Yeah, I wish I were kidding.

Have I mentioned that I love birthdays? I’ve been obsessed with over the top birthday parties since Kai was born. Her first birthday party had 60 people at it. It was kind of insane.

But, for her second birthday I decided to really go all out. Thomas’ parents were coming into town (from Hawaii…see where this is going?) and I decided to throw an authentic luau to celebrate her birthday. I wanted to impress them with my commitment to celebrating their son’s cultural heritage.

Thomas and I found some hula dancers online and booked them for our party. We were assured they studied under a woman who had been a part of a Hula Halau in Hawaii. They practiced authentic Hula. And, we never actually met them until the day of the party which, in retrospect, was a bad idea.

So, here I am, 75 friends, family, church people all hanging out at my mom’s house when our exotic hula dancers come marching up the driveway. And, it’s at that point that my sister looks at me and says, “I think your strippers just arrived.”

Oh, friends, it was a fine moment indeed. They came complete with their “bouncer.” I fully expected a “don’t touch the girls” lecture for the kids to take place at any moment. I. could. have. died.

But, they were great with the kids and took pictures with everyone (though none of the moms seemed to want them to pose with their husbands). In fact, once they did their hula, posed for photo ops, and handed out leis (insert inappropriate joke here) I thought we were in the clear. Until, the one on the right exclaimed, “Hey, Ya’ll got a bathroom here? I gotta piss.”

If only I could have scrapbooked that…

For more pics from the past, head over to THAT family’s site for this weeks Fro’ Me To You!

I must admit that upon discovering I was pregnant with Arema Kai I went straight out to Mimi Maternity and spent WAY too much on maternity wear. I loaded up on t-shirts, tanks, jeans, dresses, suits, bras, maternity panties (which, can I just say, I have an unhealthy obsession with). I tried on the belly and longed for the day my belly would match that adorable stuffing filled baby pouch.

I could probably have purchased an Italian crib for what I spent that day in maternity clothes. And, of course, I went right home and started wearing them. At 6 weeks pregnant. It mattered not that I could barely hold them up. Or that I looked absolutely ridiculous. I was pregnant, doggone it, and I would dress the part.

With Ivy, I knew better. In fact, I wore regular non-maternity jeans up until the day she was born. I adapted my regular wardrobe to fit my growing belly and supplemented with just a few maternity pieces that I bought sparingly. I loved my belly and had fun dressing it. Pregnancy #2 I hit my stride.

Which brings us to baby #3. Sweet mercy, how I wanted to avoid wearing maternity clothes early on in this pregnancy. But, bloggy friends, this baby has other plans for my body. I am 8 weeks pregnant and already safety-pinning my jeans. I am stubbornly holding onto these pants. I’m wearing yoga pants and flowing tops and refusing to transition too quickly into the dreaded maternity wear.

In an effort to put it off I did make myself a couple DIY Bella Bands to help my pants stay up. Basically, I just cut a couple of slightly too small stretchy tank tops off at the chest and ta-da! A homemade Bella Band in any color I want thus allowing me to avoid maternity pants and shirts for a while longer.

But, it will happen. Oh, it is inevitable and I know that. But, I will not go into that dark night of maternity wear without a fight. No, I will rage, rage against the dying of the…ah, to heck with it. I think I’m gonna go to Target and buy some stinkin’ maternity clothes already.

Kai: “Can you turn on the Jesus song please?”

Ivy: “Jejus! Jejus!”

Kai: “No, Ivy, it JeSus.”

Ivy: “Jejus!”

Kai: “JeeeeSSSSuuuussss!”

Ivy: “Jeeejjjjuuuusss!”

Kai: “Mom, Ivy’s messing up Jesus’ name!”

My husband is a prince among men. I may have said this before, but, people, it’s true.

I could give you a list a mile long of reasons he is such a good husband. It would be filled with things like, “never comments on how messy the house is” and “dresses like a princess when our girls beg pretty please” but there are other reasons I’m blessed to have him as my partner in crime.

See, Thomas puts up with my ridiculously horrible cooking abilities. He even eats the food I make without letting on about how disgusting it is.

Case in point: I once made Thomas Thousand-Island Chicken. Have you ever heard of it? No? Want to know why? Because it something only a 6 month pregnant woman with no kitchen instincts would make thinking it sounded good.

When I was pregnant with Ivy I decided to make Thomas a special dinner. A dinner made of chicken, rice, and - yep, you guessed it!- Thousand-Island dressing. It was disgusting. I mean, as disgusting as it sounds and then 10 times more disgusting.

But, you know what my husband did? He ate it. And pretended to enjoy it. When I couldn’t stomach a bite of it, he ate it. When I let him off the hook and told him we could go out for dinner, he ate it. Even when I told my mom about it and she went on and on about what a gross concoction is was, he never admitted that it was horrible. He’s a good man that way.

There you have my Total Truth, Folks.

I am a horrible cook with the worst kitchen instincts ever. It’s kind of shocking considering I am the grand-daughter of a baker and the daughter of a woman who can throw together a gourmet meal in minutes. But, I just cannot cook.

I can bake, sure, but since my kids need to eat more than apple pies and cookies for dinner it doesn’t help too much. Still, I’m lucky to be blessed with a man who knows his way around the kitchen and is even willing to plan recipes for me to make during the week. I guess that’s why we make such a good pair…

Kai: “Hey Mom, when we get to the bus stop can you come back here and smell my arm pits? I need to know if they smell good or stinky.”

Gee. I didn’t realize I’d signed up for that duty when I became a mom…

Since I know everyone is dying to know how my resolution to be domestic is coming (note: that’s sarcasm, folks!) I thought I’d share a little about my progress.

