Aloha!

We recently took our first big solo vacation since the girls were born.  Up until this point we had never been away from the girls for more than 48 hours so I was quite nervous planning our 8 day trip to Maui.  We chose Hawaii because Alex and I had both been to parts of Hawaii separately but never together and for our first big away trip we wanted to stay fairly close to home so Hawaii it was!

As luck would have it, we landed in Maui 3 days before Hurricane Flossie hit.  Since we knew it was coming we spent those three days doing as much as we could and it was good thing we did!  The whole island pretty much shut down during the 2-days of Flossie (room service for dinner on the night it hit hardest took 2 hours at 8PM!).  Then of course, after everything cleared up I got sick :-(  We spent the remaining days of our vacation lounging in our room watching movies.  So while it didn't exactly go how we planned, we made the best of it, as we always do.  I also realized I can NEVER be away from the girls that long again and that our next big vacation will have to be a family one.  I'm sure Alex has been sharing with everyone my complete emotional breakdown the night before we left for Maui and how I cried after every time we FaceTime'ed with the girls...

Best breakfast: Kihea Caffe

Old Lahaina Luau

The start of Flossie

Windy!

My Little Readers

There is definitely something to be said about exposing children to literature as early and as frequently as possible. While the girls prefer me to do the reading, lately they've been more interested in reading to me.  We've been on a "potty book" binge in preparation for full on potty training but yesterday we just did some fun reading after an unfortunate pee-on-the-kitchen-floor incident (I'll just let that sink in....).  *Can I just point out that you have to have an incredible sense of humor to raise children?* Anyhow....this is Olivia reading me her "Minnie's Bowtique" book:

2-Year Photos

Even though doing planned/organized photos with the girls is exhausting we still like to punish ourselves :-) This time around we decided to do something from home in hopes of controlling the girls a little better and having them feel more comfortable.  Whether it was a maturity thing or simply better planning on our part, photos this time around went much smoother! We used a long-time girlfriend of mine, Taylor, who I went to school with and competition danced with--we owe a lot of the success of the shoot to her! Her attitude and style totally flowed with the girls making the whole experience that much better for us.  We love how they all turned out and are something we will treasure for many years to come!