandma?" and then he paused for a second and went "Where's Sexy?" and Finau pointed to him...oka we were rolling but I went sasa Filipo's face.


I'm still deciding whether or not to put Finau in school.  I interviewed for a couple jobs today so if I get those he'll definitely be going to school starting in fall probably since the county is planning on cutting most of the summer school programs.  My Grandma is here for one month because my parents are going to Europe tomorrow.  It is really helping me to have her around.  Then at the end of the month I have more family coming for the baby's blessing in June.


We are having a missionary/fellowship activity event hosted by the BYU-Hawaii alumni in Washington, D.C.  It is a Polynesian dance show at the Washington, D.C. Visitor's Center this Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 7:00 p.m.  Filipo and Finau are both dancing so come watch it, have some fun, and eat some good food.  ok sau!

aso fanau

I had my 24th birthday on the 4th of July. I had all these plans with my mom but I ended up staying in Palmyra when we came to New York for my cousin's graduation. So Finau and I spent my birthday with my favorite relatives. We went up to Lake Ontario and just cruised around having a little feed and watching people swimming. It was fun to just relax and spend time with family and not have a big thing this year. It was weird being away from my family but my dad was at scout camp and Filipo had to work so I guess it was all good in the end that we were here. We didn't go to watch fireworks that night but stayed at home watching movies.


















Since the pageant is going on right now there's a lot of people coming out to Palmyra so EVERYONE is having garage sales. I haven't been out to garage sales in forever so it was fun to go with my aunt and cousin. We hit up a ton of them but I'm really tight with my money so I just spent $11 the two days we went. I did get some good stuff though. Finau got a brand new London Fog coat for the winter, a remote controlled race track thing with two cars (which all the older kids have been fighting for since we brought it home), an awesome book called "My little red toolbox" by Stephen T. Johnson (seriously the BEST book EVER), a little house trinket thing for my grandma, some baseball stuff that I'm giving Finau for his birthday, and an iPOD for Filipo.

Finau Lahi

[[sad that the only image I have here in New York is one that has Paula & Mote in it...hahahha]]

Filipo's parents have been sick on and off for about a year now. Sometimes it would be his dad and sometimes it was his mom. Last June 2010 we went to Tonga for a month. We spent most of the time in Vava'u with Filipo's parents and older sisters. It was the first time anyone had seen Finau and they absolutely loved him to death. Finau Leka had so much fun over there with all the kids.

It was so cute when we'd come outside and see Finau Lahi & Finau Leka sitting together trying to squeeze into the door frame eating watermelons and watching the cows in the backyard. They were too cute but everybody that knows Finau knows that last year he was such a little bugger and he wouldn't go to anybody when he was in one of his moods so moments like that only happened once in a while.

We left Tonga and both of my in-laws were doing okay. Then in November they came to Hawaii for two months with my sister-in-law Kalo and spent some time with Finau Leka & Filipo. I haven't seen Filipo at home so much in ages but he loved spending time with his family and talking story for hours. While Finau Lahi was in Hawaii near the end of his trip he wasn't eating very much at all. He'd have a little bit of cocoa rice and bread but not really anything else.

We've been calling back and forth with the family in Vava'u for the last few months and found out a few things. Finau had this thing growing on his neck and everyone thought it was some little thing that a lot of older people get and it wouldn't be a problem. It turned out once they went to the doctor on the main island that Finau had cancer in his throat. It was hard because nobody knew how long he would live not even the doctors so in April we flew Filipo's parents back to Vava'u just in case. His older sister called a few weeks ago and told him if he could make it he needed to come out.

His brothers had finished digging the grave and the doctor took him off life support so he had a short time to get home. Filipo flew out in the middle of June for two weeks. He spent every day in the house with his dad. Some days were better than others but when his two weeks were up and he needed to get home his dad was still alive. My sister-in-law Kalina called last Wednesday night and said Finau finally passed away. It's been weird because Filipo's at home by himself in Virginia while Finau and I are in New York. I'm glad Filipo got to see his father before he passed away and that Finau Leka had the chance to know his namesake and spend time together. I know it's hard for everybody to be so far apart especially since Filipo's the baby of the family and it's hard since they're not members of the LDS church. Hopefully things will work out but for now we're just taking one day at a time and trying to get back home.

