thing that ash wants me to do

6 Things Tag
1. Post the rules on your blog.
2. List 6 random things about yourself.
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post.
4. Let each person know the have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

#1. I really really really love the smell of dust, like from a chalk board eraser or from a vacuum bag, i absolutely love it!! I could smell it all day long.

#2. For my whole life when i thought about who i would marry i had 3 rules.
1-No more then two years older then me, and not a day younger.
2-Must speak english as a first language
3-No Tongans.
Needless to say, my husband is 4 years older then me, doesnt speak english as his first language and is Tongan.

#3. Before i write letters or emails or have conversations with people, i write them in my head. I plan out every word and line and come up with possible responses for any questions or comments. Usually this is done at 2am when i wake up in the night, and then i cant go back to sleep coz im busy writing letters in my head.

#4. I'm learning how to sew. I really really really want to be good at it but im not and my good friend Leeyen is very patient with me and is teaching me. I love it. Tomorrow i'm going to buy a 2nd hand sewing machine.

#5. When i was little my mum used to put iodine on the bottom of my feet (she's into natropath etc) to try help me be calm. It didn't work, i just had purple feet.

#6. Once when i was at Church college (LDS high school where i was a bording student) my dad sent me a letter. Inside was a $20 note and a post it that said,

"Bite you tounge, study hard."

I will never forget that.

I tag Brooke, Leeyen Loblee, Karess (oh my gosh karess i dont know your last name!!), Rebecca, Jo & Lianna, and Sam Palefau

My man.

I stole this from Ashleigh's Blog, thanks Ash. But it's such a good idea, because we all know that the wives write the blogs, other then the Houghtons and Quillans, so it's good to know a little about the husbands.....from our perspective.....

So here's a few things about my husband, the one......the only......TUI!!


1. He's sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen?
Sports or some violent or old school movie

2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad?
Salad? What Salad? Potato salad maybe....

3. What's one food he doesn't like?
Soup, he said its not food, its liquid

4. You go out to eat and have a drink. What does he order?
Pepsi. And he gets mad if they say they only have coke.

5. Where did he go to high school?
LHS - Liahona High School for life

6. What size shoe does he wear?
Depends. 12-13, his feet are really wide so it depends on the shoe

7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be?
Lately, bikes. He "saves" them from the dumpster and revamps then, so we have quite a collection

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich?
mega ultra meaty

9. What would this person eat every day if he could?
Everything

10. What is his favorite cereal?
Anything colourful and sugary

11. What would he never wear?
Speedo

12. What is his favorite sports team?
Ikale Tahi, Seattle Sea Hawks, BYU Hawaii men's Basketball
not the All Blacks (will neva be)

13. Who did he vote for?
He hasn't ever voted

14. Who is his best friend?
his little man Tonga Malachi Mark Tafuna.

15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do?
waste money, meaning buy clothes, food, birthday presents, diapers or any other necessities

16. What is his heritage?
Tongan

17. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what kind of cake?
He likes anything i make

18. Did he play sports in high school?
lots, but mostly volleyball

19. What could he spend hours doing?
watching sports, and game shows

20. What is one unique talent he has?
Laundry. He is amazing at it, from start to finish, he does it better then anyone else i know, especially his folding of the clothes. It's a real talent

BFF's

These are a couple of pictures of Malachi and Austin Atkinson. He lives 2 doors down (which is really like living in the same house for normal people....his 6x6m box in like 6m away from our 6x6m box). So they play together everyday in one form or another. Austin is about 9 months older then Malachi but they're about the same size, actually Malachi's a little bigger now. Here are a couple of pictures of Malachi and his BFF Austin.


Getting ready for our weekly adventure to the pool.

Begging for food...

Making trouble under the table, it's their secret hide out....

The Cow and Girrafe at Halloween, sharing their candy....

At the beach, Austin was burying Malachi in the sand.

Getting up to something naughty at night...

And after all their trouble making together....

