Costume Fanatic

I have been really bad at posting lately. I can't believe I only did one post in March so far! It's not that I don't want to, I just rarely can find the time to blog and last week we were on "Spring Break". Anyway, the day before we left up to UT, Granite came back from a training he had in Phoenix and surprised Kono with this:


A Flash costume! Kono was stoked. Before Granite left for the training, Kono got in trouble for some reason and Granite got upset at him. Later, he apologized to him and told him he would get him a present if he was good while Daddy was away. Kono requested a Flash costume. While he was gone, Kono prayed he would get the Flash costume. :) I thought, "Oh dear, this is not going to be an answered prayer, it is not Halloween season". I looked it up on the internet and found a year-round costume store and gave Granite the address. So anyway, sorry for the details, this is just something I'd like Kono to read when he gets older.

As happy as can be! The good thing about purchasing costumes is that Granite and I know our money will not be wasted on costumes. He wears costumes EVERYDAY! I am not kidding you. No need for clothes with this boy. He would even wear it in public if he were allowed to. One cute thing he does is that if any visitor comes over, he will quickly change into a costume if he isn't in one already just to show that person. He loves the attention he gets. :)

Fast hands!

His pose cracks me up

That night, he layed out all his costumes and showed me them (It's a good thing I cleaned his room finally!). I just had to take a picture of him by all his costumes.

In one of his Batman pjs

In his Superman pj's (thanks Pebbles) and Daddy's childhood cape.

Another thing that makes us laugh and what I think is SO cute is that every single time we go to his cousins' house (The Reyes') he will dig in their costume bin and try on as many costumes as he can. Here he is in a Knight costume without the helmet, shield and sword.

This picture was taken while we were there. Notice that Kono is the only child with a costume on. He is a costume lover alright. By the way, this is a historic picture, my Mom is with all her grandkids here, 9 boys and 3 girls!! My sister Michele just had a girl two days before this picture. :) Another girl finally! It has been 5 years since a girl has been added to the family.

This boy will never tire of costumes. I like that it encourages imaginative play and makes great pictures. He wants costumes of all sorts. He even wouldn't mind having the bad guy costumes like the Joker and Green Goblin. During Christmas, he wanted an Elf costume (after watching the movie Elf). How funny!! Granite would never approve of that. I love my Kono, he is such a fun imaginative boy.

My Dad

I was wanting to make a post about my dad on the 15th of January. That was the day he lost his battle to esophageal cancer six years ago. My scanner had not been working for about a whole year. I was bummed about it since it was a fairly new one and I hardly used it. More importantly, I could not scan photos to put on my computer. I felt that I should try just one more time and to my great surprise, I figured out how to make it work again! It was such a coincidence that it happened the night before my Dad's birthday. Joel August Ludlam was born on March 7, 1948 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Merchantville and Sweetwater, New Jersey.
He graduated from Merchantville High School in 1966, and was a member of their state championship basketball for four years. He attended Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as a Pre-Med Student, and graduated in 1970. He then attended the Pennsylvania College of Optometry, graduating in 1974. He interned at the State University of New York in Manhattan, and later received his pharmaceutical certification from Pacific University. He completed his residency as Chief of Eyecare Services at Shiprock Hospital in Shiprock, NM in 1979. He served at professor of Public and Community Health at Ferris State University in Michigan, before returning to Arizona in 1980 to establish his practice. Soon afterwards, he and my mother met and got married in 1981. My Dad has practiced optometry on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, as well as Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tucson, Sun City, Scottsdale, Kingman and Lake Havasu City.

This is his high school graduation picture. I think he really looks like my brother Jeremiah in this picture.

I believe this is another senior portrait of him.

And this picture was taken when he was baptized in Shiprock, NM.

This is a portrait of him for his profession.

And this is a picture of us dancing for our daughter-father dance on my wedding day in November of 2003. We were both very happy that he able to make it. He died about 6 weeks later.
These are just a few pictures that I wanted to share. I miss my Dad so very much. We all do. It was such an unfortunate thing for him to leave this Earth and us at a "young" age but I am so grateful for the times we shared and all the things he taught me, gave me, and made possible for me. He was such a thoughtful person who loved to help others and cared much for the Earth, plants, animals, you name it. He loved anything to do with nature like gardening and deep sea fishing. He also loved to golf and to travel. He was quite interesting, always had much to say and knew so much about many things. He was a smart eye doctor and did so well in his profession.
He was loved by so many and vice versa. He was a great man indeed.