Love you long time Finau Lahi...

Easter

Mum & Dad put together a little Easter egg hunt for Finau. They actually put on a little party for his nursery class a few weeks ago but we didn't take any pictures so I only have this one photo from somebody that came.


The older kids "hid" the eggs for the little kids which basically means they ate them all until an adult came down to supervise them. When the little kids started to look for eggs everyone else went to one side and Finau went by himself to the other side. He didn't get what was happening and he's not big on candy so he didn't care that he only got a few eggs.

The other photos are from Finau's egg hunt on Easter morning. Mom & Dad put one together for him and got Filipo & I baskets too. It was really nice. He was super funny because he spotted a bunny on the floor and then started screaming when he kept finding them.









My dad teaches the 12/13 year old boys at church and they were at our house to get some plants for a service project. My dad took this photo when they were swinging so it's kind of blurry but the kid on the right sitting next to Finau is one of his best friends at church. He's the bishops son and he loves Finau to death. They're all really good to Finau and take care of him and Finau loves having them over to the house.

new.new.new

These past few weeks we've spent every spare minute with mum & dad working on our new house. The missionaries have been living there for the last three years. It's been good but we finally decided we wanted our own space so they found a new home and now we're fixing it up, painting, and getting ready to move in. It's a 2 bed, 2 bath place with a super nice kitchen and we also have an extra huge playroom for Finau which he loves.

My mum gets all these different southern living & martha stewart living magazines with heaps of design ideas so I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in Finau's room and around the house. I guess we'll just have to wait until we move into a real house to do all the things I wanna do cos right now I just wanna do it simple and not spend heaps of money.

I love hgtv and they did a room in one of their dream houses with striped walls. I love blue and so I decided to go in that direction with Finau's room. I meant to take pictures before, during and after but forgot so these are only from after. It took literally minimum six hours to tape all the walls and I made my poor mum help me when she was sick as one day but it turned out okay. I just have to do some touch ups when I find some time. I just repainted some old army bunk beds we had and that's about it for now.

I couldn't decide between doing a cars/trucks theme or a spiderman theme in his room so he has cars/trucks sheets and a spiderman comforter. My dad was super good to us and he went and bought a new mattress for finau after the other one was giving me allergy problems so once I have that on the bed he'll have two beds made up. I also have these awesome photos from new york city taken by one of my favorite photographers so as soon as I print those off I'm gonna hang them on his wall.

I always laugh when dad says Finau has too many toys and clothes but then I went to hang all his clothes and could only fit the shirts....yea he's spoiled for sure.



Not much going on anywhere else cos I'm still cleaning and deciding what I'm gonna do but at least we finally have our own space since it looks like our plans have changed and we'll be here for a while. There's some other random pictures on here of the kitchen and the living room just so my famz can see. The playroom is so messy right now cos we had some kids over and our room is still getting put together so no pics of that right now.

shoots

I am so bad about blogging for so many reasons but lately it's because our internet here in VA stinks big time and I never get on the computer any more. We've been here almost one month. I guess I should give a run down of everything that happened since we were super busy.

- Mum & Dad came from VA to Hawaii for Filipo's grad
-Filipo graduated finally
-We moved out of TVA & into Turtle Bay [[thanks heaps to mum & dad for helping with all the cleaning!!]]
-We went swimming constantly
-Spent basically a whole week all day, every day packing our shipping crate for Tonga....irrits...but another story for another time
-Spent heaps of time with Filipo's famz before they went back to Tonga
-Packed our stuff & left Hawaii
-Settled into our new home & Finau getting so spoiled by Mum & Dad
-Had a little family reunion with my favorite Aunt & Uncle and Cuzzie from Palmyra, NY / Aunt & Cuzzies from F'burg
-Celebrated the OLD, OLD, OLD Man's (FILIPO) Birthday
-Spent the last three weeks looking for jobs and not finding anything so spending heaps of time at the movies, library, mall, and every other place in Stafford.....man i hate the boonies.....
-Oh yeah Filipo spent last weekend camping in -15 degree weather with my dad and all his scouts from the ward hahahahaha.....

Heaps of changes and I just can't wait to get our stuff over with in Tonga so we can come back already. Love being with family and friends and even the stinky missionaries in the basement but let's hope we get jobs soon so we can start saving the money and move on to bigger and better things.

