Easter Excitement

Today we celebrated Easter for Kono. It was not anything extravagant, but exciting enough for this 4 year old. He is cooperating for me to take a picture because this is right before his hunt for the plastic candy- filled eggs.

Of course I can't help but take pictures. He has only found one egg and I stop him for another picture, how silly of me. Well, at least I can since he does not have any competition (I wished he could have went on a hunt with his cousins.)

As for Kaipo, he is just enjoying being outside (he loves it) and getting kisses from his momma.

The boys together after Kono was pretty much done with the hunt. Notice that I cannot get their attention.

We did things backwards. Kono dyed eggs afterwards. I used a recipe for the dye. I am not trying this again. I'm sticking to the tablets from now on. It was messy and it would have been so easy and fast if I had just bought one of those Paas easter egg kits.

Kono did most of the work and loved it. He did end up with some bright eggs.

As for this little guy, besides watching General Conference with his parents he.....

FINALLY CRAWLED on all fours today! Horray! Last week he was doing the army crawl (with his belly still on the floor but definitely getting around).

This morning he also woke up with a top tooth breaking though his gums. No wonder he has been fussy every single night with last night being the worst (well I ever get a clue!?) Well he showed no sign of a tooth until today (I know it wasn't there yesterday).

And lastly, I would like to share an Easter message with you by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I watched this last year and loved it. He is such a powerful and great speaker.I am extremely grateful for the reality of the free gift of the resurrection which will be given to all through our Savior. Please watch this video. Click on it for better view. And thanks for the idea Tara. :)

9 Months Old

This little cutie pie is now 9 months old. It some ways it has gone by so fast and in other ways it feels so slow. Why? Probably for the fact that he is one high maintenance baby who always has to have mommy around entertaining him or carrying him around. I try my best to give him as much "floor time" as I can but he still is not crawling! He does get around somehow though. I will put him in one spot and the next thing you know, he will be in a whole different area. He attempts to crawl, he's getting there slowly but surely.
Other things that he does/loves:

• Has developed the pincer grasp quite good. He started that when he turned 8 months. I love to see him picking up tiny things like those little puffed baby snacks with those cute little hands of his.
  
• Pulls himself to a standing position (a little late on that too, but oh well)
• Is starting to refuse his baby food and does anything to get some "real" food. This morning he ate my blueberries from my oatmeal and loved it. I feed him foods that are more solid (like pasta) rather than pureed sometimes and he loves it
  
• Knows his name well even if it is someone he does not really know who is saying his name.
• Understands things more for example, if I say "Clap hands" without doing any motion, he will start clapping his hands.
• He loves balls. It is one of his favorite things besides my phone and magnifying mirror (those are his ultimate favorite, he will choose them over any toy)
• Is wearing Kono's year old clothes (has been fitting some 12 month clothes for several months now)
• Knows what he likes and doesn't like. You don't wanna make this boy upset.
• Has said "Momma" a few times.
• Loves playing with and being around Kono and vice versa. I love the bond they have. It is one of the greatest things to see.
• He can be loud when he is so excited. The squeals and other noises he makes are so funny to hear.
• Turns around to get an object.
• Sucks his toes (he has been putting his toes in his mouth for months now).
• Roll over repeatedly (have to be very careful on king sized beds even).
• Goes from a lying to sitting position (sometimes with the help a a pillow).
  

Ok, that's enough for now, you get the idea. And now for more cute pictures from the past month in no particular order:

Looking cute in Kono's old baby clothes.

Such a big boy!

Two handsome fellas

So sweet looking

Trying on Kono's mask

Such a cutie

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.