We’ve spent the last month enjoying our new life here in Cleveland. Aaron has settled into his job, the girls and I have been making new friends, we’ve had time to see my family in NY, did a little camping, and we have come up with a lure of things to do throughout the week. Monday’s we alternate the zoo with play dates or story time at the Lee Library down the road, Tuesday’s we go to the Shaker Library (the suburb just south of us) which has numerous play stations for the kids- almost like a mini children museum- and then afterwards we head to the park next door for a picnic. On Wednesday we go to the most fun singing/dancing story time at the Coventry Library down the street and then play at that park with the GINORMOUS slide followed by a picnic as well. On Thursday’s we go swimming or to a splash park, and then Friday’s we head back to the Coventry Library for craft time. If the weather is super nice we will head over to the pool down the road anyone of those afternoons, and we also spend a lot of time with our good friends upstairs, our new friends the Henderson’s who will be watching our girls (yay) and this wonderful 1/2 Polynesian family just like us. We are pretty lucky to be adding such wonderful people to our little Cleveland Family; all of us are CWRU transplants, lol. I’ve also found that keeping the kids on a strict schedule of waking up, activities, rest-time, craft-time and learning time (where Malia just tells me something she wants to learn about for the day) seems to help the girls’ behavior because lately they have been acting out and being super emotional. Despite their bratty episodes, however, it is sad to know that in three days I will be saying goodbye to this last month of being a super, great, and wonderful mom to my girls... The best I have been ever! It’s been such an amazing experience to get to spend so much time with my two girls. It’s funny, sometimes I’d have to remind myself why we were even here in OH. All this play, no work and and no school… I was in heaven… when the girls were obedient and happy at least, lol. But, I am excited to get this show on the road. The girls keep asking me about when I am going to be a tooth doctor and I am so excited to be that example of all that they too can accomplish some day.
Alright, so here’s a little bit of what we’ve been up to this past month. It’s really a bunch of random pictures of our random outings, so be prepared for a lot of this ‘n that!
We went to Kirtland, OH, which contains a lot of our church’s history in it’s early years. The Newel K. Whitney store is a historic home that has been there since early members of our church settled here and a lot of neat things happened there as the church quickly grew.
Here is the Kirtland Temple, which is no longer operated by the church, but still an important part of our history.
Here’s a goofy picture from the zoo with our cute little friends upstairs, Alessandro and Viktoria.
Here’s a couple of the craft projects we worked on: masks and a rollie pollie house.
We went on a road trip to see my mom, brother Jared and Z.
Our biggest reason for attending was to watch Makenzie preform in the Twin Tier Idol competition. It’s basically a pre-American Idol competition. She did fabulous and I felt so underdressed next to her beauty, lol.
The girls had fun playing with the puppies… they treated them like toy dollies!
Uncle Jay chased them in the 4-wheeler.
We went to this cute little podunk place with Nana and Uncle Jared called Harris Hill where they had rides and putt-putt golf.
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True Happiness!
Nana loves her girl time.
Here’s a random picture from the park. Sometimes the kids enjoy looking for bugs rather than actually playing on the ‘park’.
On our way to the pool one day.
At a primary activity. Love me some girls in mustaches.
The girls got sick. I love how crazy Malia looks here. She was hot and thirsty… popcicles cure all ailments.
Aaron’s brother Mike came to visit with Ethan and Ashlynn. It was so much fun to see them! I forgot to take pictures their whole visit, but we did grab a couple when Mike was leaving. The girls loved playing with him when Daddy was at work.
These cousins are too cute.
While Mike was with us, the girls slept in our room on the floor, but we let them fall asleep on our bed. When we went to move them, we saw them actually cuddling! Imagine that, our girls actually getting along, lol.
We went camping with the Woody Family. Aaron loves knowing that he’s not the only white man married to a beautiful Polynesian, lol. They are a great family and a lot of fun! Our girls love spending time with their kids Kiana and Josiah. It’s fun to have older kids around to dote on the kids. It gives us a break!
We put them to work!
Playing Dominos.
Waiting out the rain.
This campsite was AMAZING! It had a rustic feel, but still had a wonderful pavillion complete with electricity, a toilet, and running warm water. We will definitely be coming here again.
The campsite was actually church owned and behind another piece of church property (the John Johnson Home) that we got to tour.
We celebrated Allie’s 3rd birthday! She is getting so big and growing so old so fast! She has her own little mind and strives for independence. She tries so hard to keep up with sister, sometimes beating her… literally, but amidst all her roughness, she is the sweetest most loving and cuddly baby girl. She doesn’t seem to be as far along as Malia was i.e. articulating her words, knowing her letters, numbers, etc. But at the same time, she seems so much further along in the way she talks back to me, her attitude, how she knows what she wants, how she obtains what she wants by her own devices… she is very world smart I guess is what I am trying to say. And the way she puts together puzzles meant for Malia and older is insane! We just love her so much. And my favorite new thing that she says when I ask her if her name is Allie is: “I’m my daddy’s Al Pal! Not yous Allie!”
Presents from Papa!
Presents from Grandpa and Grandma!
We took Allie shopping with her gift card and I actually just let her pick whatever she wanted. It was a nightmare… I threatened to take her stuff away multiple times, but in the end, look at this happy face!
We’ve had a terrible bout of fruit flies… dang humid weather. But look what my mom helped us build, and look at the success!
Kenzie has been spending the week with us and she has been an awesome and playful auntie.
Well there you go… looking back it has been a VERY busy month! Aaron has been sad to be stuck at work while we have been out enjoying ourselves, but soon, life will be over as we all know it! We will keep you updated soon!
