A Cool Dude and a Good Cause

First, I couldn't wait to show you these adorable pics of Dean today. My Mom bought him some sunglasses and he LOVES them!!! Shocking since he HATES hats of any kind. But he literally wanted to wear these all day and all evening. I think he would have slept in them if we let him!!

Second, I wanted to remind you all about the Virtual Benefit I'm hosting for the Alzheimer's Association. According to the Alzheimer's Association, as many as 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer's destroys brain cells, causing problems with memory, thinking and behavior severe enough to affect work, lifelong hobbies or social life. Alzheimer’s gets worse over time, and can be fatal. Today it is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States. For more information, please visit the Alzheimer's Association website.

The benefit I'm hosting is going on NOW over on the Jen Tapler Designs blog. You can read the details of the event at the end of this post. Even if you're not a big paper crafter, but want to help out, you can still make a donation (the event will end at midnight Friday night). There is a "donate" link in the top right-hand column of the Jen Tapler Designs blog that will take you to paypal where you can make a donation. Thanks in advance for helping make this a success! I've worked VERY hard for several weeks organizing the event, coming up with challenges for my fellow blogging paper crafters, and spreading the word. Although I don't have quite the turnout I'd hoped for, the feedback so far from everyone participating has been very positive and I think everyone is having a really good time with it. If it's a success, I plan to make this an annual event (surprisingly, I haven't found anything like it out there in the blogosphere) complete with sponsors from big-name papercrafting companies (I already have 3 on board) and hope that it will grow each year. So far just about everyone who's participating has shared a story about SOMEONE in their family who has struggled with this sad disease...I'm sure most of you can say the same. Anyway, I'll step down from my soap box now. Thanks for humoring me!! The details for the event are below.

Event Basics:

What: Virtual Crop/Stamp-a-thon to benefit Alzheimer's Association

When: Week-long event begins Saturday, May 3, 2008 - National Scrapbook Day (a Day in honor of preserving memories)

Where: wherever you are -hosted through the Jen Tapler Designs Blog

How Much: Minimum $5 donation to the Alzheimer's Association allows you to participate all week with unlimited entries in the challenges and blog candy give-aways.

Sign up Now - click the "donate" link at the top of the right-hand column of the Jen Tapler Designs blog.

Contact: JenniferTapler@msn.com

You can start working on your submissions as soon as the first challenge is posted Friday night, May 2.
Registration is open until 8:00 am Saturday, May 10 - people can join us anytime until then.
Deadline for challenge submissions is also 8:00 am Saturday, May 10.
Blog Candy winners will be posted by 6:00 pm central time, Sunday, May 11.
There will be a total of 20 Challenges and 10 main blog candy drawings (plus 2 special drawings) with the possibility of a few bonus challenges thrown in throughout the week.
To enter your project for each challenge, leave a comment in that challenge's post. Include in your comment a link to your creation. If posting to SCS, each challenge will have it's own keyword (SOA* where * is the challenge number).
You can enter as many or as few challenges as you like. Your name will be entered into the blog candy drawing once for each challenge you complete. There is the potential for one participant to win multiple blog candies.
Be sure to look for the "Verve Special" Challenges!!
The rules are, there are no rules....BUT, some challenges will have specific guidelines that you must follow.
Wait, there's one rule after all!!! All of your creations for the challenges must be NEW - you can CASE someone (be sure to give proper credit if you do), but please don't use a card you've already done. New uploads only please!! :-)
E-mail me at JenniferTapler@msn.com if you have any questions.
Have fun!!!

Pickles & Tickles

Thought I'd share some cute pics of Dean from today. We've discovered that he LOVES pickles, even though he cringes with every bite.

Here's the face he makes after each bite...

Tickle Time with Dad:

Snuggle time with George:

Lego Time with Grandpa Eddie:

In case you didn't notice, I added a new list to the right-hand column of this page. It's an ongoing list of Dean's words. He TRIES to say a lot more than this, but these are the distinguishable words. He's also getting really good at pointing out his body parts. He knows nose, eyes, ears, mouth, tongue, and pico (that's Hawaiian for belly button). My Mom has been teaching him to point out his butt, but luckily he doesn't quite have that one down yet. He's also picking up new animal sounds every day. Of course, meow was his first word. Now he can also make the correct sound for Monkey (ooh ooh ooh), bug (bzzzzz), tiger and lion (these are usually a growl but sometimes we'll get a meow for them too. Technically I think that's right, especially because he never meows for the monkey sound!!). The other really cute thing he's started doing is fake laughing...whenever he hears other people laughing (even though he usually has no idea what they're laughing at), he'll let out this really big belly laugh that's so completely different from his spontaneous laugh. The last month has been HUGE in his development. He still loves music class and his latest favorite instrument is the harmonica (which he can actually play better than Joel). Well, I think that about sums up Dean's latest accomplishments!!!

