The Weekend

We had a great time hanging out with Cora's birth parents this weekend. On Friday we had dinner at Krychele's house. Her family always makes us feel so welcome. Uziel came over to hang out too. Especially at this time of year, I am so thankful for amazing birth families. Can't imagine live without my children...can't imagine life with closed adoptions...We are so blessed by open adoptions and love Katie, Chelise, Sioeli, Krychele and Uziel and their families so very much! 

Kim, Krychele and Uziel feeding Cora pears - which she loves but refused to eat and just cried instead. 

We were so happy to meet Kim's father. He was in town for Thanksgiving. Here is a 4 generation shot of him, Kim, Krychele and Cora. A priceless picture! 

On Saturday we went back over to watch the BYU - Utah Football game. Just one more reason we love Krychele - she's a Ute fan! 

Hema, Krychele, Cora, Desi and Vela showing their Utah pride after a lucky win! 

My two sweet Hemas sporting their colors! 

Vela giving me some love! 

Vela was running around at home in her undies with her socks pulled clear up and I told her she looked like a little volleyball player. She ran and got her red volleyball to show her stuff. Every time the doctor tells us how tall she is I can't help but hope she gets a volleyball scholarship some day! 

It was a great weekend - good food, friends, family, birth family and of course the win for the Utes!! My sweet husband will be happy all year long thinking of that last second block kick! 

Weekend Update

We had a great weekend. Hema went pheasant hunting with Jason and my dad down on the farm. Little Hema was thrilled to check out his "dead bird" when he got home. Little Hema is dying to go next year.  

Then we watched the TCU vs. Utah game. All I can say is wow that was ugly! But here is daddy with his little Utah fans - win or lose! 

Then on Saturday night, our cute little nephew and niece, Joey and Ava slept over. The kids had so much fun and stayed up too late and slept on the couch. Amazingly, I got all 5 kiddies ready and we were even early to church at 9:00 am. (Thanks to daylight savings!) 

Monday we all went and got our flu shots. Unfortunately they were all out of the nasal mist. Hema tried so hard to be brave. here he is demonstrating how his arm hurts less if he holds it out after the shot. 

Here is Little Hema with his new BB Gun. He is so excited about it. It was going to be a Christmas gift, but his dad is a sucker and couldn't wait! haha! Love you babe! 

And finally, here is the wall all repaired and textured. Now we just need to finish removing the vinyl lettering and get it painted! So nice to have that part all finished up. I had told the company what the other drywall guy said about the texture and they sent a new one who did a great job! (I know the picture is rotated wrong oh well!)

Today Cora is 5 months old and later we are going to Chuck E Cheeses with Chelise! So look for another post later! 

Catching Up!

I decided I'd do one of my long posts rather than the mini ones I had thought of earlier. Might as well get caught up tonight. Here I go!

