Halloween in Hawaii

It's been awhile since we've gone all out for Halloween. Two years ago, Dennis was away at school and last year he was fresh off of a deployment to Afghanistan and exhausted. We (Dennis) decided to make up for it this year. Dennis tranformed our garage into his lair, fully equipped with a strobe light, scary music and sound effects on surround sound. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time... watching him scare the trick-or-treaters was priceless.

Hawaii locals have got to be some of the greediest people I've ever come in contact with. One woman grabbed our candy bowl, and took ALL of our candy. Thankfully, we have AWESOME neighbors who gave us a few bags to keep the party going. You can bet someone was on candy patrol from that point on!

I will never understand why people thank it's ok to go trick-or-treating without a costume. It seems to be a common trend in this land of greediness. After multiple visitors without costumes (who were entirely too old to be trick-or-treating), we had to put up this sign:

We had a ton of fun but tonight solidified why our move off of this rock can't happen soon enough!

Our friends Gini and Mike brought a little skeleton friend for Charlie.

This is my absolute favorite picture of the night. Whenever we take a funny picture of Charlie, Dennis and I always joke that it's going in the slideshow that will be played at his graduation/wedding/etc. I hope Gini and Mike do the same thing to Jr. with this picture!

Three Months

Exactly one year ago, Dennis came home from Afghanistan and what a crazy, whirlwind of a year it's been ever since! It really seems like just yesterday that I picked him up from the base... which makes it even harder to believe that Charlie will be 3 months old on Sunday!

Charlie has got more personality than I ever could have imagined a three month old to have and always keeps us laughing. He is so vocal and loves talking to his daddy. It's almost as if he's got to tell Dennis all about his day when he gets home from work. He's such a happy baby (as long as he's getting exactly what he wants) and smiles at everything and everyone. Charlie loves laying upside down in my lap, sitting next to daddy and watching football, and rolling over... which he's gotten really good at this week!

Charlie likes to yell at Dennis:




and rolling over:

Here's Charlie's Halloween costume. We're still not sure if he'll wear it on Halloween unless I can figure out a way to keep feathers from getting in his mouth!

12 weeks

Four Years!

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person."

I can't believe it's already been FOUR years! Everyone who thought we were crazy for getting married less than 8 months after we met, look at us now!

Dennis surprised me today with a bouquet of beautiful red roses. He's given me flowers only one other time since we've been married and that was a couple years ago.... I guess it took birthing his child to finally change that! (Totally kidding!)

On a completely serious note, four years ago I married my best friend and soul mate and I absolutely could not be happier.
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In Charlie news:

Charlie smiles more than any other baby I've ever seen... and I may be a little biased but he's seriously got the best smile ever. Over the last couple of weeks he has transformed into such a happy baby....so completely different than the inconsolable baby I wrote about a few weeks ago. I'm so proud of every decision we've made so far... from our choice to have a non-medicated child birth to how we've chosen to parent our child. Not worrying about putting him on a 'schedule' or letting him 'cry it out' like so many have suggested is obviously working for us.

Our trip to the Botanical Garden

Today we went to Fosters Botanical Garden in downtown Honolulu. It had some of the most beautiful tropical flowers and plants I've ever seen. We had a great time just walking around and hanging out with Charlie. Here are some pictures from our day:

The Bird of Paradise was the first flower that Dennis sent me 3 days after we met in February 2006.... Who sends those flowers to someone he just met and how could he possibly have known that they were one of my favorites?! I like to think that it was a foreshadowing of our future.... I never would have guessed that 4.5 years later we'd be living in Hawaii with a beautiful baby boy, about to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary in 3 days.

We also got Charlie's bumbo seat in the mail today and he loves it!