Baby Shower for Kalolaine

Here I am getting measured by Julene. Everyone had to guess how many T.P. squares around I was. Can you guess? Surprisingly enough almost everyone guessed right. OK I was a whopping 11 squares! Does that compare to what you measure? I hope not, if you aren't pregnant that is.
A very good friend of mine who I have know almost my whole life loves to spoil. She gave this rocking horse and the dress below among other things. Siosi goes wild on that horse. The thing makes neighing sounds and moves it's face and tail. Siosi yells at me to turn it on as she rides it. She rides so hard it seems as if she'll do a 360.
I'm going to have Siosi wear this dress for Christmas this year. Kalo will never know...
Here I am opening something...
Here I am thinking about what I opened. Or maybe I was thinking about all those toilet paper squares I was measured with.

These are the braves souls who lasted till the end of the shower. Some had to leave early. What a party! As of today I only have 12 days left till my due date. Hopefully I won't make it. I have officially found a nun costume for Halloween though. At least I have some incentive to not have the baby early. Also, I really would like to go trick or treating this year. It will be Siosi's first time! Who could miss that! The last time I went was with Sarah (girl pictured above to far left holding handsome babe) when we were seniors in high school. It would be nice to freshen up my skills again.

Fall Fun!

Saturday we followed our new tradition of going to the pumpkin patch and going through the corn maze. It was very fun this time since Siosi can walk. She ran like mad through it and ended up very muddy. We got to go on a tractor ride that takes you out to the corn fields and then at the end we got to pick out a pumpkin to take home. They have a little stand where you can pay for your pumpkin or fruit if you like. I ended up having to pay for more than just our pumpkin and indian corn. I found Siosi underneath the table eating an apple she found. So here is the first picture of Joe and Siosi on top of the world...or the haystack anyway.
Siosi on the haystack getting ready to jump. We really missed having Kylie, Peyton, Colton, and Bryce here this year. They had a blast on this haystack last year.
Joe with our pumpkin.
Yes, I'm still pregnant!
We made Siosi wear her halloween costume so we could take our Halloween pictures of her with the pumpkins. She looks a little like a devil but actually that is a lady bug costume!

Siosi with cousin Alyssa.
Oh, what love!

Some random pictures from Lila

Here is Siosi having fun with her cousins at Grandma's house. This was in August I think.

Part of the fun of going to Grandma's is raiding her garden. Siosi loves fruit as you can see.

Here are Eliana, Kenzie, and Siosi enjoying the sun.

Dirty face!
This is Siosi on her first 4th of July.
Here she is sporting her favorite sunglasses on her 2nd 4th of July. This picture was taken at the St. Paul Rodeo.
Getting into her favorite drawer at Grandma's.
Siosi has always been such a religious child! This was taken at Grandma's birthday party in March.

Joe's Birthday! 30!!

Here is ol' Joe making curly fries with Ma Strasser's handy dandy curly fry making drill. For his big one we decided to celebrate carnival style. We invited a bunch of friends over and ate curly fries, hot dogs, and sno cones. We also played volleyball. The kids had fun jumping in Grandma's newest garage sale find... a bouncy house!
Here is Joe passing off some curly fries to Joel. Just look at that smile.
Here is everyone just pigging out.
Siosi enjoying her sno cone. We had to change her clothes half way through the party.
Here she is still clean!

We celebrated his birthday on the day and did the carnival the day after. Here he is just after he blew out all 30 candles. Don't bother counting them because people started removing them before I had a chance to take a picture. Notice our little birthday helper....Eliana! Like I said before, she just loves birthdays and is always ready to help you blow out your candles, just in case. She is already gearing up for her own birthday Jan1 and reminds us of it frequently.
Me, Siosi, and Eliana. Remember that I'm still pregnant, so that is baby you're seeing.
Joe was really excited about the army style birthday decor.
This was our fire. I thought the guys would make an enormous bon fire but this was the best they could do. Really uncharacteristic of them if you ask me. Think about the guys that were there...Cory, Joel, David, Dan, Shawn and some others that demonstrated their fire making abilities on the fourth of July. Yes, it is odd.
For some reason Siosi has a frowny face in all these pictures but normally she is very happy. I'll just take a second and give you updates on her. Siosi is talking pretty well. She is 17 months now and has been speaking in sentences for a couple months. She says things like...Where's daddy? I want...(you fill in the blank). She can say elephant and hippo (We have a zoo book). Actually she can repeat anything you say. She repeats us constantly. She loves her grandma and frequently tells us she wants grandma. Every time we leave grandma's or she leaves our house Siosi throws a big fit and cries for her. Grandma just loves that! We caught Siosi on camara climbing up into her high chair. She is a real acrobat! She adores apples and begs for them all day. When I give her one she'll carry it around gnawing on it till she sees a new one and it looks much more appetizing. She throws the old one and cries for the new one. Oranges are also apples. Some favorite foods besides apples are broccoli, corn, grean beans, and pizza. Siosi loves balls. Whenever we are shopping and she sees a ball she tells me she wants it and has to hold it (or throws it for me to chase after) for the duration of the shopping trip. At Target once I tried to resist giving in to her and we ended up having to leave the store. She cried all the way home, "I want a ball!" It was terrible. Siosi is very good at identifying people in pictures. We have a picture of her with her cousins on our fridge. She loves to point out who Kylie is. She also loves her cousins that live here, Eliana and Kenzie. We are in the same ward and if we don't sit together and she happens to spot one of them across the chapel she shouts their name as loud as she can and screams for them over and over. She gets so excited for them she shakes. It is pretty funny. This happens almost every time we see them. The same reaction! The last thing about Siosi is she loves to pray. She even says prayers on her own. Well not understandable ones but when we say a prayer she folds her arms and starts to mumble in a low tone as if she were praying too. Then at the end she shout, Amen!

Ok, Joe's brother To'a just sent us these two pictures. I thought they were really neat since we have almost zero pictures of family in Tonga. This is Joe's Grandpa Halatoa and Grandma Siosi. They are Joe's mom's parents and Grandma Siosi is who we named our Siosi Leka after! I had never seen a picture of her before. Now we have something to show Siosi Leka when she is older so she knows where her name is from! The kids in the picture are Joe's first cousins but the girl Grandma Siosi is holding is Joe's younger sister, Latu.
This picture has Joe in it. Can you guess where...he is the one on the end with half his body cut off. Apparently the photographer was having some trouble. This is the only picture we have of Joe as a little boy. We have one other one of him when he was about 9 or 10. Doesn't he look like a trouble maker! The other kids are some first cousins.
This is me being pregnant. We hadn't really taken any pictures yet. The date is off. It was actually Oct 7. See the car seat in the background all ready to go! I might not look very big but I was trying to suck in a little. If anyone has any tricks of how to make this baby come out let me know. I only have about three weeks left till the due date, Nov 5, but I would really like to go the standard 2 weeks early if possible.
Here is the bouncy house! We also used it when Kimber and I canned apple pie filling. We brought it in the living room at Grandma's house and let the kids jump in it so we could get things doen. Grandma got some balls for it too. Its like having McDonald's right at home! This is Siosi and Eliana jumping with a friend at the party.