End of November, December, and into January

We had a really great Christmas and actually all of December this year. For the first time ever we had Christmas at our house. Paul had a week and a half off work and it was so nice to just hang out and be together. I got really lazy having a husband home all the time to help with laundry, dishes, and parenting so it took me a while to get back into my regular routine after he went back to work. And let's be honest, my regular routine isn't even that impressive, so the first part of January was a little rough at our house. But I finally felt the pull of the new year and all those resolutions that had been bouncing around in my head. So, I finally jumped back on the treadmill yesterday and I'm on my second week of a push up/sit up regimen. The kitchen is actually clean at this moment and the majority of the laundry is washed and dried (even if it is sitting in baskets waiting to be folded). And here I am finally blogging about what has been going on for the last two months!

Thanksgiving at Jenni and Rob's house

Gingerbread house

Christmas card pictures, both unsuccessful

and slightly more successful
Christmas Eve:
new jammies

letter for Santa
Christmas day:
Stockings

the only present she actually asked for, Yoshi
as Grandma says, every boy needs hotwheels.
New Years Eve

Keleni at 2 months

We are so blessed to have Keleni in our home. He is seriously just a little, chubby ball of sweetness. A few weeks ago he started smiling and now he won't stop. Every so often I'll be holding him and I'll look down to see him just sitting there, smiling back up at me. On his 2 month birthday, we had his blessing. When babies are born, in our church the father is able to give them a blessing. It was a very special day for our family. Paul's mom came out for a week and was able to be here for it. We LOVE having Grandma here and we really miss her when she's gone. My mom also made the long drive to be here for the blessing, even though she was just here a few weeks ago after he was born. We also had some of our brothers and my sister here. We love our family!! I did a horrible job of remembering to take pictures, I swear I get worse at that with every child. But here are a few that I did manage to take.

Halloween happenings

These pictures are in reverse order, but I didn't feel like changing them, so just imagine you are going back in time.


Annie decided he needed an oversized Hello Kitty watch on, but really, who doesn't need that?

Lauryn's #5

Lauryn turned five this past week. I can hardly believe I have a five year old. I think it will really hit me hard once she goes to kindergarten. We decided to do her birthday party last Saturday. This is the first real friend party she's had and she was SO excited. So I stayed up late Friday night trying to get a bunch of things ready. Then about 1.5 hours after I finally got to sleep, Kelen woke up with a fever. Long story short, we ended up in the ER in the middle of the night and then he got admitted to the hospital from there. After some painful tests, they determined he had meningitis. Since they couldn't yet determine if it was bacterial or viral they started pumping antibiotics into his system to be safe. We decided to go forward with Lauryn's birthday party since we had everything pretty much ready and I just didn't want to put it off. So Paul traded off with me at the hospital and I ran home to do the party. Thankfully, my good friend Lynleah (whose daughter happens to be one of Lauryn's best friends) stepped in to help me. She and her husband even decorated the cake AND watched Lauryn and Annie while Paul came to the hospital. Even with all the odds against us, Lauryn had a wonderful party.

Kelen had to stay in the hospital until Monday morning when the tests confirmed that he had viral meningitis, which is much less serious than bacterial and doesn't need to be treated. My brother, Tyler came down from Idaho on Sunday to help us and stay with the girls (he even did all the dishes and laundry). So on Monday, Lauryn's actual birthday, he was here with my niece Brynlee (who is Lauryn's age). Just after we got home from the hospital he took Lauryn, Brynlee, and Annie to Chuck E. Cheese so I could get her presents together. That night we opened presents and had cupcakes. I don't think Lauryn ever realized how much of a challenge it was to give her a good birthday this year. But, thanks to the help of friends and family, we were able to pull it off.
And just so you know he's okay, here's a picture of our little survivor.

Keleni Golden Pahulu

Our little guy is officially two weeks old so I thought it was about time I blogged about him! His was definitely the easiest and least eventful birth I've had so far! After a lot of consideration, I decided to get induced on Sept. 6. Mostly I was just ready for him to come, but I also justified it because Annie's birth was so crazy and I did not want to do it like that again.

So we went in at 6:30 am, filled out some paperwork, got admitted, got my IV, got my epidural and had our baby boy by 10:45 am. After the pitocin started and they broke my water the contractions started going really fast. The epidural had a hard time keeping up and they ended up giving me the most powerful stuff they have. I really really loved my nurse and the anesthesiologist, they took such good care of me. They really tried to make sure I wasn't feeling any pain. At about 9:45 the nurse checked me and I was at 7 cm, then she checked me 30 min. later and I was at a 10. Thankfully she had already called my doctor to come. When he got there, the baby was crowning, so I pushed a total of three times and out he came. The doctor said it was possibly the easiest delivery he had ever had. So then I asked if that qualified me for a discount. Just kidding, I wasn't even thinking of money, I was totally consumed with this squirmy little black haired boy they had just given me. He weighed 8 lbs 8 oz and was measured at 19 inches, but I'm pretty sure that was wrong. At the doctors office 2 days later he was 20.5 inches. As you can tell from the title, we named him Keleni Golden Pahulu. Keleni is a Tongan family name from Paul's side. His brother is named Keleni and an uncle who passed away is also Keleni. Golden was my Grandpa Farnsworth's name.

A little about his personality, he is pretty much an angel. He sleeps a ton and eats like a champ. He didn't lose any weight in the hospital and at 10 days he was already 9 lbs 4 oz. He never had any trouble nursing from day 1. I don't know if this excellent behavior will last, but we'll take it while we have it! We all just adore him, especially his big sisters. Here are some pictures of our little guy from the last two weeks.

Paul's Aunt Kalo came to visit us after Kelen was born and brought him this tapa. It is a cloth made out of bark that is dyed.Keleni with Keleni