All boy

Yep, he's ALL boy!! Right down to the constantly grubby hands. I thought these were really cute pics of him playing with his little bulldozer Balin gave him for his birthday and with his Mega Blocks dump truck in the yard. You'll notice his habit of sticking out his tongue almost constantly (reminds me of my Great Grandma Williams - most of my memories of her involve her sitting in her chair holding her dog with her tongue sticking out). I can tell Dean's really into something if his tongue is out!!

Those are some BIG shoes to fill!!! I came into the living room this afternoon and Dean was standing there watching TV with his feet in his Daddy's running shoes. It was so cute! Of course by the time I grabbed the camera, he had already run right out of them!! So we had to stage these pics a little, but they're almost as cute as his spontaneous shoe-wearing! Now if we could just get him to wear shoes that actually fit him....

ahhhh, do you hear that? That's the sweet sound of silence...

So Dean is having his first sleepover at Grandma Sue & Grandpa Eddie's tonight. She decided that since she keeps him Monday and Tuesday and with gas prices at around $4.25/gallon, it would save us each a trip from town to Kihei if he just spent the night. On one hand Joel and I are pretty excited to have our first totally kid-less evening in almost 17 months, but on the other hand I already miss him!!! (probably because I know I won't see him until tomorrow evening). We haven't decided if we want to take advantage and go out for a nice dinner and to see a movie (which is what we probably SHOULD do) or just sit at home and watch TV that doesn't include Elmo or Barney and doesn't involve prying the remote out of Dean's sticky hands every 5 minutes. Whatever we do, we should enjoy it, because I have a feeling that after once, Sleepovers at Grandma's won't happen again until Dean's about 5!!! I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

North Shore Morning

We had a nice morning over at Baldwin Beach in Paia today. We haven't had great weather what with all the VOG (that's like fog, but caused by volcanic gas in the air) from the Big Island blowing this way on the Kona winds. We're all anxiously waiting for the nice trade winds to come back, which we're told should happen in the next few days. But we still got out this morning and enjoyed a little beach time, even though it was a little hazy and the water was too rough for Dean to do much swimming. Hope you like the pics!!

An Evening in South Maui

My family's close friends (really they're like a second family to me...we go way back!), the Corwins are here visiting. Judi and their daughter Jayci arrived almost 2 weeks ago and Jim arrived Monday. It's been so much fun hanging out with them. So many of my favorite childhood memories include the Corwins (think LOTS of trips to the lake, summer road trips, snow-skiing...in fact their son Andy, who is my age, and I learned to snow ski together when we were about 4 years old). ANYWAY. Judi and I hung out most of the day today - we went to the local scrapbook store (it's so fun to have someone to do that with since my Mom just isn't interested) then spent the afternoon being "crafty". Joel wanted to watch the UFC fights tonight and prefers to watch them at my parents' house since they have a nice big high definition plasma screen TV (Joel and I have NEVER bought a TV - we keep acquiring free hand-me-downs and none of them have been high-def plasma screens as you can imagine. To be honest I can't tell a difference, but apparently there is one). So we went to my parents' for dinner and the fights. Other good friends, Jim and Linda (Dean's had a crush on Linda since he was TINY) were there too as Jim (not Corwin) is also a big UFC fan. We had a very nice dinner (at least the girls did - the men were busy with the fights), then Judi and Linda went to some Hawaiian music and hula performance at Linda's church with my Grandma. Jayci had a date - with a very VERY cute boy I might add - I definitely approve!! She met him on their Molokini snorkel trip on "Maui Magic" yesterday - he is one of the crew / eye-candy-for-the-lady-tourists. So after dinner Mom, Jim (Corwin - who's not a huge UFC fan), Dean and I walked down to the beach for sunset. That was EXHAUSTING but fun. Dean had most of the fun. I was the one who was exhausted. He's so cute though!! And really does love the beach and the ocean. Which is weird because he HATES swimming lessons. We had our 2nd to last class this session this morning and he was soooooo naughty!!! I mean REALLY bad. Screamed at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms and legs the whole time kind of naughty. Not fun. Anyway, here are a few pics from our fun evening.