Our internet is taking ages so no photos but I'll get on that later in the week...fa laiaaa

big changes

Well the surprise we got on Thanksgiving was my dad giving us an early Christmas present by telling us he was going to pay for our tickets to fly to Virginia. That was so much stress for us because we wanted to move to F'burg to save money on rent but we didn't have a way to get there so we were just going to stay in Hawaii for six months until Filipo works out his green card stuff. Now we're heading to the cold and snow and I'm super happy about it because Finau gets to spend time with his grandparents and we get to save some more money before we move over to Tonga.

An old picture of home but still miss it....

I think it will be good but at the same time I know Filipo's going to miss Hawaii and all of the Poly's around here. He's gonna be one of the only ones but oh well....So big changes ahead but looking forward to whatever comes our way.

thanksgiving & black friday

We were supposed to get a pig for Thanksgiving but they went up $100 from when the boys went and first asked about it so the night before Filipo decided we were gonna go get all this food to cook. We woke up on Thanksgiving and I attempted to cook the food. Even though Filipo never likes to admit it I'm a pretty good cook but I've never cooked Thanksgiving food before so it was very interesting. About 1/2 hour before the food was finished my next door neighbor brought over 5 pans of food. I think she knew I didn't know how to cook all that food and felt sorry for us. She's a bomb cook though. We sat down to eat and even I ended up just eating her food. It was so good. She always makes the best food. Anyway we had a nice feed and then spent the afternoon sleeping and playing card games. We also got a nice surprise when we were talking to my parents but that's another post altogether....






On Black Friday we were going to wake up early to go to the store but I never set the alarm so we didn't even leave until 7:00 a.m. which for most people is too late to get anything. The only reason we went is because this summer Filipo's laptop he got last Christmas broke and so Best Buy gave him a gift card refund with $750 on it. We went to Best Buy looking for a new video camera and nothing else really but we ended up spending forever there trying to decide which one to buy. We ended up getting a few things but we still didn't spend all the money. Anyway it was a good day but poor Finau was so tired so as soon as we got to the car he knocked out all the way home.

finau [lahi's] birthday

Finau Leka waiting to blow out the candles

All that hard work and nobody even realised this said "Finau"

Since we have Filipo's parents here with us we were able to celebrate Finau's 77th Birthday with him. We made him a chocolate cake and that was about it. Birthday's aren't a big deal in Tonga like they are in the U.S. and so Finau was kind of weirded out about it. Later Filipo told me he acted so weird because he's never had a cake or had anyone sing Happy Birthday to him his ENTIRE LIFE, EVER. Wow....It was all good though and I'm glad he finally got one cake. I felt kinda weird singing and being the only one so that's why you pretty much only hear Filipo in the video.

lately

A few weeks ago our friends invited us over for dinner. They are seriously one of the nicest family I've met ever here at BYU-Hawaii and they are so humble. They're both from Fiji and they just had a little boy that's almost five months old. Finau was really sick but he loved playing with the baby.



The following week we had to go to town to get Finau's teeth checked out so the picture was of him playing at the Dentist office. The building where the dentist office is located was so shady looking and I was really scared to go in but inside it's super nice and the dentist is really friendly and helpful. They even have all these play stations for the kids and a movie playing all the time. He finally went back this week to get his teeth fixed so he has his caps on. He was such a trooper while they put them on and he's finally getting over being sick from the operation and all the medicines he had to take.

A couple weeks back when he was originially suppose to get the operation he hadn't eaten anything for a while since he was sick and we didn't have any food so we ran to macca's and got some burgers and Finau was just finishing them all off even though we bought him the chicken nuggets. He still ate his nuggets and 1 1/2 burgers. He cracks me up sometimes.




On Sunday we finally put Finau in his taovala from Aunty Pina. I was surprised he kept it on so long. The only reason it finally came off was because he was so active in nursery that I went to tighten it and just decided to take it off him.



This picture was taken a couple nights ago. I was trying to get one of his teeth but he didn't want to open his mouth because he was exhausted and still in pain. He still has a little bit of his chubby cheeks but he is loosing all his baby fat. When he was nine months he wore 2+ age clothing. Now he's back into wearing all those 2 year old clothes. He's getting skinnier by the second. The plus side is at least we won't have to buy him clothes for the next 4 or 5 years since we usually buy everything larger for him so now he can use it for a while.


