Say Cheese!

This pic is awesome because the kids are all looking at the camera and smiling. That doesn't happen very often.

Crayon Grabber

Crayons are something that Gavin LOVES. I have to watch him so closely though because he tries to eat them. When he does get them though he just grabs as many as he can at once. He throws them on the floor then fills his little fists again. The cycle continues until all the crayons are on the floor.

Stroller Cuties

Happy New Year

My sister and her husband started a tradition years ago and throw a New Year's Eve party at their house every year. It's always really fun.

Gavin was fabulous and went to bed at 7:30 and slept through all the noise of 30 plus people. Kylie stayed up until 1am and fell asleep in the car before we had even driven out of the culdesac. She was exhausted.

Kylie loves hanging out with her cousins and feels like such a big girl when her older girl cousins give her so much love and attention.

Christmas Festivities

The Kettley Family has a Christmas Eve tradition of decorating Gingerbread houses, eating dinner, having Santa visit, and re-enacting the nativity. Ty was sick that night so missed out, but here are some pics from the evening.

Gavin chillin'

Kylie and her Gingerbread house

Gavin loved watching all the kids with Santa, but when it was his turn he didn't like it a bit.

Kylie loved sitting on Santa's lap

Kylie was the Dove and loved her costume

Gavin was going to be the Baby Jesus, but I was ready to put him to bed so he didn't get to dress up this year.

Christmas Day was really nice. We had a really relaxing and easy morning. Kylie and Gavin both loved their Santa gifts and spent a lot of time playing with them. They didn't want to open any other presents for awhile because they were just enjoying playing. It was really fun to watch.

Here they are waiting to leave the kitchen and see what gifts are waiting for them in the other room.


Kylie loved her doll house.

Gavin's alphabet train set was a huge hit.

We headed over to my parent's in the afternoon and had a really nice afternoon and evening with the family. I really love living so close to my family.

Hawaii in December

We had a trip to Hawaii planned for June, however it was postponed until December and we just got home! We had a great time, however I recommend going to Hawaii in the summer. Out of 6 days, we had 4 sunny and 2 rainy. The ocean is really harsh in the winter too. The waves crashed on the shore and there was a strong current and undertow so all the signs said no swimming, snorkeling, etc.

We took about 400 pictures or so. Kind of ridiculous, but hey, that's what digital is for! Here are some of them.


The view from our hotel room the afternoon we arrived. Before






Here is the view from our room 6 days later when it was raining. The water was pretty brown from all the mud sliding into the ocean. After




We hiked the Waimea Canyon to the Kalalau lookout. The clouds were pretty crazy. One minute you had a beautiful view and the next it was covered by clouds.








At Shipwreck beach we saw a reef shark swimming really close to shore and catching some waves. Here is a pic of his front fin.




We drove to the end of the road at the north part of the island. We hiked 4 miles roundtrip to Hanakapi'ai Beach. After that we spent some time at Ke'e beach which is at the entrance to the hike. Here are some pics that show views from the hike, a rainbow on our drive out, and a really cool cave that had a great sandy floor and was incredibly huge.















Here are the Wailua Falls that were brown due to the heavy rain the night before.



These are the Opaeka'a Falls.


Kylie loves leaves so when we saw these gigantic ones, we had to take a pic.

We're Back to Blogging

I know it's been too long for me to not blog. For those of you who know my work schedule, 4th quarter is pretty killer. I work way too much and don't spend anytime on the computer for fun stuff like blogging. Even though it is still fourth quarter right now, the workload is not as crazy at the moment, like it was in October and the first part of November. I can finally take a breath and spend a few minutes blogging. Yeah for me!! My stress level has gone down and I'm much happier to have more "me" time.

Even though this post doesn't have any pictures, I plan to put some up soon.