a day in the life...

6something... hear aveda and walk out in some groggy state sit on the couch to cuddle & nurse...
back to bed

7ish: hear tagen hit the wall - for whatever reason he does this every morning as he wakes up - then climbs out of bed with his 2 blankies, sippie cup, and book or toy in hand saying 'mommy, my awake... my awake mommy" the whole way walking from his room into ours. climbs in bed with us until he hears aveda wake up which then makes him say "Beyda aWAKE mama!" So he jumps out of bed and runs out to welcome her into the new glorious day. How is has so much energy first thing in the morning is beyond me.

7-8: breakfast and curious george cartoon... mom and dad drink coffee

8 to ? change diapers, playdough session, painting, playing reading, jumping, running inside/outside, tagen and aveda loving and fighting

10: aveda takes a little cat nap, Tagen watches his favorite show: Caillou. Mom and Dad look online for a battery charger to a Power Wheels mom scored from our field trip to the thrift store yesterday. It's a little power wheels race car that costs $250 brand new and I found it for $7! just need a stinking charger so it actually moves again. even so the kids have had great fun with it already.

11: mom makes a picnic lunch for the kids to eat outside under the avocado tree. kids play outside in the sprinkler and kiddie pool

11:30 aveda grinds more food than tagen and mom combined!

12:30-1: for some odd reason the kids LOVE to play on mom and dad's bed. i think they could hang out there all day probably. they wrestled and played forever up there laughing, giggling, & kung fu flighting...

1ish-3: NAPS for both kids. It is my goal every day to make sure these two kids take a nap at the same time. it happened today!
Mom packed food into mini cooler thing, cleaned up, took cat nap - oh how i love to nap!

3:30 Whole family heads off to Pikalas (Beach) with another family and their kids...

4:30 Dad takes tagen way out in the ocean to go surfing. It's his 2nd real surf session with daddy and he's loving it! They catch lots of ways and ride soooo far in. amazing!
Lots of sandy buns, swimming in the warm water and eating food... unless you're aveda. then you're eating lots of sand too.

6:30 the sun is starting to go down and since this is a beach you kinda hike into we have to start walking back to the car.

6:45 McDonalds ice cream sundae on the way home

7pm bath time, wild hyperness after baths, reading books together

7:30pm nigh-nigh beyda (she's starting to say "ny ny" and blowing a kiss)

7:45pm nigh-nigh tagen

now here i sit writing this... nigh nigh!

been a while...

So it's been a while since writing on this blog page... the biggest thing that's happened was going back to santa barbara for a couple weeks. Just me and kids along with a good friend of mine here and her kids. Somehow our husbands opted out of the whole flying with a 1,2,3 and 4 year old (ages of all our kids at the time) - who could blame em? It is indeed pretty crazy flying with two little ones. But by the grace of God we made it not only there, but back here too and we had a awesome worthwhile time going back to a town full of so many memories for us. It was wonderful to see old friends and just to get of the rock (aka Kauai) for a little while. Coming home was good too - it actually felt like we were coming "home" instead of just this cool place to vacation that has always seemed beautiful but still foreign in a sense to me. I guess after a year of living here some roots having grown deep into this place. More than that is the people I've been graced to meet and walk some of life with together. So anyways, it is good to be home again.

because things like this are a BIG change in our household...

So a little less than a week ago our son, Tagen Train, finally figured out how to crawl out of his crib. I'm actually suprised he never attempted it prior to this but we were able to keep him in it for just over 2 and 1/2 years of his life. And isn't it funny that until things like this change you don't really appreciate how wonderful it is that your two year is going to be in the same place you put him down to take a nap or go to sleep at night. He doesn't really have any other option. Now, however, we have entered a new season.
So the day he figured it out it was of course about 10 minutes before he was supposed to take a nap. I decided I had to put him down in his toddler bed for his nap. When I went in to check on him, he had crawled back into his crib to take his nap. Then when he deemed nap time was done, he crawled out, walked out into the living room like a member of the navy seal (ie: i didn't hear him coming) and walked right up behind me and said, "hi mom!" Oh, you should've seen the look on his face (and mine)... I wish I captured that on the camera... He was so proud of himself and I almost had a heart-attack.
Since then some naptimes and bedtimes have been harder than others getting him to stay put and not leave his room as he sees fit...
But even so, we are proud of Tagen Train and as we know our little boy is growing up to be a bigger boy in so many ways... this change just sticks out as a bigger one than others.

