Merry Christmas Baby!

Facebook removed this video within a few hours of when I posted it there, so hopefully it can stay here! Merry Christmas!

Rebecca meets Mariah

I was looking through all the photos of family meeting Mariah over the last couple months, and I was remembering how much fun we had telling family we were pregnant back in January.
Here was Rebecca's reaction (via video chat):

And here she is meeting Mariah for the very first time in Hawaii last month:

Kauai (pt 2)

  More hiking.

We went to a monastery where we all had to put on sarongs.  My dad's really owning the look here.

We went to a luau, but the only pictures I have of the night are of Mariah's cute face.

 Mariah still rejects pacifiers and is often found with a finger in her mouth.

 

The rest of my family flew back before us, so we spent our last day driving up to the north shore and spending some time in Hanalei.

We stopped at a tasty roadside juice stand for some coconut water.

It was delicious, so we offered some to Mariah but she was like "get that coconut outta my face!"

Leaving the resort...

 Yes, I laughed every time the GPS voice said "turn left onto pee road."

Since I had to sit out some activities with the baby, I feel like I have some unfinished business on that island. Kauai, I will return!

Kauai (pt 1)

So it's kinda hard to hold a baby and be on the laptop at the same time, hence the huge gaps in updates. The last post I did from my phone, but our Thanksgiving pictures from our Hawaii trip with my family are on the computer this time. My goal was to post this within a month of the trip (it's important to have low expectations) so I'm actually a little ahead of schedule.

Well of course we were nervous about the long trip there, not knowing how Mariah would do. She did fantastic. Thanks to some tips from friends, I kept her in the moby all through the airport, and everybody was incredibly nice and patient, especially the TSA people! Airplane ride was like baby heaven. Lots of loud white noise from the plane, she got to be held the entire time, the turbulence did all the rocking, and I let her nurse any time she made a peep.

We had this really cute travel hat that supposedly helps babies sleep while traveling. Well she kinda hated it unless we waited til she was already asleep to put it on. We got a couple cute/funny pictures, and then accidentally left it on the plane :(! argh. 

We arrived there awhile earlier than the rest of my family, so we went to Kalapaki Joes for dinner. One of the waitresses sure loved Mariah. It was the first time a stranger asked to hold her while literally taking my baby out of my arms ("come to grandma baby!"). She was so sweet though, she ended up holding her the whole time so I could eat with two hands!

The next morning we got up early to take a walk on the bluffs and see the sunrise.

It was such a beautiful morning. Sorry to get mushy on you!

 That day we mostly just hung out at the hotel pool. I didn't get nearly as much sun time as I would have liked since my daily task was trying to keep Mariah cool and shaded. I thought the weather felt amazing, but she was pretty sensitive to the heat and sunlight.

The next day we went on a drive to see Waimea Canyon. It was amaaaazing! We went to the lookout site and then did a hike with pretty cool views of the canyon along the way.

 

The hike supposedly led to a waterfall, but it was really more of a small dribble, you may be able to see it in the background over my head.

On Thanksgiving day we went to Poipu Beach. Steph and I surprised my mom and Rebecca with matching sundresses for us all! woo hoo!

 Baby swimsuits kill me.

 Mariah had her first dip in the ocean. She loved it. Just kidding, she cried a little, but I think they were tears of joy.

 Thanksgiving dinner was a little tricky to pull off since groceries were really limited. But we made do. Frozen veggies, storebought rolls, and frozen boneless turkey...but it worked! And it was yummy!