Merry Christmas Eve!!

Just a quick post to share a few pics from our Traditional Christmas Eve morning at the beach!! We woke up this morning and headed to Paia to Baldwin beach. It was raining a bit on the way, but then the sun came out and we were treated to a beautiful rainbow over the sugar cane fields at the foot of Haleakala. Of course, my camera was in the trunk at the time. We did take a picture of the rainbow with Joel's cell phone but we don't know how to get it off of the phone!! Anyway, it was a beautiful morning at the beach, although a little chilly for my taste (probably about 78 degrees). Here are the pics. We're headed to Kihei for the Annual Harper Family Christmas tonight. I'll be back tomorrow with more Christmas pics.

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Fantastic Festivus!!

Santa and the Elf

I've been a bad blogger, I know! I've been super busy with my creative projects and have lots of exciting things happening in my little papercrafting world. I've been asked to be a guest designer for Whiff of Joy stamps - I'm one of only 2 stampers from the US who are on this team, so that's pretty exciting!! (you can see me on the design team page by clicking on that link and scrolling down to the bottom). I just completed a special project for my BFF back in good 'ole Oklahoma, which was a true labor of love - it was a lot of work, but so worth it - I think the finished project is going to be something she (and maybe a few others) will treasure forever and I'm honored that I was part of it. {insert sappy music}. I had a few more projects picked up for publication in various papercrafting magazines next year and have been busy helping my local scrapbook store, Island Paperie, launch their new online store, which you can check out here. I'll be doing (paid - yay!!) design work for them next year as well.

Anyway, after Grandma Jo left we got our Christmas tree put up and decorated - and Dean's only completely toppled it twice!! I do think this is the last year for our sad little artificial tree we've had since our first Christmas living together in the "Inwood House" in Norman - it's listing badly to one side and I don't think it was designed to withstand the onslaught of two crazy cats and a two-year-old.

Joel grudgingly put Christmas lights in our 3 palm trees in the front yard and they look so good!! He wrapped the trunks and even got lights in all of the branches!! It only took him about 5 days and 8 trips to Home Depot to get it done, too - pretty impressive for him!! I'll try to get a picture soon. I couldn't talk him into doing lights on the house this year, so we're the scrooges of the neighborhood...actually, if you ask me some of the neighbors went a little overboard!! But Dean LOVES it and every night before bed he insists on going outside to look at the lights. (Actually, if it wasn't for Dean's excitement, I wouldn't be into the Christmas lights at all - total waste of electric energy if you ask me...)

We did take Dean on our annual trip to sit on Santa's lap at the mall. This year we were there on Aloha Friday, so Santa was in his Aloha attire - which I thought was pretty cute - who knew Santa had such nice legs?? (and you can't see it in the picture because the mall elves' photography skills suck, but Santa was wearing rubbah slippahs)! I'm sure Santa is much happier on Aloha Friday in our open-air (translation = non-air-conditioned) mall all day in 85 degree weather with 99% humidity than he is on "Traditional Santa Suit" day! Here are a few pics of our Christmas Preparations:And finally, Dean deciding it was more fun to dump everything out of the decorations box and climb on it than to help decorate...

Pool Party

We celebrated Dean's 2nd birthday a week early with a Pool Party at the Keali'i Ocean Villas on Saturday. The party was a success!! The kids had a good time, no major meltdowns, the weather was perfect, and Dean got some good loot!! Here are several pics...

The family:
The location: Keali'i Ocean Villas Pool (see the ocean view?)
Dean and his favorite person ever, Sarah (our wonderful babysitter):
Dean giving Noah a birthday hug (Noah's birthday was Nov 30):
Joel, Dean and good friends the Bufords (Miah, Lauren & Noah):
Pool fun with Claire, Charlie, Sam, & Auntie Ellyn:
Dean dragging Sarah (or Sawah as Dean calls her) EVERYWHERE he goes:
Dean and Sarah swimming:

the Cake:
Dean and Haley waiting patiently for me to light the candles...
Blowing out the candles:
I think Dean likes the cake...

Opening presents...

Starting to get tired...

A Tapler Family Thanksgiving

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving here in the Tapler Ohana! Grandma Jo has been here visiting for a little over a week and Dean is getting more spoiled by the day!! He's so cute. He has learned that my Mom is "TuTu" (the Hawaiian word for Grandma...her request, not mine, but whatever) and Grandma Jo is "Grandma" or "Am-Ma" in Dean-speak. The other morning we let Grandma sleep in a little and Dean was going all over the house saying "Am-Ma?" "Am-Ma?" looking for her. He's definitely going to miss her when she leaves next week!!

