Our Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve we spent majority of our day baking goodies to give away to Family up here and ended our evening in a nice chill mode at home with Family, cooking a nice dinner and watching movies!

Oh, Christmas Tree.

My FAVORITE Present = My FAVORITE Person :)

Goodies we made to give to everyone;
Peanut Butter Cookies prepped 3 diff ways,
& Chocolate covered Pretzels prepped 3 diff ways!

Christmas morning we woke up early, got Rush in "Happy Girl Mode" because she is SO NOT a morning person, and had her open presents! At first she just looked at all the wrapped presents we put in front of her and she didn't even touch them. So we started to rip one open and told her to finish opening it but instead she said "Uh-Oh" and tried to cover the part we ripped, back up! Lol It took her awhile to realize she could FINALLY open up all her presents! (She got so use to all those days of just looking at the presents sitting under the tree because we strictly told her not to touch, haha! So Obedient:)

After we opened all our presents, we made breakfast which consisted of: Belgium Waffles topped with Ice Cream. Strawberries, and Whipped Cream, with a side of Link Sausages. Super YUM! Growing up our Kalama side had the tradition of Special Occasions = Special Breakfast which was the Waffles and all the fixings! So I decided to continue that tradition with MY little family! For the record, Rush LOVED it! I mean, what kid wouldn't Love Ice Cream for breakfast?!

Ms. Hello Pretty Kitty opening her presents!

Our bomb breakfast!

 After breakfast, we went to Sacrament then headed up to the Johnson's hale for the rest of the day/night! It was such a lovely day spent with wonderful people!!

The Lovely Johnson's.

I hope you ALL had a wonderful Christmas filled with wonderful memories you can cherish forever! We are SO grateful for all we have and the opportunity we had to spend such a special day with people we LOVE! Jesus is DEFINITELY the Reason for THIS Season <3

Christmas Fun!

Last Saturday we took Rush to North Gate Mall where they had a bunch of activities for their Kid's Club! North Gate & Tacoma are the ONLY malls near us that have a Kid's Club. It was so awesome because right when we got there, Rush got a Goodie Bag full of stuff plus a list of places Kids can get discounts at around the Mall! There was also breakfast for the kids and their families (ALL you can eat California Pizza & Cinnabon with unlimited Capri Sun & Bottled Water) while Santa got ready to come out. When Santa was finally ready, he dedicated the Play area that was recently built. Rush had so much fun playing with the other kids! Then they did activities like make Reindeer food to leave on our front lawn so Santa knows where to stop lol, Write a letter to Santa, and even make a Santa Clause Christmas Tree Ornament. Overall, it was super fun and I think EVERY Mall should have a Kid's Club! 

Bomb Breakfast! Haha

Mr. Clause

Rush and Cousin Kamea playing in the newly dedicated Play Area!

Rushy on a Boat!

Her silly smile!

Reindeer Food Instructions

Daddy taking RushRush through the Reindeer food line.

Rush's Reindeer Food!

Rush's Letter to Santa!

Rush's Santa Ornament!

Rush's Creations!

The cutest pic we got of her in her FULL outfit.

The ONLY way Rush will go down a slide.
No matter how small the slide is, haha!

Finally accepting...

So since we've been here in Washington, I've liked living here! Missing home (of course!) but liking the Independence and living on our own. Although its been 2 and half years living here, I am FINALLY accepting that [this] is our home now. Our real home will always and forever be Hawaii, but this is our current home.

Its been 2 years exactly since we've moved into our 1st little apartment that we still currently live in and from the moment we moved in here, I told myself "this is only temporary." I never saw us living here that long as I've always dreamed/wanted to get our own house! Not necessarily to OWN but just to be in our Own Home. Again, I have Finally come to accept that we DON'T need our own house yet! What we have here is absolutely perfect! Our room is big enough for our Family of 4 and our living room is big enough for 4-6 more people to stay with us or even live in! No joke! haha. Yes, we only have a 1 bedroom BUT it's a VERY spacious 1 bedroom apartment!

So I'm happy to say that I've finally accepted life here. When people would ask us how long we plan on being here in Washington we'd say, "not very long, couple years tops!" But being here for these couple years really opened our (my) eyes to life here on the mainland and life being independent. So the next time someone asks me how long we see ourselves living here, I'll say, "However long we're meant to live here."

-Home is wherever I'm with my Loves. :)

Happy Thursday!

is when: what you think, what you say, and what you do are in Harmony.

-Gandhi