8 month mark

This little happy guy sitting in front of his brother is now 8 months old. Yep, happy although he is still getting over his cold. It was our first experience of having two very sick kids at the same time. It has been rough but it makes me extra grateful when they are healthy. Thank goodness it is almost done with. Anyway, back to my post. Kaipo is such a joy to our family. He still is not crawling yet, unfortunately. Or maybe it's a good thing he isn't. Once he starts, he will be getting into everything (which really doesn't make a difference with his tornado brother) but the main thing I dread is him being more prone to picking up germs.
Kono didn't crawl until he was nine months and neither did he start walking until he was 14 months but the cool thing is that he is very fast, coordinated and athletic now. So I have hope for Kaipo. All he does is kind of scoot around and attempt to grab things out of reach.

He did learn to clap yesterday. He likes to try to talk and his favorite thing to say is "Da-da". He gets so excited when he sees his daddy. He also loves to pound things and has two teeth now. He knows how to give fives and shakes his head no.

Newborn Photos of Kaipo

Here are the newborn photos that my sister Michele took when Kaipo was 4 days old. I was so grateful that she took the time to haul down her 3 boys 7+ hours away to take these pics in our home. If we waited until we went up north two weeks after he was born, he would have been already big with different looks and not able to hold the newborn positions.


In Daddy's hands. I think this pose is so cute. Michele had taken a newborn photo like this before and I really liked it.

Now this pose was harder to achieve than the looks of it. Celeste and I had to carefully lift up both ends of the piece of material without him being disturbed and falling out or losing the position he was in. Seven pounds felt a little bit heavy for the first time. Don't you just love this one? Michele did such a great job with this idea.



This one (and the one below) was another hard pose to hold. He felt heavy here again because I had to make sure he was didn't lose his position and be aware if he were to get scared and throw his arms up and plop out of my hands.
I can't believe how tiny he was.
I just love the next few pics of the boys together. It was a surprise to me, I didn't watch this part of the session. Actually, the majority of the session I didn't watch, only a few of the shots plus the ones where I am in the pics obviously.
Awww, already adoring each other.
I love it when babies yawn.

He was already smiling good from a few days old. His first smile was a day old.

Look at that big smile!
I really regret not getting his foot prints soon after he was born. I finally did do them when he was 11 days old. I love pics of babies' hands and feet. Look, he is already doing his scrunched feet thing.
Look at all that hair on his head. Who would have guessed that he is my baby! :)
I guess his lips give it away. I LOVE this pic! So precious!



Simply adorable!!! How happy I am to have these newborn photos of my baby Kaipo. I can't thank my sister Michele enough. Well, sisters is what I should say. It wouldn't have been possible without Celeste's help.

Brotherly Love

Here are just some recent pics of the boys together. This post is to show their love for each other. Enjoy :)

Like I've said before, they love taking baths together.
Kono likes to push his brother in the stroller. They are so cute!

Kono often says "Mommy, put Kaipo on my chest!" They love to play as if they are wrestling...

..even if that means it gets a little rough. (Nah, Kaipo doesn't hurt his brother).
Kono is so funny, he really wants Kaipo to get started early on becoming obsessed with super heroes. He put the Batman mask on Kaipo. Isn't he so cute!?
He even included the cape. I just love this picture. They are always laughing together.
I was going shi-shi to be blunt with ya (sorry if that's too much info but that explains why I left Kaipo alone with Kono) and when I came back to the room he was holding his brother. Kono said his brother almost fell off the bed so he grabbed him. Such a good brother! :)
Here they are all dressed up for church on Valentine's day. They truly are my sweethearts.

How handsome they look!
Kono always does something silly with his brother. I came into the the living room and saw them both in masks. Kaipo goes along with whatever gets put on him and doesn't cry. One time he was layered with about 3 masks! Crazy Kono!

Kono Kono, he will never tire of wearing his Spidy costumes or any costume for that matter!This is the first time I caught Kono putting a mask on his little brother (Kaipo was about 4 months old). It really made Granite & I laugh. Granite came home from lunch and Kaipo had a mask on. Awww, the joys and laughter of being a mother to these precious boys :)

Kono loves puzzles

I was so proud of Kono when he did this 24 piece puzzle two weeks ago all by himself! I had only done it once with him. A couple of days later, he took it out and did not ask for help. Before I knew it, it was complete and Granite wasn't even home so I know he didn't ask him for help either. Good job Kono! :)