Thursday morning we woke up and Joel got right to work on the turkey and baking his famous home-made honey wheat rolls. Dean and I took a walk around the block and dropped of a little Thanksgiving cheer to our new neighbors, Wendy and Tui, who moved in behind us a few months ago. We are so thankful to live in such an awesome neighborhood and we really do have the best neighbors!!! After our walk, Dean took a nap while Joel and Grandma Jo prepared the turkey, rolls and potatoes. Grandma Susan and Grandpa Eddie came over around 1:00 with the broccoli and green bean casserole and pies. Don't worry...I didn't forget MY traditional contribution - the relish tray...each year I slave for such a long time over opening those olive jars and arranging both the green and black olives just right in the little divided dish and stuffing the celery sticks so carefully!!! (yes, I do know to be thankful that I married a man who can and likes to cook!!!). Grandpa Eddie wasn't feeling well, but he rallied for some turkey and we all stuffed ourselves then had a nice visit and some wine.

Here are a few pictures...Dean and Grandpa Eddie enjoying some turkey

Can I eat yet Mom?? (yeah right...I WISH this kid would ask to eat...I'm afraid he's going to end up being a picky eater like his Mom...mealtimes are a nightmare right now...it's like he just can't be bothered with trivial things like eating).

He does like olives though.

Dean pretending to eat a turkey leg (I don't think he ate even one bite of turkey...I think he's a vegetarian...he never eats meat).

But he will SHARE his turkey leg!!

We've had a very busy week and the rest of the weekend will be busy too. We're celebrating Dean's 2nd birthday a week early tomorrow with a Pool Party at the Keali'i Ocean Villas. We're expecting about 10-15 toddlers and their parents, so that should be lots of fun!!! :-) Then on Sunday we have 2 more birthday parties for some of Dean's friends (then next week is both Grandma Jo AND TuTu Susan's birthdays!!).

In other exciting Dean news...Grandma Jo and Grandpa CR bought Dean a "Big Boy Bed" for his birthday / Christmas and we'll be setting that up tomorrow. Thank you Grandma & Grandpa!!!! You guys ROCK!! I was a little sad that tonight is his last night in his crib! Jo and I have had fun though planning Dean's new bedding and room accessories and picking out fabric for that. We're going for a surf theme with a kind of retro-ish color scheme of blues, greens and browns. I can't wait to share pictures of the finished projects...(no pressure Grandma Jo!!). Anyway, I'll probably be back tomorrow with some pictures from Dean's birthday party.

Backyard Camping

Dean has been obsessed with making forts lately...except for some reason, no matter how many times we try to explain to him that the correct terminology is "fort", he continues to call it a "house". He LOVES to pull the cushions off the couch and lay them over the edge of the couch and coffee table and play underneath, or have us hang a quilt over the backs of a few chairs. Sometimes he happily invites us inside his "house" and sometimes he literally shoves us out saying "No. Dean's house". He has started requesting a "house" every single night when he goes to bed, refusing to go to sleep without it - we put his toddler quilt over the top of his crib, hanging over the sides, making a "house" out of his crib. Anyway, as we were cleaning up some things in the garage today, Joel decided it might be fun for Dean to play in the tent, so Joel set it up in the backyard and Dean absolutely LOVED it!!! He laughed and squealed nonstop for about an hour! It was so funny!!! We still haven't taken him camping for real yet {gasp}, but have decided that after Grandma Jo's visit (she gets here Wednesday for 2 whole weeks!!!), we're going to take Dean and his "house" Upcountry and camp. It's about time.

Jump!

No, I'm not channeling Van Halen....we went to a keiki birthday party in Haiku Saturday evening and they had a bouncy castle. Dean had so much fun jumping with the big kids!! Here he is....in case you can't find him, he was the only haole (white) kid there!

Giving Taylor hugs...he's such a little flirt. Actually, he was giving EVERYONE hugs, even the boys who didn't necessarily want hugs. He obviously hasn't learned about personal boundaries yet. Oh well...

Sharing is caring....even if Taylor doesn't want your stick!

Gobama!!

So I know not everyone reading this blog agrees with us on this, but the Maui Taplers are celebrating an exciting historical moment this evening. We feel renewed faith in the democratic process, hope for the future of this wonderful country and just plain happy at the outcome of the presidential election. We feel very strongly that the changes President-Elect Obama is going to bring to Washington will mean greater financial security for our sometimes struggling middle-class (ok, maybe lower-middle class) family, a cleaner and safer planet for our son to grow up, a better education system for Dean to learn all he needs to learn to be successful in life, and a wealth of other important changes that I won't go into here. I cried as I listened to Obama give his acceptance speech tonight - what powerful and moving words and what a truly wonderful man we have chosen to lead our country for the next 4 years.

I wanted to capture a few photos for Dean's scrapbook of today's important events and I think these pictures tell the story quite well...

Dean showing his excitement and awe that we won!!! (in case you can't read it, the TV says "Breaking News: NBC News Projects Obama Elected President").

Giving President Obama kisses...

Giving President Obama a high five...

And finally, the cutest of them all (and this one's not even prompted)...giving President Obama "knuckles"!!!!!

Do we live in a great country or what!?!?!?