she's 4 years old!!

what dd and i worked on today. i LOVE that the staircase is split and it makes the coolest gallery wall. i saw it on a blog once and wanted to copy it!

looking down from upstairs. i LOVE it!!!

her brand new princess dress, handmade by grammie. she was THRILLED. in fact, i have to bargain with her to take it off.

jamey got a new book, too, in the package!

nora's octopus cake. the frosting looks a little funny, but the kids loved it!

a little birthday party with our sweet friend! after swimming in the pool. we had just gotten out of the pool when it started to POUR. things i never thought i would say: "hurry kids and get under cover. we are going to get wet!!" (mind you, we just got out of the pool.....)

the playground while waiting for daddy's ship to pull in!

how much do i love them??

daddy's ship. can you see daddy? can you see daddy?

a birthday dinner at cpk... gluten free pizza!

he goes to TOWN on his ice cream!

i just love it!

a beautiful rainbow, dinner on the water. not sure i can think of a better night (except maybe if daddy was there...)

but he met us at the beach for fireworks!!

watching fireworks at in waikiki... they do them every friday if you want to come! so beautiful to watch them on the beach... with my husband. nora was thrilled that they had fireworks for her birthday!! she couldn't figure out how they knew!!! (it might ruin it when we go next time and it's not her birthday!)

so, we had our first visitor today... a gecko. he was littler than i thought. i would have taken a picture, but i couldn't get reach my camera from the chair i had scrambled up on! (i really think my brother is going to have to transfer to u of h now!!)

also to note... i have all my suitcases unpacked... and just a few more boxes (mostly sewing stuff and picture albums) left. it feels pretty good. a friend is doing a painting for the living room and then it should be about done.

the other day, nora said that she was so glad daddy was out fighting against the pirates, shooting off his cannonballs...

and as we watched the ship pull in, she said, "look at those heros". it was so sweet. and yes, they are.