RIP Feathered One

Do you hear that? No? Oh thats right, its quiet!!!!!

Rooster

August 2011-February 2012

Rooster, Im sorry you had to die, but I will not miss you.

Im kind of sad I won't have a chance to make the DIY net gun! That looked intense! My neighbor got to him first.

All Star

So proud of Avery!

Kindergarten good citizen of the month!

All the other good citizens

Baker presenting the lei

His favorite friend

Rockin the candy lei!

Baker is proud of his big brother too. Or he is just trying to butter him up since Avery has all the candy!

Last awards ceremony I didn't bring any lei or gifts or balloons. I didn't even think about it! Luckily a sweet mom brought an extra and hooked me up! I will never forget that!!

Its a big deal around these parts.

This time I brought an extra, and my friend needed it! I was so glad I could pay it forward :)

He was so excited for the Skittles!

We are so proud of this guy! He is so smart and thoughtful, and funny! He really is a sweet sweet child. And he really couldn't be any cuter.

Way to go Avery! You are a rock star!

Wooden People

Im loving today. Its a misty 66 degrees and my house is clean!

Im also loving little wooden people. I painted 5 little girls for my niece for Christmas. She calls them her angels.

It was so fun giving each a little personality. I especially love the sassy red head with a gold belt :)

I painted this cute little couple for my Sister-In-Law. Its her and my brother at their wedding.

Can you see a resemblance?

They had such a beautiful wedding! And seriously, are they a perfect couple or what?

I purchased the wooden people from etsy and I use regular artist acrylics.

I have more blank dolls, I think Baker would love some boys or I might make our family. Who would you paint?

Yes, I live in the country

You know whats NOT fun?

Having a rooster in a tree about 30 feet from your bedroom window crowing back and forth to his buddy for hours on end at 3:30 am.

Im not usually a violent person, but I have my limits!!!! These little guys had me looking up weapons on Amazon. Seriously.

Let me introduce you to the cast of characters:

First Mother Hen. Alone she is ok. Not too loud, sometimes poops on my driveway, kind of pretty.

Then she had 7 babies. They were also super cute! But they HAD TO GO! The last thing I need is 7 more chickens in my yard! We wrangled them up and shipped them out. Im my mind they are happily clucking around at the beach park :)

We also have Hen No.2. Much like Mother Hen above. Not too annoying, but no real redeeming qualities either. If she wants to stay thats cool, but she better not have any babies!

Then there are these two troublemakers:

The blonde one has been terrorizing the neighborhood for over 2 years! People have been shooting at it, throwing rocks, you name it. But it never dies!!! It makes messes and crows at all hours of the night for so dang long!!

The other guy moved into our plumeria tree about 6 months ago, he left there when all the leaves fell off, and relocated to a tree just outside our bedroom window. Since its hot our windows are always open. On his own he is not too bad. He will give 5 or 6 cock-a-doodle-doos and then go back to sleep. But when the blonde one gets him going they go back and forth and never stop!

Seriously the biggest lie I was ever told was that roosters only crow at sun up. Its an all day/night thing around here.

Last week I invited a few teenage boys I know from church over to catch the roosters. It was an overall hilarious event. And at the last minute they caught the blonde rooster! The boys are the hero's of our street! All the neighbors were so stoked!

The boys were paid in creme puffs.

Seven chicks and one rooster down, one rooster and two hens to go.

Too Busy to Blog!

I have so much to blog about! But kids, the beach, Christmas, and vacation days were a priority! Duh!

I'll settle for a quick picture re-cap.

Christmas in Hawaii was really great.

We went to the beach on Christmas Eve even though it was a little chilly! We tried to spend as much time at the beach as we could over the break.

Puena Point

Beautiful sunset over Haleiwa

Brad and Avery paddle surfing at Puena Point

Christmas Eve at Daisy Beach (not sure what this place is really called, but we call it Daisy Beach)

"Ha Breath of Life" night show at the PCC

My new baby! Thanks bradley

Cutest cowboy in these parts

Other randoms from our Christmas break:

True Grit was surprisingly a great movie!

"My Fitness Pal" is my new BFF on my phone. Its going to help me drop those extra #'s

I signed up for the Great Aloha Run! Gotta get moving.

My favorite ABC Family/Lifetime Christmas movie this year: Borrowed Hearts. So wonderfully cheesy. Cracks me up that under genre its listed as "tearjerker". I didn't know that WAS a genre!

Made and ate so much food! More on that later...

Hope you had a Merry Christmas!!!

Hawaiian Style Christmas Tree!

