Jaxon Lane

My baby brother is a dad! His son, Jaxon was born on May 19 and he and Mommy are doing great!  I may be a little biased, but Jaxon Lane is one cute boy...I can't wait to meet him this summer!! Welcome to this world and family Jaxon, Aunty Steph loves you XOXO....

North Shore Polo

Although I've never been to one anywhere else, I can't image a more beautiful place for Polo than the North Shore Polo field.  One one side you have the ocean and the other beautiful mountains.  Last Sunday, the whole gang met up to watch some Polo, let the kids play, and hang out.  With 8 little ones running/crawling around there wasn't much watching of the Polo match (to be honest, I don't know who won), but it was fun to see everyone and a nice change of scenery. 

Our "camp"...beach right behind us, Polo field in front.

Playing croquet before the match...actually using the croquet toys like a baseball and bat.

He is probably eating grass :)

Portuguese horseshoes are a part of every get-together...

Makaela brought a little pop-up tent for the kids to play in

Kids chasing Uncle Brian after the match

Makenzie, Zack, Mia, and Dylan

We tried to get a picture of all the kids..Brooke wasn't having it. I was able to snap this as she "escaped"

Oh yea...there were horses at the Polo match too :)

Playing and eating snacks in Uncle Brian's car

These boys LOVE wrestling around together....makes Daddy proud :)

I Love My Brother (IV)

Gavin found good use for his Spiderman stickers. At least it wasn't  a sticky note that says "Kick Me"

Mark took the kids over to the Martin's pool to swim yesterday.  He took this short video of the two of them playing together...

Kid Swap

Last weekend Jenn took Gavin and Makaela to go see a Sesame Street production put on by the military and I kept Mia and Dylan.  Gavin and Makaela were once obsessed with Elmo, so much that we (the Hoffmans and us) took them to see Sesame Street live a couple of summers ago.  I guess they aren't "too grown up" for Elmo, because Jenn said they had a blast watching the show and dancing.

Jenn got some great pictures of Gavin and Makaela "shaking their booty" as Gavin said in one of Jenn's videos. Click on the link below to see Jenn's blog post.

http://thehoffmansinhawaii.blogspot.com/2011/05/uso-sesame-street.html

Mia and Dylan hanging out

Notice Dylan is using Mia leg to help him climb onto the couch.  I didn't notice until after the picture was taken!

Here Comes Trouble

Aunty Sophia sends me a couple of pictures each week of Dylan so I can see how his days are going.  They are usually captioned with "Looking for trouble..." or "Up and ready to go..."  It really makes my day to get the texts of my little rascal.  All the other kids at her house are girls and Sophia joked with me that even being surrounded by all those girls can't calm Dylan down, "He is all boy."  His new tricks include waking up before the girls and crawling over to pull their hair as they sleep, and trying to crawl over the new baby.  The thing about Dylan is that even when he is doing something naughty, he will look at you and flash you the biggest smile...what a charmer :)

Eating Aunty Sophia's books.

Getting to know the new baby.

Every Friday she takes them to the park for a play date.  Here Dylan is on his first park field trip.

Her caption with this picture was "Looking for trouble"

I Love My Brother (Part III)

Gavin reading books to Dylan. 

This picture really captures the essence of these two boys: Gavin is serious and focused, while Dylan is all smiles - he can have a good time anywhere you put him.

8 Months of Dylan

Dylan turned 8 months old on May 10 and it is official - he is now a crawler.  Sometime shortly after he turned 7 months, he dropped the army crawl and learned to do the real thing.  He quickly started pulling up to standing and now even can hold on to things and take steps (I think it is called cruising).  The most common way people will describe Dylan right now is, "Wow, he's a mover" or "He's FAST."


 When Gavin started crawling, we child-proofed the house (gates at all the stairs and locks on the kitchen cabinets) - well, Dylan has taught us that we did not thoroughly child proof....or you could say we did not Dylan-Proof the house.  Anything we didn't lock down, he has found a way to open it...just this morning he pulled a glass vase out of a cabinet in the dining room and you guessed it - it broke.  Anything that is left in the floor he immediately crawls over at warp speed and begins to investigate...diaper bag, work bag, laundry- nothing gets by him!  The funny thing is that the big basket of toys will go untouched!  Go figure!

I hesitate to write this because if he catches wind of what I'm writing, he may try to prove me wrong, BUT Dylan began sleeping all night between 7 and 8 months.  Mark and I are both VERY happy to get a full night's sleep - 7.5 months of interrupted sleep can really wear on a person! 

Gavin and Dylan really interact a lot now.  They roll all over the floor together and Gavin's silliness is well received by his little brother.  One of my favorite sounds is hearing the two of them giggle and laugh as they play together - just melts my heart.

Dylan started eating more finger foods this past month - he tried cheerios, mac and cheese, mozzarella cheese, steamed and mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, and even had some pieces of soft mahi-mahi fish.

Working on some finger food

Dylan's three favorite times of the day: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.  Here he is having lunch at Aunty Sophia's house.

Standing up

Dinner Conversations (Part II)

One night last week at dinner, Gavin was sharing with us his weekly bible verse from school:

"The fruit of the spirit is love and joy and your mom can't put you in time out"

Amen!

I Love My Brother (Part II)

 

Gavin is a great big brother to Dylan!  I love watching them play and interact together.  Here is a short video clip of Gavin helping out by feeding Dylan his dinner.

Mother's Day Brunch

Although this is late, I wanted to make sure to thank all the wonderful mothers in my life - both family and friends - I am really blessed to have so many wonderful women in my life.

As if the luncheon with Gavin and getting the gift from Dylan wasn't enough, we celebrated Mother's Day again on the actual day :)  When Gavin woke up, Mark told him to tell me Happy Mother's Day and his response was, "Again? We already had Mother's Day!?" 

We started the day with a pancake breakfast (a Daddy-Special) and then headed to church.  

After church we went for brunch at the Martin's house.  Matt hosted a wonderful brunch for us, which included bribing the kids with the Lion King and lollipops so we could eat in peace.  Don't get me wrong, those little munchkins are the reason for the day, but it was nice to be able to have a conversation with friends without out the constant chatter of 2 and 3 year olds! 

Some of my favorite Mamas!

I just LOVE this picture.  I would have to say...I did good - these are some handsome boys ;)

Daddy day care gone wild!  In his defense, Mark was pretty sick :(

We stayed until dinner...so here the kids are eating their second meal of the day there!

Bath time after dinner

Hugs and Kisses Goodnight!