Walk the talk

Actually, its more like walk and talk. My son is learning to do both. It's been so hard to get a video or picture of him walking, because it's usually just me at home, or else he's walking from Tui to me so there's no one to use the camera. But this time we got it!! He's doing good, up to like 5-6 steps. Mostly he just gets so excited he loses his balance.This video is a little dark but you'll get the jist of it.

NOTE - THIS VIDEO WAS TAKEN JUST BEFORE GETTING IN THE BATH AND CONTAINS SCENES THAT MAY OFFEND SOME VIEWERS.....WE ADVICE DISCRETION....


Malachi also loves to make noise, and lots of it. Especially when its nice and quite (like church...sorry guys...) and he can hear himself really well. A baby who loves the sound of his own voice....remind you of anyone mum and dad......

Malachi's day of love and adventures

Valentines day....

started very early with a wonderful wife making her lazy-sleeping-in husband some special pancakes....
They were pink, except that when they cooked they turned a little brown too.
This act of kindness inspired a forgetful husband to make a quick trip to the supermarket to get some recovery presents....chocolates and a balloon.... (Tui later told me that i had spoiled his big plan, he was going to wake up before me (usually happens except for today), go down to foodland and get his supplies and then wake me up and surprise me. but he slept in....)
Malachi loved the balloon and it inspired him to improve his free-standing.
We then packed the car and headed to town. We dropped the car Sears for some TLC and walked down to Ala Moana Beach Park and swam, sunbathed and played in the sun.
Then we walked around the mall where malachi got to meet nemo...
and nemo's cousins....
and watch the Honolulu Symphany play.
We then went and ate at Island's....(We ate actual food, Malachi ate the menu)
And then Malachi picked out his first car....
And we headed home.
All in all, it was a great day to spend with the ones you love. oxo

Free at last....FREE AT LAST!!!!!

Today, just a few wee minutes ago, i finally paid off the last penny owing from Malachi's medical bills from his birth......FINALLY!!!! It's been a long time coming and I'd like to send a special shout out to the IRS for a wonderful tax return that enabled us to finally be able to move all the papers in the "to pay" file into the "PAID" one.

It's been tough, paying off all of these bills. Coming from a country where medical care is free, yes you read that correctly FREE, it baffled me how much it cost us to have a baby. After all i went through, on top of the 20 hour labor, i had to shell out a fair amount of money....doesn't make sense to me. And because Malachi had to spend some extra time in the hospital due to complications, our bills were more then double what everyone's usually are. And because I'm not a citizen, i didn't qualify for Quest insurance.

But that's all behind us now. We are now 100% debt free and can start saving again!! Tui and I are both big believers in saving...Tui's a bigger believer then me.... but any spare dollar has gone to doctors, hospitals, radiologist, pathologists, surgeons.......the list goes on. And now we can start putting some money away for a rainy day....or another baby :)

To some it all up.....

Free at last.....free at last......thank the IRS almighty........WE'RE FREE AT LAST!!!!!

Called to Serve

The ward we're in right now, the BYUH 5th ward, is amazing. We have the best Bishop ever, Arthur Hanneman, who makes you want to be righteous. He makes sure that everyone always has a calling or two so that you have a chance to serve and feel needed. For the past year 1/2 I've been serving as the ward chorister, which i love!! Then 6 months ago we got called to teach Sunday school, which i love even more. Like most teachers, i get so much more out of a lesson if I'm teaching it. Tui was then called to be the ward clerk. Life was good. Then, sadly, last week i was released from teaching Sunday school - there are a ton of new people who need callings too. So i was content to continue leading our ward in Sunday worship through song.

But...

Yesterday i had a bishop interview at 7am (the joys of 8am church). And i was released from being the Chorister......NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

No calling? How could i not have a calling? I would no longer be a contributing member of society....

I was then informed that the Relief Society Presidency was being released.....dun dun.....and i was being called to be the Education Counselor.My patriarchal blessing talks about receiving callings that would cause me to question my abilities, and this is definitely one of them. We have such an amazing group of spirited women in our ward, and i feel less then adequate to lead them. Luckily the new president and 2nd counselor are amazing and can make up for my weaknesses.

