Ahhhh....!

I am finally breathing a sigh of relief for several reasons. Number one is that Siosi only had one accident today! I have just been putting her in training underwear except when she is sleeping and today I saw the fruits of my labor! Only one accident! We have a sticker chart for her in the bathroom that is really motivating. She loves the stickers so much that she can't concentrate sometimes on actually earning them. She just wants to admire them and play with them. We have one sticker that is a cell phone and when she chose that one (her first choice!) she put her head to the chart and said,"Hello?"

The other relief is that Kalo is sleeping through the night for the most part. I have had almost three nights of sleep now! Its amazing how different you feel when you sleep.

Lastly, Christmas is over! I love Christmas but it seems to have gone on forever this year. Maybe thats because Siosi constantly tears everything off our tree and drags it all over the house. I am eager to take the thing down and burn it! I'm just waiting for some help from Joe. We had fun this Christmas with Siosi. She got her first baby doll in the hopes of her expending all her curiosity on the doll rather than Kalo. As you can see from the picture, Kalo goes through a lot of torture! Joe and I got each other the same gift. A magellan. We need it for Joe's job and it is a tax write off for us. You know what they say..."Great minds think alike!" I got a better deal on mine so we took Joe's back. Another exciting purchase that we made (not for Christmas) was a treadmill. I have gained an exceeding amount of weight and although Joe is striving to be like Nephi, he decided not to take it too far in being "large in stature." We looked at the prices of a local gym and decided our best option would be to purchase a treadmill. I can't really get out with two kids now and the weather here is not very motivating half the year. Hopefully it will prove to be a good investment. One of my dreams has always been to have an exercise room in the house. Maybe one day when we become disgustingly wealthy we'll have it and now we are just one step ahead!


Siosi's present from Grandma...A magical bus (she thinks its magical. She was trying to ride in it but didn't realize she doesn't fit!)
The Sunday before Christmas:

Here is Kalo in her Christmas dress! We couldn't get Siosi to stand still. She always walks toward the camera when we try to take pictures of her.

Siosi is always so loving with Kalo!

Christmas Parties!

We had our traditional family Christmas party on Monday. It wasn't the same somehow with Vanessa's family gone. We played games, sang songs,ate and ate and ate. Then Santa came and gave his fun little gifts. All the kids were scared of Santa except... Kalo!
Grandma and Grandpa gave all the girls matching P.J.'s. All the older kids anyway.
Here is Kalo at our ward Christmas party. This is the real Santa!
Siosi was so terrified that Joe had to go up with her. I'm sure he really enjoyed sitting on Santa's lap though.

Jingle Bells

With the new baby being born, I've had some pretty hectic days. Yesterday as I was changing another one of Kalo's famous exploding diapers, I was inspired to write this little ditty to the tune of "Jingle Bells." I'm sure all you moms out there will feel me on this one!! You can listen to the low budget music video of it below.

Dashing through the stores,

Kids screaming in my face,

Can't this Wal Mart checker,

Quicken up the pace?

There's so much to do,

Don't have time to pee,

Why does Christmas shopping,

Always fall to me?

Oh, runny nose, stinky toes,

There's laundry I can't play!

I've been changing diapers all throughout the day...

Stinky one, yellow ones, wet ones ho ho ho,

I'm so jolly happy,

Oh mothers don't you know!

Here is Joe working hard for the money. We have decided to take a change in the direction of our business. Instead of only doing concrete and masonry work, we (Joe) will be installing sunrooms for rich people! Should be great! We are hoping that this will help us become disgustingly wealthy.
Joe and I like to go to watch my brothers Dan and Shawn "wrastle" Here is Daniel dominating his match!
We didn't have seats...

Christmas at the Capitol

We took the kids to the state capitol this week to hear the high school choirs sing. The acoustics are great there! We enjoyed seeing the decorations!

I wasn't supposed to be in this one. It should have been just a floating baby. Oh well.

HA HA HA HA HA!!

I just was at Kimber's blog and saw her elf dance so she gets all the credit for this. It was so hilarious I had to get in on the action. Check this out. Very funny. Once again, Joe is the most entertaining dancer of all of us!
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1220491920

The Puzzle Master

In between tearing up the house and tormenting Kalo, Siosi has found a new love...puzzles! She only has one so far which was given to her at the baby shower, but she loves it.

Kenzie's Birthday

Monday was our niece Kenzie's first birthday! Here are some fun photos Lila took. Kalo! She looks like her sister in that photo.
Eliana, Alyssa, and Siosi playing the the bedroom. Where is the birthday girl?
It was a team effort to get those presents opened!
Birthday girl!
Kimber made a very fancy cake. Looked like a circus clown cake!

These pictures are totally out of order! I'm not a blogger expert yet so I can never figure out how to rearrange things once I get them on here. We just finished with a very busy week. Family came from Idaho and California for Thanksgiving. We had everyone here except Vanessa and her family. As carrying on with tradition (and keeping up with the Strasser family eating habits!) we had plenty of pies. I took a picture for proof. This year there were about 24 pies all in all. There are only 20 pictured here due to some early eaters. I was planning to make a traditional Tongan dessert but Joe says they don't have any! I still don't believe it so if any Utaatu family knows of a Tongan dessert or even one that we can pass as a Tongan dessert, please let me know! Once the crowd went home we got our Christmas tree. I really wanted something other than a Douglas Fir so we paid the big bucks and got this one. It cost us an arm and a leg despite it's small stature. Siosi had great fun helping us decorate it. She continues to decorate it and undecorate it all day long. This is going to be a problem for me!

For those who don't know Siosi is old enough for nursery now! Actually she just turned 19 months. The other day I was driving to an appointment and heard her singing in the back the nursery's clean up song. Now when we try to get her to clean up her toys we sing the song with her. She thinks its great fun.

Kalo is almost done peeling. It will be nice to have a baby with nice baby skin. She is always very hungry. I have to feed her all day. Her doctor told me to supplement with formula. She still eats all day! I'm hoping this is just a phase. Siosi loves Kalo. She tries to comfort her when she cries and is a great big sister. I just have to make sure she doesn't smash her head when she is kissing her! Kalo is smiling! She has such an angelic smile!

Joe is working hard at his job. We keep having more and more jobs come in despite the time of year! We know we are being blessed! We are trying to get enough money to get ourselves to Tonga to visit our family there.

Siosi was a bit scared. Not like her rocking horse at home!

Bath Time!

This is Kalo's first bath! I waited till her cord fell off so I could give her a real bath. These are the after bath pictures. Doesn't she look dashing in red?

Here is Siosi all ready to go to Grandma's house. I had been looking everywhere for these plastic boots so she could play outside and finally found some in her size!

Kalo out of focus.
These pictures are out of order. Sorry! Here is Kalo getting her bath. Her skin is peeling so bad that the water was pretty nasty looking when I was done bathing her.

I copied these pictures from my mom's camera. So here we have Joe with Kalo. Obviously the dates are all wrong! I had to put these pictures on too so I could copy them onto my computer.



The whole crew at the hospital. These are my brothers with their wives and children. Except Shawn. Luckily he isn't married.
Siosi at Grandma's with cousins Eliana and Kenzie
Painting pumpkins for Halloween at Grandma's.
Grandpa showed the girls how to paint their toes! What a mess!