too cute

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funny kids

Yesterday Noni (Hiro's three year old cousin) was watching baby while I was doing laundry and I heard Hiro sneeze 2 times. Noni came running for me and proclaimed, "Auntie Colleen, Baby True is blushing!" He is so hilarious. Miguel is so gentle with baby, he stares at him and sings, "twinkle, twinkle Hiro star" What a cute kid.

Here's a pic of Miguel taken about a month ago. He took Uncle Eddie to school and Uncle Ed gave him a moko (traditional Maori tattoo). http://www.tamoko.org.nz/

I am also adding a pic of Auntie Lis and baby True, because he misses her so much.

HIRO Update

All is well in Hiro land. We have been doing very well and Hiro continues to be a deliciously good baby. He is gained quite a lot of weight and we are guessing that he is around 11 pounds. He's grown out of all his newborn clothes and has moved on to 0-3 months. He is sleeping 5 to 6 hours a night and it makes a huge difference in our energy levels.

It snowed the last few days in November and we were housebound. Matt made it to work via the buses but otherwise we hunkered down and waited for it to blow over. Seattle School's closed down for 2 days because the road's turned into pure ice and no one here knows how to drive on them. It's a bit funny to me, growing up in Alaska the only reason the schools shut down was when it was negative 50! Crickey! We took a couple of pictures of baby in the snow but they did not turn out very good. Sorry Auntie Lis!

We are looking forward to Christmas! Auntie Lis, Uncle Eddie, Uncle Howie and Grandma Yvonne get here on the 22nd and the revelry will commence. When we get together we have the most FANTASTIC times and conversation, I can't wait. We (Echohawks) always go a little overboard on presents and we are trying to hold back. We will have lots of pictures and maybe video to put on the blog.

Take care everyone and Merry Christmas.

He Smiles

Baby True is a smiling happy boy. As you can see from the picture he recognizes mom and dad with big smiles. He is ridiculously cute. He had a well child visit today and is now 9 pounds 2 ounces and is in the 25th percentile for growth, which according to the Dr. is great considering he was 3 weeks early. He got his Hep B shot and cried for about 15 seconds and then fell asleep immediately! That's an Echohawk trait - if stressed, sleep.

Thanksgiving was great. We had around 20 people over. I ended up roasting and smoking the turkey. Matt had to take my cousin, Danger to the ER, he has this nasty flu and had gotten dehydrated. So I smoked, cleaned, fed baby and mashed 5 pounds of potatoes (which by the way were pretty good, I was thinking about doing something fancy like adding garlic, parsley or cheeses but decided to stick to 2 sticks of butter and about a cup of heavy whipping cream.) Both Turkeys were proclaimed delicious but I think the roasted turkey was a little better. Because of my poor smoking skills the smoked turkey was a little dry.

I forgot to take pictures while everyone was at the house. I did take a pic of the table before the hoards descended. Marisa and Galen set and decorated the table,
i thought it turned out really pretty.

Colleen

Camoflauge Baby on the eve of T day

Auntie Lala bought this way cute outfit. Baby True loves it. We took Baby to the doctor today and he weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces. We were a little worried that he wasn't getting enough to eat. According to the Dr. his growth is excellent and we have nothing to worry about.

Tommorow is Thanksgiving and we are having around 16 people to the house. matt and I are having a competition on who's turkey will be best. I will do the Martha Stewart roasted turkey with herb infusion/whitewine butter bastings. Matt will put his smoker to good use. Last year mine was the best but Matt has smoked some EXCELLENT chicken recently. Our friend Ammie can't get enough of it. We will report on the turkey cook off in a future post.

Baby True takes a bath

AUNTIES are cool!

Baby True is very blessed to have a wonderful assortment of gorgeous aunties. Here are some pictures of Auntie Lala, Lis and Courteny. Enjoy!

Grandma and Grandpa Glen + Uncle Timmy and Auntie Tina

The Hawaii grandparents just left to Canada to see Everett. We all got a nasty cold's but otherwise had an AMAZING visit. Baby True loves all the attention and Mom and Dad enjoyed all the help around the house. Grandma organized all the baby clothes and Grandpa Glen did acres and acres of laundry.

We were also blessed to get to spend time with Matt's brother and fiancee (Congratulations!) Tim and Tina. We had so much fun just hanging out. Josh and Charity also came down and hung out for a couple of days. It was fun and we wish we could see more of them.

Auntie Nancy also was here from California and brought Obachan to here new home.

Here are a few pictures.

new pictures

Aunt Suzie and Uncle Merle

Aunt Suzie and Uncle Merle came to visit the new baby (and the favorite nieces). Baby True was excited to receive more important visitors especially when they brought him presents. Baby can't wait to get big enough to fit into the super cute denim overalls. Until then he will make do with this outfit!

Pictures!

Gotta keep the grandparents happy.

Miguel's Birthday - 6 years old!

Auntie Lis and Uncle Eddie flew in from Scotland to suprise us. We are having a great time with them and had a fun birthday party at Chris and Abi's new house. Enjoy the
pictures.

Cousins

Baby True has already gotten to hang with his cousins. They have been very gentle with the baby.

More Pictures

Baby True - pictures

Finally, some pictures. Hiroshi Truth Echohawk-Hayashi was born on Oct. 13. We will chronicle the birth in a future post. Until then enjoy the pictures. These pictures were taken while still in the operating room - minutes old!

We are working on it!

We are trying to figure out how to post pictures and get ready to share with you all the wonders of our soon to arive baby, informally known as, "The Chosen One".
Get ready!

the lesser half

It's not easy being useless. Colleen is going through some amazingly invasive changes; physically and emotionally. I'm really anxious about the pending arrival of the chosen one too, but I don't think my reality shift really compares to she who is with child. It's difficult to just be there. I can't fix anything really, I can barely make her more comfortable. It's not an equitable break down of prenatal responsibilities, that's for sure.

I'm really blessed Colleen is so nice. If it was me, I'd probably be a hater.

Sneezes

I am half-way through my 5th month of pregnancy and am feeling pretty good. I am sleeping well, loads of energy and am feeling the happy movements of our little boy. My one big "complaint" is that I have fallen victim to violent, body shaking sneezes. It's the weirdest thing. I feel great otherwise. I don't have a cold or other allergic reactions, just these crazy sneezing sessions. I don't know what the reason is for this although babycenter.com says this is a common problem pregnant women have. There are so many things that I didn't expect! I suppose this is just the beginning of the unexpected....

First Post

We have been inspired by Josh, Charity and Everett's wonderful blog. It's been great fun to see how quickly baby Everett is growing and read how the baby experince is for Josh and Charity. So, we are going to give it a try. We will post mostly about baby happenings but also about our church community the Ohana Project and our musings about life and our wonderful extended family. We will also keep you updated on some of the books that we are reading and podcasts that we have found especially good.

Much Aloha,

Colleen