apparently, Logan’s a flashy-shoe kind of boy
It’s no secret that I’m insanely jealous and bitter that girls have super cute baby/kid clothes and accessories, and boys have nothing. Sure, there are a few boys clothes that are cute enough, but nothing like those girl outfits which make you squeal “OMGthatistoocute!!” So ever since I learned I was having a boy, I took the bargain shopper approach and only purchased clothes that were on sale and pretty much avoided anything that cost over $15. Even then, it pained me that I was even spending money on meh clothes.
{I take that back, I think I once purchased a Ralph Lauren polo shirt for Logan which was $22, but that was because I purchased David a matching shirt and I about DIED when I saw them in their matching shirts. SO WORTH IT!}
Anyway, let’s just say it’s been pretty depressing whenever I shop for Logan and shopping should never be depressing (except swimsuit shopping..that’s a given). But the other month, as I was browsing for shoes for Logan, I came across these:
Here’s the thing, never in a million years would I ever buy these shoes for myself or David. I mean, c’mon, they have orange neon shoelaces! But for some reason, I shelved the boring shoes I was holding and I purchased the flashy shoes. I was a little nervous, but once I put them on Logan, I fell in LOVE! I realized that no matter how boring his outfit, these statement shoes made it a fun.
For instance, doesn’t this boring jeans/polo shirt outfit look so much cuter with the shoes?
And they just add a much-needed pop of color to this shorts/collar shirt outfit.
And as is tradition with every other gorgeous shoe on the planet, they gave Logan his first blister when I let him wear them without socks. Beauty = pain, son.
But every time I catch a glimpse of them, they make me smile.
I ♥ statement shoes.
it’s gettin hot in herrrr
We were supposed to go to Maui last week, but I cancelled it. We’re planning on going on a bigger trip later this year, so I thought I’d be fiscally responsible and cancel the Maui trip to save money. I was pretty proud of myself for making what I thought was an ‘adult’ decision.
But then I booked us a staycation.
I waited until the Wednesday before the Memorial Day weekend to start looking for hotels. I asked a friend in the hotel industry for a little help and all she said was: really? booking last minute on Memorial Day weekend? really? Frankly, I don’t understand what all the fuss was about. When you think about it, there’s no stress in deciding which hotel to go to when you book last minute.
Anyways, we ended up at Marriott Beach Club
And like most locals I know, we completely ignored the beach and spent every minute at the pools.
We lugged Logan’s life vest and turtle floaty to the hotel, but it was this cheapy inflatable ring that my brother-in-law purchased for Logan that he loved.
Logan went swimming four times during our 2-night stay. David and I held our breath to see when he would get sick because every time we’ve taken him swimming at a pool, he’s gotten sick. Every. Single. Time.
And this time…
was the exception! He had a little bit of a cough the day after we left, but nothing serious and certainly nothing which prevented us from shuffling him off to the sitter’s.
I’m sure it’s because he’s become so immune to germs at the sitter’s that now he’s the kid at the pool who’s infecting other kids. I couldn’t be prouder!
And last, but not least…my favorite parts of the staycation: smoothies by the pool, trying Wendy’s frosty waffle cone, and Waiola shave ice. I’m not gonna lie, a couple of these may have been on the same day 
Still, we’re getting better at this!
It’s almost May, so that means it’s time for my April post
Ever since we had the disastrous mid-March event, I feel like time has been on fast-forward. It’s almost May and I have no recollection of April. You know it’s bad when you have to scroll through your iphone pictures to remember what happened. So here are my highlights of the past month and a half:
Best Picture:
This is a classic. He refused to walk near the fenced-in area, so I was instructed to hold him facing outward and then walk backwards towards the Easter bunny to try to minimize his interaction with the Easter bunny. It didn’t help. So I handed him off to the Easter bunny and jumped out of the picture for 10 seconds.
My in-laws took him to the mall a few days later and the Easter decor was gone but the fence was still up. They said he warily eyed it and started to side-step past it, as if he were afraid to take his eyes off the area in case the Easter bunny returned.
Best Martha Steward Moment:
Yes, that is an inflatable pool in our living room. During the 1.5 weeks Logan stayed at home due to him being sick and then his sitter hurting her knee, he started to get restless and I could tell it was taking a toll on my parents and in-laws. I googled in-door activities and up popped this idea of an activity box made out of rice/beans. The idea was to let him play outside, but it was so humid, that I had to devise a way for him to play inside, so out came the inflatable pool. Ghetto-looking, but at least it made clean-up easy. I’d like to think Martha would be proud.