We put up the tree! We found a cut your own tree farm here on Hawaii, actually only about 15 minutes from our house. We picked a very Hawaiian looking tree. Its a nordic pine. I spent a very long time and a whole box of paper clips getting lights on it. I was worried that it wouldnt feel christmasy enough, but I really do love how it turned out. It might be my favorite tree ever. It was fun walking down the rows of trees and selecting the one we wanted. When we found it the guy came and sawed it down, the trunk is only about 3 inches in diameter, and put it in the net and tied it to our car! The boys thought it was great. What I really love about this tree is you can really see every ornament.

Ive been happy that the weather has been feeling cooler for us. I know you would still think its really warm (we are still wearing shorts and sandals after all) but by Hawaii standards its been cool! Im loving it. I need some cooler weather!

In other news, our rooster has gone from adolescent to full on Rooster. And I think he hates us. It might have something to do with Brad and Jonathan trying to kill it with rocks. Rooster's favorite activity starts around 5am. He stands DIRECTLY under our bedroom window and cock-a-dood-les up at us. I saw him today, he doesnt just stand beneath our window, he actively stretches his neck up and points his beak at the window for maximum volume delivery. But Im not sure what to do about it!

Picking a tree in shorts and sandals

Nose scrunch!

Our fearless leader

Love it! Im surprisingly feeling very Christmasy in this tropical paradise!

Sun Dried Tomato Basil Hummus

Since I live in Hawaii, I can have fresh basil in my garden year round. (don't hate) Well, my basil is doing so good right now and I wanted to put it to use! This is one of our favorite snacks.

I basically just dump everything together, so the measurements are approximate. Just use what you feel like :)

Sun Dried Tomato Basil Hummus

2 cans chick peas, drained

4-6 sun dried tomatoes

3 cloves garlic

10 or so fresh basil leaves

1 t salt

ground pepper to taste

1/2 C olive oil

Add everything together in a food processor or blender. Blend until smooth. You may have to add additional olive oil if you aren't getting a smooth consistency. Super easy!!

Enjoy with pita chips or carrot sticks!

Store in fridge

YUM!

The Birthday Boy

Oh Avery, there are no words that can explain how much I love you!

It doesn't get much better than this!

Happy birthday to an amazing 5 year old!!

Is That for Here or To Go?

Its so fun having a kid in kindergarten. Bringing birthday treats to school was something Avery and I were both excited about.

Here on the North Shore things are pretty relaxed. Homemade treats are still allowed. They can be sugary too! So there really weren't any limits. Avery chose these awesome hamburger and french fry cupcakes.

I put them in little paper tray I found at Longs with a square of parchment paper.

The "bun" is a yellow cup cake cut in half with a few sesame seeds sprinkled on.

The "burger" is just a brownie cut with a 2 inch-ish cookie cutter. Its kind of gross because it really looks like beef! But the scraps were delish!!

The "condiments" are simply colored frosting I made myself. (Are you annoyed by my "" yet?)

The fries were cute and so tasty. I used a packaged sugar cookie mix. I followed instructions for cut out cookies and made one big flat cookie. After it cooked I sprinkled it with sugar and cut the fry shapes with a knife while the cookie was still hot. Then after it cooled I broke it up!

They took me ALL MORNING! I thought it would be a simple project. It was easy, but there are a million steps. And I used a million dishes.

But they were worth it. The kids freaked out!

I highly recommend burger and fries for your next birthday!

Happy Birthday to my big 5 year old!!

Getting Back Into Things

Before all the sickness got us down (and even before that I guess) I was doing the Pinterest projects. My plan was to choose a couple of projects or recipes a week from Pinterest and create them and blog my results. Well, Ive really slacked off. But we are back at it people!!

This week is Avery's fifth birthday and our first time ever getting to bring birthday treats to school! Since we aren't having a big party with friends he wanted to do something special for his school class. This is what he picked:

Hamburger Cupcakes!

Its just a yellow cupcake with a brownie patty and frosting condiments! Originally from Bakerella for Fathers day. They look so cute, maybe a little gross but cute. We are also doing cookie french fries. I got little trays to put the "meal" in! Other big birthday plans include a trip to McDonalds (totally his choice, I tried to talk him out of it. But oh well, easy for me!!) and more cake and presents. Things can be pretty mello when you are 5!

Stay tuned to see my version of these babies!

(Still confused about what the heck Pinterest is? Go here to see my boards and sign your self right up!)

UPDATE: Baker is doing great. He went to church and to a dinner party today. He is sleeping in his own bed (and not on the couch with me thank goodness!) and being his usual cute self! Yay!