Now i have to admit that i knew this was coming. I always get a feeling before getting a calling. I'll start to feel it. For every one of our callings I've known it was coming. Maybe the Lord knows i need a little more time to prepare myself. So about a month ago i said to Tui, "I don't want to be called to Relief Society, i like being the chorister." He told me i had nothing to worry about because we already had a Relief Society Presidency. Little did he know...

But I'm really excited for this calling and always willing to serve where ever the Lord needs me. I'm trusting that he knows about some secret talents i have and extra time i don't know about so that i can fulfill the calling to serve.

Kids say the darndest things...

So this week I've started tutoring my good friend Caryn Houghton's daughter Chrysanne. She is an amazing kid that i love sooooo much. She has the spark of life that most of us forget about or are too busy to pay attention to. It's been an interesting week, and my views of home schooling and education in general have been heavily altered. I feel so blessed to be firstly, earning some money!!!! and secondly to be a part of helping this special girl learn to love learning.

The other day she was playing with Malachi and was teaching him to do, "This little piggy...", with a little bit of a Chrysanne flare. You have to understand that she is the biggest animal rights activist and doesn't like the idea of eating meat. This is what she said.

"This little piggy went to market,
this little piggy stayed home.
This little piggy had roast beef,
and this little piggy had none coz he's a vegetarian."

That's Chrysanne in a nutshell.

Peanut butter?

So my friend sent me this quiz to take and see what kind of cookie you are. In all truth, I'm a cookie monster so this was a perfect quiz for me. However, the results were less then acceptable...

Quizzes Girls Games

Peanut butter? Are you kidding me? After raisin cookies, these are the absolute worst kind of cookies ever made!!! I'm definitely a triple chocolate mac nut cookie...duh.

Goes to show that you can't rely on a cookie quiz for insite....sad....

Updates on the dude

Malachi is getting so big it's hard to keep up with him!! He's so over crawling and is desperately trying to learn to walk. He's standing really well on his own, usually when i'm not looking and if i ever get the camera out he quickly sits down - little brat! I did manage to get one photo though.

He's doing pretty well walking holding on to me with one hand. You can tell he really wants to walk, but as of yet he still hasn't taken his first step.
He loves to sing and dance. This kid can really move (luckily he inherited his mother's dancing skills, and her singing...). He's a great little waver, he waves hello and 'ta ta'. His cognitive skills are getting really sharp too. He watches me do something and then he's a pro. He has this ball popper toy that the balls pop out and then go back down and around. He's learnt where the balls will come out so he can quickly grab them, then he knows where the hole is and he puts them in, then claps for himself, and pushes the button to start it again.

Sleeping is not going so well, he's waking up at least 2 times a night. Because he finally has come teeth coming in! His first little one started cutting about 2 weeks ago and his second one started this week. He's fine during the day but at night he just has a hard time (and so does mummy.).Nothing seems to be working - orajel, advil, tylenol, nothing. I'm very open to suggestions.
He loves electrical cords - grrrrrr. And no matter how many things i put in the way, he figures out how to get to them.

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He also loves the computer too, as you can see. He gets so excited banging on the keys. He's become seasider's (our school's basketball team)number one fan, yelling and clapping along with the crowd. And when he's not cheering everyone on, he's making friends and flirting with the girls.
He likes to makes grunting noises and have us make them back, we go back and forth. It's funny.

All in all he's shaping up to be a pretty great kid. It's so amazing to see how quickly he develops. It's hard to think that 8 months ago he was a little squish, all red and swollen. And now he's this little person with likes and dislikes, and a great personality.

I wrote this post a couple of days ago but forgot to post it and since writing this, we have some updates.....MALACHI TOOK HIS FIRST STEPS!!! Last night Tui was holding on to him and i was sitting about a meter away and he saw me, let go of Tui and took about 4-5 steps! He did it a couple of times more, but then i was so excited, he just wanted to sit on the ground and clap. I can't believe how quickly this kid is changing and growing. I'll be glad when he really can walk and i don't have to carry him any more.