Worst Haircut:
Yet another David haircut. My poor son now has a mullet. It cannot grow out fast enough.
this sums up our March thus far
This is Logan’s new facial expression. I hate it, but David loves it. Then again, David almost bought a pair of pleated, cuffed slacks from Sam’s Club the other day that he liked. So there you go.
March has not been good to us so far. It started with an epic vomit event by Logan which turned into a never-ending diarrhea lifestyle that’s been going on 10 days now and there’s no end in sight. Logan has been asked not to return to the sitter’s until he has a normal poop, which means that we’ve been scrutinizing his poop like astrologers, looking for signs or indications that the end is near. Worse yet, David got sick and then I got sick and then my parents got sick. And worst of all, my restricted diet has not resulted in any weight loss. I mean, c’mon. Give a girl a break. When I mentioned this to David, he said, I’m sorry dear, what can I do to make you feel better? And when I mentioned it to my mom, she said, I know! Me either! Isn’t it sad?! Apparently, only women think about the weight loss advantage of having a stomach virus.
Ok, enough complaining. But I’m expecting more out of you, later-half of March.
I learned the hard way, but you don’t have to
The first time we took Logan to the beach, he was around 6 months old. Between the heavy tent I insisted we buy, the cooler, all of Logan’s stuff (i.e., diapers, swimming gear, change of clothes), and wrangling Dotchi, it took us 10 minutes to walk from our car 30 yards through the beach access. Once we exited onto the beach, we were met with hurricane-like winds which whipped sand into our faces and against our legs. Thirty seconds later, we were headed back to the car. Big fat failure.
Fast forward 1 year later and it’s our go-to activity.
Waikiki beach
Kaimana beach
So I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve learned about going to the beach with a toddler:
Lesson #1: If you try teaching your toddler to say ‘beach,’ it will come out sounding like ‘bitch.’ I know this can’t be from me because I use only four-letter words when I’m angry. This is simply how toddler accents work.
Lesson #2: Toddlers will try to wipe the sand off their hands by wiping them against the sand.
Lesson #3: If you forget either the beach toys or snacks, cancel your plans and go the zoo instead. You must have both beach toys AND snacks. This is not an “and/or” situation.
Lesson #4: If you buy a life vest for your toddler, only force him to wear it when he’s actually swimming. I know that sounds obvious, but I was having Logan wear it when he was playing in the sand near the shore break, out of fear that a rogue wave would wash in and sweep him out to sea (btw, this is not irrational paranoia – this seems to happen every day in Hawaii), but the life vest restricts their movements and when Logan would fall over on his back, he wouldn’t be able to get up. He looked like a turtle stuck on his back. The irony being that he was actually in more danger wearing the life vest on the beach than if he wasn’t.
Lesson #5: 1.5 hours at the beach = 3 hour nap. I believe this is what’s referred to in the business world as an AROI (Amazeballs Return On Investment).
We ♥ the beach.
Logan’s talking and I’ve come to realize that I swear too damn much
First post of the year! And once again I’m sneaking it in right before the month ends just so it looks like my archives have posts every single month. It’s the little things in life.
So before jumping in, let’s talk blog post titles. I’ve always wanted to be that person who has really witty/clever blog post titles, but that just ain’t me. I seriously read other people’s titles and I just sit there, stunned that they’re stream-of-consciousness talk is the perfect title. So I’m just going to try the stream-of-consciousness title approach for a while and see what happens. Wish me luck.
I’m not sure what it was about starting a new year, but Logan’s decided that now’s the time to talk. He started babbling months ago, but he’s for real trying to speak now. Let’s hope he has better grammar than I do. I love watching him trying to learn a new word. He’ll look intently at my mouth while I repeat the word over and over again, and he’ll purse his lips together and blurt out his attempt at saying the word. A lot of times it comes out sounding nothing like the word he’s trying to say, but the way he contorts his face and tries so hard is adorable. Kills me. Every.Single.Time.
Here he is practicing his vowels – “oooooooooohhh” and “eeeeeeee”
Right now, he can say: mama, dada, ball, up, please, no, mum-mum (which means food), wawa (which means water), mimi (which means milk), moon, duck, dog, frog, truck, shoes, apple, elmo, moo, bee, and hot dog.
