Just another day

Natalie is talking so much these days--over the weekend she passed Brian in the kitchen and said, "Mornin' Daddy" and kept on walking by. She makes us laugh all the time. And Blake has discovered that he can scream really loudly-can't wait for him to get over that one! We've been out a lot lately and we actually got to stay home all day yesterday. Here's some pictures of some of the things we did. We made cookie mixes (you mix up the dry ingredients and then give them the recipe for what they need to add to make cookies). They are for the ladies that watch the children during my Bible Study at church. We just have two more weeks and I have so appreciated being able to be with the other ladies without the kids. I look forward to Thursday mornings!

Making the tags to go on the cookie jars

Having some juice in her "boat"

Trying to get a picture of the two of them at our favorite beach playground. (She kept letting him go! Won't tell you how many tries it took to get this only half-decent shot! :)

I love the beach!

Can't wait til I can actually play over there too!
If you look real hard above her head, you can see Diamond Head mountain and some of the hotels from downtown Waikiki. Just watching the ships roll in...
It's been a long day... time to go back home.
I was in the mood for some Middle Eastern food so we made hummus, tabouli salad, falafel and cucumber yogurt dip for dinner. It was delicious. We surprised Daddy by setting the table on the floor and putting on some Turkish music. Fun evening. :)

Thanksgiving

(Grrr...I just got this all ready...posted it and then as I was editing it for a little mistake, I deleted all of it! Here we go again... :(

We had four single guys and a family over for Thanksgiving. It was our/my first time to host the meal with all the trimmings. We did a pretty good job, I must say... everything tasted great, there were no major catastrophes, and we didn't have many leftovers, even from our almost 20 lb turkey!! We had a wonderful day! :)

Forgot to take a picture of the turkey BEFORE it got carved up...

Piling up the plates

It was a delicous meal, complete with the Gration tradition of sparkling cranberry juice!

The guys had to go but we relaxed the rest of the afternoon with Paul and Anne and their boys.

Natalie enjoying the dip off the veggie tray

Pillow fight!

Or rather "Run into Brian and Paul and they will knock you down." Natalie loved it and kept trying to get in on the action.

Anne left us a few peices of pumpkin pie... guess who found it first?

We put Blake on this pillow while we were cleaning up... she went and got one and laid down next to him. So cute!

Nothing like a little piggy-back ride to top off the day!

We love you and are so thankful for each one of you!

Tickle Tickle Stah

This is Natalie and Blake after their bath. I put him in her bed while I got her dressed. She was sitting there singing to him and of course by the time I got back with the camera, she stopped singing. But it's still cute. She sings to him all the time, especially in the car. "Tickle Tickle Lil Stah How-why-ya...are" (that's the part she keeps repeating in the video). She also will hold her babies and rock them and say, "Jee-sus...Jee-sus..." (for Jesus loves me). She loves to sing Hallelujah: "Hah-yay-yoo, hay-yay-yoo, hay-yay-yoo-yas! Pays-e-da-lor!" (Praise ye the Lord). She definitely loves music and it's so fun to hear her singing around the house. :)

Busy Week

We've had a really busy week and it was even a busy weekend. Natalie decided on Sunday that she wants to try to be potty trained so that's added to the craziness. She just took off her diaper and sat down and went without us even saying anything and she's been going on it at least several times a day. I think her sticker chart and the skittles are motivating. Speaking of going potty, she just went right now! Okay, probably more than most of you wanted to know... On to the pictures! :)

On Monday, we went up the west side of the island along the Waianae coast. There are a lot of really poor areas with homeless people living on the beach in makeshift tents with all their belongings piled around them. Quite sad, not what you picture Hawaii being like. We went to a little Army beach for a few hours and had a picnic lunch. Lots of fun although it's weird to get sunburned in November! :)

Trying out our new beach shade/tent. We got it at the yard sales when my parents were here for just a couple bucks. We love it!
Swimming in the water (I realize that I need to get Brian to take more pictures of me with the kids--they're always of him!)
Playing with the tent stake... the funniest things entertain her.
Blake tried out the exersaucer for the first time this week. He loves it (in short amounts of time). Natalie thought it was awesome--not sure what she's doing in this picture though!

Blake rolled over twice!! He was laying on his tummy while we were making cookies and we looked down and he was on his back! Way to go buddy! :)
Making peanut butter cookies--yum yum!
Modeling her new hat from Bonnie and Aunt Ardeth. Thanks for the great package!

(And for those of you with little kids--we just discovered Lunchable Jrs. I'm usually not big on packaged food but these are great in a pinch. They have turkey and cheese or crackers and raisins and peanut butter in the perfect sizes and portions. Best of all, I saved the little container and refilled it with my own things and Natalie thought she was getting something special.)

Blake has the cutest smiles and giggles.


This is how Blake likes to play these days, always trying to roll over.

Hope you all had a great weekend. We love you and miss you and are thankful that our paths have crossed through the years. Thank you for blessing us with your friendship. Happy Thanksgiving!

Long Weekend!

We love it when Daddy's home for extra days. We've been to the mall (I'm finally getting contacts!), mowed the grass, had a party here, played with toys, eaten pizza, sat on the potty lots of times, been to church, watched football...and it's only Sunday! Hopefully, we're going to go do something "Hawaiian" tomorrow. Thanks for serving, those of you in the military!

Natalie put this blanket around her and said "byebye...beach" Guess she thought it looked like a towel or my wrap.
Her favorite pastime--she doesn't care if she bumps into things...just gets right back up!
Sleepy time
Isn't he getting so big? People ask me if he's 6 or 7 months all the time...nope, just three!
And I got told SHE was so pretty when he was wearing these overalls. Crazy.

Just chilling on the couch
"Hey, where's the remote?"
Natalie loves to stand in front of the AC and let it blow her hair. She puts her babies in front of it to let them fly (I think Mr. Jason taught her that when he put Carter in front of it on Halloween because he was Superman. Funny what they pick up on.)
They are taking pictures for the directory at church so we had someone else snap a picture of us since we don't have very many of the 4 of us yet.