For starters, it did get better after that first day. I think I’ve started to adopt a healthier attitude about my housewifely duties. I mean, sure, I don’t love cleaning the toilets. But, I am still finding my mood about such things has improved. Especially since I get to see such a happy and relieved look on my husband’s face when he comes home to a less disastrous domicile.

But, there are a good many things I still need to work on. The whole waking up before the rest of the household and making breakfast resolution lasted exactly one week. And then I quit. For now, I’m blaming it on First Trimester sickness/fatigue. I mean, anyone who has ever been pregnant knows there is nothing worse than touching/smelling/seeing eggs first thing in the morning. Not to mention, that this pregnancy’s defining symptom has been an absolutely incapacitating exhaustion rivaled only by my bout with mono 5 years ago.

That does not make for easy mornings in the kitchen. Actually, it doesn’t make for easy cleaning afternoons either. But, I am determined to prevail!

So, here’s my list of things I have accomplished as a retro housewife:

Completely cleaning and reorganizing my bedroom and closet
Organizing and storing all non-summer season clothes
Cooking meals (almost) every week night
Keeping kitchen and family room clean and organized and chaos-free
Planned a homeschool calendar for all of 2008-2009
Washing my hair/getting dressed in real clothes every.single.day (people this really is an accomplishment so try not to judge me, ‘kay?)

Here’s my list of things I need to work on:

Healthy and nutritional breakfasts for my family
Keeping laundry caught up
Not wasting time during the day
Vacuuming in high heels (’cause I did say I was going to try)
Organizing the sewing/craft area and the dining room
Organizing the laundry room and purging unneeded clothes

I’m sure Thomas could come up with 100 other things I need to work on, but he won’t and that is a big part of why I love him! So, there you have it. The Retro Housewife Challenge is alive and well and improving the quality of life in the Land of Lovings!

Friday marked a big day in our family. It was the day of Kai’s first haircut.

Well, not her first cut. She had a trim once when she managed to get a rubber band completely tangled in her hair a couple years ago. But, this? This was a real big girl haircut.

Let me first say, Kai has some difficult hair. It is coarse and dry and hard to manage. It is curly beyond belief. But, oh how she loves having “falling down”(long) hair and refused to have it cut. Here’s her before pic. Notice the 80s hair band look and the necklaces, bracelets and ring? She’s “dressed up” for her big girl trip to the salon!

After a particularly horrible hair brushing experience (in which she became hysterical and nearly threw-up over having the excruciating torture of having her hair brushed) I decided it was time to cut it short. So, we found a local kid’s hair salon and headed over for some pampering treatment. The hairdresser was a wonderful woman who knew just what to do with japanesecaucasianpuertoricanblack hair. She conditioned it, cut it, and topped the experience off with some stick-on earrings and fairy dust.

Of course, it cost $22 which seemed like a great price until I realized I don’t even pay that for my own hair anymore since I haven’t had a real cut in who knows when. But, nonetheless, I thought it was well worth the money to have a good cut and a very happy little girl!

Still, it got me wondering, what do you do about haircuts? And, how much would you pay for a kid’s cut?

Tonight this baby ran into my room trying to escape a “horrible dream.” She climbed clumsily into my lap and clung to my neck. She whimpered in a sleepy voice and begged me not to make her go back to her bed.

And while I comforted her back to sleep I realized, this baby who used to sleep snuggled along my side, who used to fit so perfectly in my arms as I sang to her, and who would cuddle-cuddle on my lap until she finally drifted away into an unbreakable sleep, this baby who did all of those wonderful things was no longer a baby.

Her lanky four-year-old legs now stretched too far to snuggle comfortably into my lap. Her head rested to high to fit beneath my chin. Her body, having grown so tall this summer, now rested a bit too heavily on my lap for rocking. This baby of mine is no longer a baby.

And, though I knew how big she was getting and how much she was changing, it still saddened me to realize that some day soon she will not fit on my lap. And I just can’t, for the life of me, figure out when this happened? How do these moments slip by so quickly?

For most pics from the past, check out THAT Family’s Fro’ Me To You Carnival!

Yep, you guessed it. We’ve got a bun in the oven!

After two whole weeks of trying (seriously? how fertile can I be?) we managed to get me all knocked up!

So, next March we’ll be adding kiddo #3 to the Loving family. Which is crazy and fun and terrifying and completely awesome!

But, like everything in our life, it is a bit complicated. After an agonizingly horrible delivery experience with our Kai (which is another story for another day) I have no choice but to have C-section deliveries. I know some of you won’t believe me, but, trust me, I have absolutely no choice. This is not an issue of vanity and convenience.

Sooo, we had a switch of insurance after Ivy’s birth and got glorious and wonderful group health through Thomas’ job. But, that job was short lived (it was a tech company that completely closed it’s doors 3 months after hiring him) and we had to go back to independent insurance. Which means, guess what? No maternity coverage whatsoever after having had a C-section. Apparently, needing insurance is one big huge disqualifying factor for insurance companies. God forbid you actually need their services.

And, if your still reading after this long boring story, that translates to absolutely no maternity insurance for us with a $15,000 (or more) C-section on the horizon. But, at the risk of sounding completely naive, I am going to trust that it will work itself out. ‘Cause I know God is in control of these situations and this is a really minor challenge compared to others we could be faced with.

Still, for those of you curious how the whole no-insurance thing will work I’ll be blogging the experience. Look out for some crazy highs and even crazier lows. And, if any of you have any tips or have been through this before I’d love to hear your stories!

So, there you go. My Total Truth Tuesday. Loving baby #3 is on it’s way and we couldn’t be more thrilled!

I feel compelled to clarify that we do have insurance (lest you think my children uninsured) just no maternity insurance…