Except when he says “truck,” he often replaces the “tr” with “faa” so it sounds like faa-uck. I’m sure good parents would be horrified, but David and I always end up cracking up because if we try to correct him, he’ll start repeating it really fast, saying faa-uck faa-uck faa-uck faa-uck. I know he doesn’t know what he’s saying, but the fact that he’s trying to mimic us made me realize that I really need to watch my swearing. I wouldn’t say I have a potty mouth, but I will swear without even realizing it and that needs to stop. It’s definitely not going to be easy – especially when I’m mad – but I can just see Logan saying it at his sitter’s, having it repeated by the other kids, and then the sitter having to explain that it was Logan who introduced that word to the group. And then David and I will be labeled as the parents to avoid and I’d really like make it to preschool before that happens.
So even though I’ve never, ever believed in making new year’s resolutions, I will be trying very hard to not swear at home. Work is a completely different deal.
my favorite christmas tradition
My favorite Christmas tradition is actually a post-Christmas tradition. Every year, I go to Neiman Marcus the day after Christmas and buy ornaments which are discounted 50% off. Although some ornaments are still pretty pricey even with the 50% discount, I love that each ornament has a little tag at the top which indicates the year of that ornament. I started in 2007 and I’ve gone every year since then. I only buy a few at a time, so I don’t have enough to decorate an entire tree, but I like knowing that over the years, I can slowly build an ornament collection.
This year, when I initially surveyed the ornaments, I was pretty disappointed with the selection. I saw a few that I thought were cute, but at $34-$42 per ornament, I knew I could only get a couple. But then I saw these:
I love the red & white color combination. And with the 50% discount, I only paid $6 per ornament!
Another part of the tradition is that I get 1 ‘splurge’ ornament, except this year my splurge was pretty affordable at $9:
I would have loved to buy more than 1, but that’s all I could find. Still, I’m pretty pleased with my haul this year – especially because it’s probably the least I’ve spent in the 5 years I’ve been doing this.
I can’t wait for Christmas next year so I can use the ornaments!
of course we took our baby to Vegas
Every time someone asked where we were going on our vacation, I would cringe and sheepishly answer, “Las Vegas.” I was worried that people were judging our choice of destination, but it was the most practical choice with its: cheap airfare, top quality hotel rooms for rock bottom prices, great food, round-the-clock activities, and (most importantly) appeal to Logan’s grandparents who jumped at the chance to accompany us to Vegas. And aside from the plane rides, it was probably one of my favorite vacations ever.
So let’s just deal with the ugly upfront: plane rides with a baby suck. We took the red eye to Vegas and it was brutal. We were those people. Logan slept maybe 1 hour total vs. the 11 hours of sleep he normally gets every night. We tried carrying him and walking him around the plane, but he wasn’t having it. I would have bought drinks for the people around us as an apology, but they were too busy trying to sleep or at least pretending to. The plane ride back home was much better, but that meant that Logan had to sleep lying down on our laps.
My legs and right arm fell asleep, but after the nightmare red eye flight, I just toughed it out.
But flying with a baby was all worth it when I look back on this trip. Babies love shiny, colorful objects and Vegas is all about shiny and colorful. Logan went berserk every time we walked under the shiny Christmas ornaments in Aria.
And every time we walked under the ceiling in the lobby of Bellagio.
And he couldn’t get enough of the aquarium in Mandalay.
Of course, David and I made sure to eat at all our favorite places…including Hot ‘N Juicy Crawfish:
I’m glad there’s no Hot ‘N Juicy in Hawaii because I would eat there every month if I could!
David’s co-worker, Ryan, and his wife, MaryAnn, were also in Vegas and they have a daughter, Elin, who’s a little older than Logan. While at Hot ‘N Juicy, Elin started eating goldfish crackers and after he watched Elin eat a few goldfish, Logan stuck his hand out to Elin to ask for goldfish. I have no idea where he learned to do that because that’s certainly something we’ve never taught him, but it was adorable to see Elin fish out a piece of goldfish and put it in Logan’s hand. Here’s the mooch in action:
We eventually had to drag Logan’s chair away from Elin so he wouldn’t eat all her goldfish.
Oh, and I can’t forget to mention my new favorite traveling item that my friend, Erica, recommended to me: a travel cube for clothes:
This one is from Eagle Creek and it was perfect for kids clothing because it kept all of Logan’s itty-bitty clothes neatly folded and in place. It was so easy to just zip it up and drop it in my suitcase. I was tempted to buy more travel cubes for my clothes, but we just don’t travel enough to justify it.
*sigh*…I’m already wanting to go back. Maybe next year 
don’t touch the pumpkin ‘tradition’
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
This year, Monkey’s an L.A. Laker
I desperately wanted to get one of those adorable animal costumes that have hoods which go around his face, but he won’t even wear a hat, so I knew I had to keep his costume simple. It cracks me up that his shorts almost touch the tops of his shoes:
What a difference a year makes. He was a tiny dinosaur last year:
We kept with last year’s tradition and had cousin Emma over for picture taking. Isn’t her Minnie Mouse outfit adorable?!