None of the pictures are the best but that's as good as it gets with a cell phone camera and an active little man. I'll try and put up more pics this week because tomorrow is the Laie Hawaii Temple Re-dedication and I am so looking forward to it and going inside for the first time since it re-opens! I watched some of the "cultural celebration" on t.v. and I hate to say it but I thought it was so very, very boring. For the hour and a half I watched they only did Hawaiian/Asian dances and so I didn't really enjoy it. I thought the Tongan Temple celebration a couple years back was much better. Anyway I'm still excited and can't wait to go to the dedication tomorrow!

famili

Well no pictures but some exciting news for Filipo. His parents and oldest sister arrived in Hawaii last Saturday and he is loving it. A little too much if you ask me because he's been trying to entertain them like crazy and got really sick and missed two of his classes. The little man was also sick with a bronchitis infection for two weeks but now he's better. Since he's better he goes in for his operation this week. He's getting four caps on his teeth....poor kid...that's what he gets for having a mum and dad that would rather give him a bottle of juice than spend 30 minutes rocking him back to sleep. Thankfully he has the best grandparents and they have so graciously offered to pay for his white caps so he doesn't have to go with the silver ones for the next 7 years!

Finally we've got Finau back to sleeping in his own bed every night and since he's been doing that he's been sleeping through the night. He's back to drinking only water but we're still working on getting him out of diapers. Lets hope that comes soon because I am not paying for the super expensive ones in Tonga. He can run around naked when we get there for all I care.

On a side note my baby nephew Manukia is in the hospital in Tonga. You know it's serious when the family calls you from Tonga. My sister-in-law said he's fatter than Finau was at six months and he has severe asthma. The doctor's say they don't think he's gonna live much longer so we've spent the past few days thinking a lot about him and praying that everything works out. It made me so grateful to be living in the U.S. where Finau's insurance covers all of his medical expenses and many, many, many hospital visits and his medicine and for his own machine that he can use at home. That's definitely something I'm going to miss when we go to Tonga. Since my visiting teachers came over and encouraged me to express all my thanks I think that's what I'm most grateful for right now especially with everything happening with baby Manukia. I'm grateful that Finau's taken care of and we don't have to worry like Paita does. I can't even imagine going through what they are especially since they already lost one son. Just remember to take some time out to give thanks for what you have cos you never know when it's gonna get taken away.

countdown: HALLELUJAH finally leaving TVA on December 20!!
December 17 - Filipo's graduation [after being on the 10 year plan]
December 24 - Flying with Nau to New Zealand....woohooo vacay!!

birthday boy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FINAU JR!!

This is the most ridiculous dinosaur I've ever seen but everybody loved the cake...it was chocolate and vanilla cheesecake something....

This photo was actually taken in Pangaimotu when we visited Tonga and totally has nothing to do with this post but I forgot to include it with the last one. If you're tongan than you know that's Tinitini and that would be enough but since most of my family reading this isn't tongan....let's just say he's the funniest guy in all of Tonga and every single Tongan in the whole world knows him.....so naturally we had to get a picture with his brand new bus and plus Finau is wearing his Liahona shirt that the Tonga kids gave him...

Man our little man is not so little anymore. Every day I look at him and I realize how big he's getting and how sooner than we think he's gonna be off on his mission, getting married, and having his own kids. It really makes you treasure every moment you have with them and according to the doctor at Finau's current growth rate he's gonna be 6'8 by the time he's 18....must be from his real dad's side hahaha....kidding!! Everyone else wants him to be a rugby star or a football player for byu (seriously when we were at our family beach house one of our family friends every five seconds kept telling everyone they had to protect the future all star since he's gonna be the money maker in the future...it was funny at first but they said it ALL THE TIME) but my dad and I decided we're training him to be a future YANKEE! He loves baseball and plays every day so we're off to a good start.

This picture is of Lina and Finau. She's the daughter of Filipo's bishop from his home ward in Tonga and now they're going to school here at BYU-H....and Filipo loves it.