Taking time to smell the flowers.
You can't tell it in this next picture, but Dean is "smelling" some red ginger - which for Dean means snorting loudly.
Huh?
Yay! Sand!

And the parting shot....

(his shorts are soaking wet and the diaper had to go. We found out that the bulk of having a diaper helps hold his britches up)

A Little Yard Work...

Joel completed some long overdue yardwork today and Dean decided he needed to help. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...it was super cute!!

Sweeping the grass:

Playing with Cosmo, the neighbor's adorable pug:

Helping rake up the grass...

And then spreading it back out again:

Yessss!! Yardwork is done!

Haleakala Backpacking Trip

Well, we survived our hike! I'm way too exhausted and sore to go into detail now (I'll do that tomorrow). But here's a slideshow of the pics. It was amazing!! The pictures really don't do it justice - hiking inside a volcano is unreal. You don't realize how vast the crater really is until you're down there in the middle of it. The hike was an ass-kicker!!! 12 miles total over 2 days. The first day was all downhill on Sliding Sands Trail - and it really was a trail of black and red sand and very steep. We started at 8:30 Saturday morning and arrived at Holua Cabin (about 7 miles later) around 3:00. After a long, mostly sleepless night thanks to both the cold and my husband's snoring (as well as my Mom's), we set out around 7:45 this morning on Halemau'u Trail (Switchbacks as the locals call it). This time it was all UPHILL!! We made it to our car around 10:00 this morning and couldn't wait to get home and take a shower!! My calves and butt are killing me - I can barely walk!!! Also, I missed Dean - who did GREAT his first night away from Mom. My Grandma and Dad stayed at our house with him and they said he did just fine. So that was more detail than I intended. Here are the pics...

This one's for Opapi...

Dean rockin' out on his new accordian...
I couldn't resist buying this adorable little accordian for Dean today. His Great Grandfather ("Opapi") Tapler is the only person I know who can actually play one. (Joel likes to THINK he can play the accordian, but trust me, he can't). One of these days Opapi will have to teach Dean some tunes!!

Dean and his Nani

So we have the best cat ever!! Nani (her full name is Nani Hanai Popoki which translates from Hawaiian into English roughly as "Beautiful adopted cat" - she was a shelter kitten. Her adoption has a story, but I'll save that for another time)...anyway, Nani and Dean are best friends! When I was pregnant with Dean, Nani would lay on my belly anytime I would sit still long enough for her to crawl up there. It was her favorite napping spot. So I think their bond began in utero! I often wondered if Dean could hear her purring through my layers of skin and fat? hmmmm. She has been so good with him since he first began pulling her tail at 4 months old. She does still have claws and let me tell you, she has scratched the crap out of me before, but she is so gentle with him. And he can be pretty rough with her!! Thought I'd share some cute pics of them today...

Not sure what he's doing in that last pic, but he looked really cute!!

When Daddy is left in charge...

So Joel claims the bottle was actually nearly empty when Dean got ahold of it and that he only had one swig, with most of that ending up on his shirt. If that's true, I want to know why Dean was literally running after the cat from one end of the living room to the other, laughing deliriously, for about 20 minutes when I was TRYING to get him to go to bed tonight 30 minutes past his regular bedtime!?!?

A Little Maui Rain...

So we woke up this morning to steady rainful for about an hour, which was really nice as we live in a very dry part of Maui. It was so nice in fact, that we let Dean run outside and play for a few minutes. He wasn't too sure at first, and seemed a little confused (note the bottle of sunscreen he absolutely insisted he MUST take with him outside). But it was a beautiful rain. Yes, that's the sun shining through a torrential downpour...that's Maui for ya!

As you might imagine given the sun shining through, there was an AMAZING rainbow directly behind our house. However you'll just have to take my word for it - I didn't want to risk soaking the camera to get a picture!

Like Father, Like Son

Ok, make sure your volume is turned up for this video...And warning: there's a little more than a full minute of this, which is probably about as interesting as watching somebody snoring....oh wait....

Flying high

Today started out really gross with cloudy skies and drizzle all morning. And it was COLD (well, for us it was cold - about 61 degrees). But it turned into a beautiful day. After Joel got home from work, we went to KCC (Kahului Community Center) park and flew a kite! Dean was really interested in that for about 10 seconds. Then he just wanted to run (that's his newest favorite thing to do) down the hill over and over again. Anyway, it was fun! Check out the pics...