Holly’s Blog

We had a fun Easter just the three of us… making Easter cookies and a nice quiet day on Easter itself.

A couple weeks before Easter, the Waikiki Aquarium had a wonderful program called “SeaHunt” for the kids.  They not only had the “Easter Bunny” on hand for photos, but also had crafts and a wonderful “SeaHunt”.  Instead of looking for plastic eggs, the kids had to look for sea-life themed puzzle pieces.  At the end they traded the 8 different pieces in for a wooden puzzle to take home.  The puzzle has magnetic spots on it and a fishing rod, so Annika can go fishing for the different animals.  She loves it and still plays with it almost daily!

After SeaHunt, we headed across the street to the zoo.  There we visited the animals and then the playground.  She mastered the slide there… and will now go down any slide, any height, any twists, turns and tunnels.  She loves it.  Yes, it was a big day for Annika.  She fell asleep in the car on the way home.  And then made us laugh so hard when we pulled up in the driveway.  Back at SeaHunt, the Easter Bunny gave all the kids a decorated sea-life themed cookies.  We told her that she had to wait until we got home to eat it.  Well, as we pulled up in the driveway she opened her eyes and recognized our house.  She was barely awake and said, “Eat octopus cookie at home now.”  Not missing a beat, she knew what arriving at home meant.  And she savored every crumb of that cookie.

Christmas morning was full of laughter, generous presents and constant motion from Annika.  We were thankful to all be together this year.   I’ll let the photo captions tell the story for the day…

It was wonderful to have everyone together for a Linquist Family Christmas Eve meal.  Annika all dressed up in her Santa skirt.

Oh, that reminds me of a funny story about “Santa”.  Early in December, Daniel, Annika and I were driving though Kaneohe.  All of the sudden we heard her exclaim from the back seat, “Noah!”.  I wasn’t sure what she was taking about since her Noah’s Ark set was at home, not in the car.  But then we looked out the window and saw a white bearded “Santa” face.  She saw it and thought it was Noah… the only white bearded guy she knows!  We laughed and laughed.

And one more Santa story while we are on the subject.  Just last week, I was out with Annika and she said, “Santa” seemingly out of the blue.  But as I looked around I spotted what she had.  A jolly old man with a full head of white hair on his head and a full, long white beard on his chin.  Again I laughed.  Then as he was walking away, past us again, she says, “Bye, bye Santa.”  Kids say the funniest things!

Grandma (Sharon) and I made Christmas cookies with Annika.  We had a blast, but as seen in the photos, not as much fun as Annika.  Please bear with me being a “mom” here.  I know this is way to many photos of her… but I had a photographer (Thank you, Jessica)… and you don’t want to know how many were on the unedited list.

The first few need an explanation.  We got Annika’s new “Christmas present” apron on and stood her on a chair.  She helped me roll out the first batch.  I turned by back for a moment, and when I glanced back she was face down in the dough… coming up with a nose and forehead full of flour.  She was smelling the dough.  We laughed so hard and left the flour on her face… it was too cute!

I also have to say that she lost a bit of interest in cutting out and decorating once she tasted a cookie.  Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Annika is learning to love being outside.  Some days she will stand at the screen door in the kitchen and point outside saying, “dis” (this).  She wants to go play outside.  Annika and Tyler have quite the assortment of vehicles and play things that “Nama” has picked up at garage sales.  (Oh, and one big wheel that’s left over from my generation!)  Annika is learning about them all!

So here are a few “End of May” photos to enjoy…

Memorial Day weekend:  Ginger and I made plans to head up to Bowling Green to visit our cousin, Kourtney, and her kids.  Kelly called and asked if she could come too… and we said, “Of course, but you have to sit in the back with the kids!”.  She willingly did.  But learned during the drive up and back that she wasn’t going to get her usual car nap with a munchkin on either side of her.

We all had a great time… Annika and Tyler loved playing with Jake and Joelle.  Kourtney and Jamie have a large yard which the kids wasted no time using as a track for the jeep/4-wheeler.  Annika wasn’t so sure at first when we strapped her in next to Joelle.  In fact, when Joelle pushed on the gas and they took off, Annika looked at me with an expression of “I’m not sure how I feel about this”.  She looked up to see me smiling and then broke out into a huge grin.  Tyler quickly mastered the 4-wheeler and only have to be told a few times to watch where he was driving.  We stood in the middle of the yard and talked and the kids drove circles around us.

Jake and Joelle gave up their rooms for us to sleep in, and bunked up with their mom and dad on a cot and air mattress.  Well, at least Jake slept on the cot.  We realized late in the evening that there wasn’t a pump to inflate the air mattress for Joelle.  And I have to say that I’m pretty proud of my skills in this situation… I got Joelle all excited to “sleep on top of FIVE blankets” on the un-inflated mattress.  She got a big grin on her face and said, “Can I sleep on SIX blankets?”  Why, yes… we found six blankets to lay on top of the flat air mattress and she happily slept there all night!  (Just practicing for when Annika gets older! 

We don’t get to spend much time… all of us together… so we truly treasured these two days!

Ok, so another long spell without any posts.  I’m finally getting back to it again…  Annika and Tyler LOVED their pool time.  In fact, they will even sit and play in the pool with no water in it.  But the water is much more fun of course.

This is a sneak peak of the summer’s first pool session for Annika….  (more photos to come).

What more could I want for Mother’s Day….

… not much more than that!!!!