And speaking of keeping with tradition, I once again had to beg and plead David to carve a pumpkin for Monkey and Emma.
last year (see our nonexistent backyard)
And per tradition, that meant David picked out the pumpkin, created the design, carved the pumpkin, and hallowed out the pumpkin all by himself (despite my repeated attempts to help him). He says that it’s not that he doesn’t trust me (what else could it be??), but that he’s fine doing it by himself.
Can’t argue with that when he turns out pumpkins like this:
He was able to do each pumpkin in 1.5-2 hours, but it’s grueling work because he imprints the design on to the pumpkin by making perforated lines and then goes back over to connect the lines and pry the pumpkin skin off in itty-bitty little chunks. Even hallowing out the pumpkin is an art form because it affects how the light shines through.
And now that I’ve recapped how much work goes into pumpkin carving, I’m sitting here wondering why I tried so hard to convince David to let me help him. I should be grateful for the don’t-touch-the-pumpkin-tradition!
Here’s hoping that we can continue the don’t-touch-the-pumpkin-tradition next year!
you’re invited
to a sock monkey-themed birthday party we had for this little Monkey:
I love that there’s a first birthday party tradition in Hawaii. But what I don’t love is the pressure to have a huge, 200+ person event with multiple vendors (i.e., balloon artist, face painting, photo booth, games), and kids’ “favor bags” which are essentially personalized gifts for each child. Aside from not having the money to have that kind of extravaganza, David and I just wanted to have a simple lunch where we would sing happy birthday and eat cake. So we invited 64 of our closest family and friends to join us for lunch.
Of course, in planning our “intimate” lunch, things did snowball a bit and we ended up with a typical kid’s birthday…just on a smaller scale. I blame Etsy.
Logan’s been our little ‘monkey’ from day one, so I knew his first birthday would center around a monkey theme. I also knew that I wanted to avoid a generic jungle monkey theme, so my sister purchased a sock monkey for Logan, I knew it was the perfect theme.
On Etsy, I fell in love with a sock monkey invitation by Whimisical Printables.
Purchasing the invitation led to purchasing the printable package. And that’s where everything started to snowball. For instance, I decided that I had to print out and assemble the birthday banner to really get my money’s worth:
And since seating would be cramped, using the place cards was a must.
Aren’t the sock monkey cookies adorable?! My cousin’s friend, Summer, made them for my favors. She actually bakes cookie favors as a hobby…my hobby is watching the Real Housewives. Maybe one day I’ll bake as a hobby.
Here’s what the dining area looked like after my wonderful family helped decorate it:
Although I didn’t originally plan on having any centerpieces, I came across a picture of red gerbera daisies in a mason jar on the internet and fell in love with the simplicity of the arrangement, which my wonderful Aunty Donna put together.
While on Etsy, I also discovered red and white striped paper straws which I had to have.
Besides, beer apparently tastes better through a striped paper straw:
{although my cousin Kelly is smiling in this picture, she said that beer does not taste better through a striped paper straw}
I was initially planning on just using gift bags for the kids’ goody bags, but once I stumbled upon the muslin bags by Marina of Petite Cadeau on Etsy, I had to have them. Marina didn’t have a sock monkey design, but she graciously agreed to create one for me! Aren’t these adorable?! I didn’t take a picture, but on the back, she stamped a little picture that said the bags were specially made for Logan’s 1st Birthday…LOVE!
I ordered cupcakes and the birthday cake from Lily of Lilylicious, but of course I purchased red and white polka dot baking cups from CupcakeSocial on Etsy and asked that Lily of Lilylicious use them for the cupcakes and incorporate the polka dot look into the larger birthday cake.
Here’s the birthday boy with very red frosting all over his hands:
But the big hit of the party (for both the kids and adults) was our vendor, Candy Art Hawaii, who provided both a balloon artist and lollipop maker who would take hot sugar and shape it into edible animal lollipops. Here she is making a panda bear:
Here’s my friend, Erica, showing off the finished product:
lion, monkey, and bear lollipops
And the balloon artist was so sweet to try to make a sock monkey balloon for the birthday boy. I think it looked pretty amazing for a first attempt:
A sock monkey for Monkey!
But the absolute best part was being able to see all of our family and friends:
cousin Emma!
kacie (maybe logan’s future wife…fingers crossed) and her killer dimples!!
I’m so glad that we got his 1st birthday out of the way. It’s Chuck E. Cheese birthdays from now on!