We had a great Christmas. One of the main reasons that I didn't post anything is because I hate to waste time on the computer when Hema is home. I usually post when Little Hema is at preschool and Vela is napping for when the kids are in bed and Hema is working late. I love that my hubby gets 2 weeks off for Christmas and with him home and most of my family in town, I didn't want to spend my free time on the computer.
Anyhow, here are some of the fun things we did over Christmas break.
The kids made build a bears for their birth families. Hema made a snow leopard for Katie and Vela made a cute black dog for Chelise and Leiana. The kids also made an animal for themselves. Hema chose a matching snow leopard to keep and Vela of course chose George - a monkey. She is pretty obsessed with all things monkey since she loves Curious George.
Hema got to see Katie and give her her Christmas gifts. It is always fun to be with Katie. We went to Iggy's and watched the end of the Utah bowl game. Katie is doing great and we just love her so much and are so grateful that she is willing to continue to share her life with us and more importantly with Little Hema! Vela's sweet birth momma Chelise is living in Vegas now so we just mailed the Christmas presents to her and Leiana (Vela's sister). We sure do love them too and are excited for her to move back in the next month or so so we can see them again.
We also had our Tongan branch Christmas party. It was really fun with dinner, Santa and a dance. Tina came and brought Joe and Ava and the Ahotaeiloas also came. We hadn't seen them for a while and it was really fun to catch up with them and see their cute kids. We keep trying to convince them to come out to our Tongan ward since they are in our boundaries. No luck so far!
We slept over at my parents on Christmas Eve like we usually do. Christmas Eve was so much fun. We had everyone there except Jessica and Marilee and their families. Jess couldn't come out because she is due to have another sweet baby boy in a about 10 days. Marilee and her family came a couple days after Christmas. It was fun to see the grand kids playing and having a great time. They really get along great and hardly fight at all. It was especially nice to see Porter and little Hema playing so well together. All of the grand kids love the new slippers they get from Grandma and Grandpa each Christmas. My mom also gave each of us a copy of the poetry she has written. She is so talented!
Here are the kids presents waiting to be opened. Little Hema loves his Leapster. This new boggle game has been such a hit. (No little pieces to lose!) Vela loved her presents, but pretty much wanted to mostly play with anything Hema had. They were really excited about the capes I made and have been wearing them around a lot. They also loved the new fishing poles they got from their dad. (Since Vela threw both her pole and Little Hema's in the lake last year). Why don't kids fishing poles float??Christmas Day we have a lot of fun at the Katoas. But honestly, we didn't take any pictures. Oh well. Hema's siblings who are single always spoil the kids rotten. I swear they got as many gifts from them as they did from us. They are too generous with our kids! Thanks guys!
We went swimming on a couple days after Christmas. This is Vela's new suit. Not a great picture, but how cute is the tutu on her?!?!
My niece Brynlee was in town for her 1st birthday and we got to go to her party. The kids loves the party hats.Our annual New Years Party was a lot more mellow than usual. My parents left early to check on grandpa. I took this picture around 10:00 - right before most everyone else went home. Which was fine because we were all pretty tired.On New Years Day we get together with the Katoa family. It is so much fun. I really couldn't have married into a nicer family. They are so loving and great. We sure do have fun together.Aunt Lote is always so great to play games with the kids and keep them busy.
I LOVE this picture of some of the little girls trying to be quiet and looking so bored listening to the grandpas talk.
Then my momma had a birthday on the 4th. We took her to eat a a Thai restaurant she loves. They food was good and we had a great time - even though Hema choked on a spring roll at the very end and vomited a ton. Sorry mom and sorry to the waiter who had to clean that up. Welcome to my life with a kid who is a serious barfer!
Here is a picture of Little Hema making pizza Hawkins style. The sauce goes on at the very end on top of all the rest of the toppings. Delicious!
Here's a group shot of my Primary kids the night of our stake dance.These are the couples that did the samba. Check out the ties and skirts we made.

Sort of blurry I know. The kids with my parents that night.Wow! I guess that pretty much covers it. I am now officially caught up on blogging. And to think that took less time than it is taking Hema to replace the garbage disposal. For some reason it broke last night. The garage door opener broke last week. I guess lot of things in houses last about 10 years since we moved in here 10 years ago in December.

Pretzels, Swimming, the Park and Football!!

We recently made pretzels. Little Hema loves helping make pretzels and was pretty pleased with his letter H. (Daddy says this is Hema's "The Rock" impersonation.)

Here are some recent pictures of the kids at the pool.

Here's Vela waiting for her lesson.

The weather has been nice lately and we have walked down to the park a bunch. Hema thinks he is big stuff climbing the rock wall.

Vela loves to go down the slide.

The kids are finally at an age where they play really well together.

Today Hema and Little Hema went up to the
U of U Red and White football game. They had a great time! Little Hema loves watching football.
Hema got to meet Swoop.
Meet the coaches and get his football and jersey signed. And go down on the field and play a little football with his favorite past Utah Football player, his dad!!!

Ute's & Dino's the perfect mix!

Last Friday our family joined the other 40,000+ Utah football fans who lined the streets of downtown Salt Lake City to celebrate the Sugar Bowl victory earlier this month. It was such a great thing to see the community come together in support of the Ute's. We parked at the Gateway shopping center and rode Trax into town. Little Hema really loves to ride the "train". We watched the parade on the corner of 100 south and State street. Then we joined the "sea of Red" as they followed the team to City Hall (400 south) where the Coaches, some players, the Govenor, and the Mayor addressed the crowd. We caught Trax back to Gateway just before it let out to avoid the rush. We grabbed some Brazilian grub at Tucano's before heading over to Energy Solutions Arena for Walking with Dinosaurs. While walking to the Arena little Hema asked where we were going, when we answered he let out the loudest scream of sheer happiness. It caused several people on the street to stop and stare. The show was so cool! If your not familiar with it they have life size realistic looking dinosaurs. Our family's favorite was of course...the T-Rex!

After a day like this...it wasn't just the kids who were exhausted...and sore.