Onto the whole point of this post....Finau turned 2 on October 2nd! I told Lipo we weren't gonna do a big feed just a small cake and ice cream with us and one of our cousins but of course they had other plans. Filipo's cousins spent the afternoon cooking all of these different foods and I kept thinking it was too much but within three hours all 10 foil pans of food were gone. Never underestimate the tongan boys when they eat. Good thing they came over or else I probably would've thrown the leftovers out. We just had a cake from costco and since I don't have a camera these are the pictures that our friend took of Finau and his cake.

Manuia lou aso fanau to the main man in our life....love you long time finau leka

major slacking

Finau watching the butterflies in my parent's front yard

I have been sooooo bad about blogging for the last year. Actually I've been really good I just haven't been publishing my posts because what's the point without pictures??? Nobody wants to read through a novel.....anyway long story short most of our photos were on the laptop which just stopped working for no reason one day so I've been blogging but not publishing just so I'd have something to remember what we've been doing because keeping a journal has been so not happening this year. Anyway my family really wants updates on our life and have been bugging me about blogging so I guess old photos or cell phone photos are just gonna have to do for now. We haven't been up to much this year except beach, being so lazy and watching movies with friends all day for the first five months of 2010. In June we went to Tonga for a month and loved every minute of it! So good to see family again and give them a chance to meet Finau Leka(the most favorite and most handsome grandson in the entire family)
Here's a couple photos of Finau at school. He went the entire time we were in Vava'u and loved it. I can't wait to get back to the island cos he is going back to school pronto so I can get back to cleaning my house and not being lazy all day watching movies. It was sad coming back to hawaii because the lifestyle over there is so different but it's so easy to live the right way....I can't really explain it....I just love living in a place that's not so caught up in having material things and actually has a law that all the stores have to be closed on Sundays and everybody actually uses the day to go to church and spend time with family. Anyway it was a nice break and then it was back to reality, back to late nights with our sick little man, long days at the hospital getting asthma/pneumonia/flu treatments, just quality time with me and nau and filipo gone all day working hard to earn our rent money.

Filipo started school and then Nau and I got the best surprise of the entire year. We got to have a little vacay back to F'burg/Washington, D.C./New York City/Outer Banks/Palmyra, NY! It was so much fun and we loved every minute. It was hard not having Filipo there when Finau got sick but we had a blast just spending time with Mum & Dad, visiting all the tourist places back home, and living in a house WITH AIR CON and WITHOUT UKU's[the best part by far!!], cockroaches, geckos, biting ants, rats, wasps, bees, and every other thing we have hiding in our little tva apartment back home. My family is DIE HARD YANKEE'S FANS FOR LIFE so here's some pictures of our trip to the new stadium in the Bronx....loved it!! Thanks mom and dad for taking us and buying tickets!!!

After the game...Finau loved it

With our favorite pitcher, Mariano Rivera #42!

Even if you're not a Yankee fan you have to admit that's the best shirt....so cute

We spent most of the time at the house playing outside and going for walks or swinging on the front porch swing but here's a few pics of that:

At the National Zoo...which would have been better if they actually had some interesting animals but anyway....
Checking out his future house lol
Chasing the birds and trying to play baseball

After a month and a half of that Filipo said we had to get back to tva so back we went in time for Nau's 2nd birthday. Had probably the second most horrible day of my life due to Finau's illness and difficulties with flying [ask me about the rude swedish people on my flight...so irrits] and spent some time on Maui in the hospital and then got stranded there and had to call a cab and then when we finally got to oahu they lost our bags so we had to wait around for that too....it was a long journey back and sorta good/sorta bittersweet....
so now we're spending our days soaking up the hawaii sun during our beach sessions for the most part and for the other 75% we're at home watching movies...haha...just kidding....

Oh, Filipo will be graduating in December 2010 with a degree in Mathematics and Education from BYU-Hawaii. So we're spending most of our days lately filling out visa apps and hoping to have some of our tongan family over for a couple months...we'll see how that goes. So we'll be getting kicked out of tva December 20 and either moving to Tonga via New Zealand or heading to mainland for six months and then onto New Zealand/Tonga. Either way I'm going with Finau to New Zealand to get some kiwi chocolates....delishhhh well the licorice not so much the peanut slabs.....but i actually kinda like the meat pies now but still not a fan of meat.....anyway off topic but hopefully this suffices for my aiga and i'll try and keep all of my famz updated from now on.