Little Miss AVM

Dear Little Miss Aveda Violet,

You are now officially a one year old. Incredible. It seems your first year of life has flown like the speed of light and yet there are moments throughout this one year you've lived where time seemed to stand still. I remember clear as day your entrance into this world and your very first days of life... we were privileged to stay at Goleta Valley Hospital for a few days where the AC was so refreshing we didn't want to leave! (You were born on a VERY hot summer day)

I remember the very first time your big brother met you and gave you a kiss welcoming you into our family. I remember sleeping on the couch with you for weeks as we were busy emptying our house of all furniture so we could move from Santa Barbara to Hawaii and how I would swaddle your tiny body up in your peach blankie making you look like the cutest little pea pod I'd ever seen. I remember the feeling of your thick silky black hair and your perfect mini eyebrows... your pinkie toenail that was as teeny as a mustard seed...

You are a smart little monkey girl... you learn so quickly. I was so excited when you learned how to sit up by yourself around 6 months of age. You were so excited too seeing the whole world from a new angle. This lasted only about a week because then you learned to crawl. Once you had that figured out nothing held you back from exploring every nook & cranny of our house. I definitely found more things in your mouth than I ever would have in Tagen's at your age. Mostly because your older brother would graciously "share" whatever he saw as good for "beyda" (as he calls you). By God's grace you never had too bad of a choking episode. thank You Lord! Anyways, by 10 months or so you started taking steps and in a flash you were walking! You watch and study all that your brother does and learn from him daily. He is a very good big brother to you and loves you so much. As you are getting older you two are playing together and cracking each other up more than ever before. You wrestle and roll and around and I'm thoroughly impressed with how you hold your own. You are a tough cookie AVM. We know when you are really truly hurt because only then do you really cry. Things that I think would hurt you... you just stand up and shake it off.



It seems you've been a water baby from day 1... or day 5 or whatever day that was when we gave you your first bath at home. You liked it then and you LOVE going to the beach and playing in the ocean here now. Even when we just have the little pool filled up in our back yard you hop on in giving no thought to whether you have clothes on or not. Maybe you'll be a lover of surfing just like your daddy...
It's a mystery to me how a little person's personality emerges but we have seen yours unfolding rapidly especially these past few months. You make us laugh hard just like your brother does and yet at the same time we call you our "serious one"... you would win at any staring contest. You are strong little one. In both the physical and the mental. We can see that you will be a leader, not a follower. We are praying for you continually, little one, that you will love Jesus above all else the world has to offer. For in Him you will be content and experience life abundant. And in Him, lead many to Grace & Truth.

We love you little miss and thank Jesus you are ours.

AVEDA TURNED ONE!

our little Aveda Violet Maligro turned ONE Wednesday July 25, 2007... how this whole year flew by so quickly is a mystery. Here's some video of a little party we had celebrating our little luv bug.

day 3 of mission bye-bye binkie

So three days ago we went for a walk down the road to feed the goats. Typical day... beautiful blue sky... nothing seemed out of the ordinary. However, while we were feeding the goats I believe Tagen, at some point, must have chucked his beloved binkie and munch munch (goats eat anything) bye-bye binkie. He didn't seem phased by this... or maybe he didn't see it happen. On the walk home he asked for his binkie and I searched and searched and alas, no binkie to be found. We even walked back to the goats and it was gone. At first, not too big a deal but come nap time... very big deal. We decided this would be the day Tagen would have to give up his binkie for good. A big transition for a little guy. A piece of growing up - even sad for mama realizing her first baby is no longer a baby. Anyways, long story shorter... Tagen gave his binkie to the goats because baby goat needed a new binkie (or so we've told him) and in return the goats gave Tagen a new Buz Lightyear toy. So just remember, when you give up this:



you get this:


(why the picture turned out sideways is beyond me... you get the idea though)

Not a bad trade huh?
Tagen would probably beg to differ but he's getting through it.

Aveda Violet is walking!

so you can see it with your own eyes - she's walking! for whatever reason she loved walking around with this Superman ball today. Maybe it gave her added superhero power to walk. She's a little unstable still and crawls a LOT faster than she walks but knowing how this girl works so far it seems that once she figures something out she masters it pretty quickly just like her daddy. So she's about 10 and 1/2 months old now, loves to wrestle with her brother. For some reason they LOVE to do this on mommy and daddy's bed. Throw them up there and they both get wild and can't stop laughing. Lately Tagen's been playing "pretend" a lot more which is so awesome and see his imagination grow and grow. He wants to be a firefighter and a superhero... maybe a superhero firefighter when he grows up. And he told me today that mommy will drive his fire truck. hmmm.

It's obvious this kid has parents who drink coffee every... single... morning.... as he's playing pretend and pouring drinks in the bath for aveda and says, "Here Bayda. coffee!"

more maligros videos...

these are some older videos i came across... mostly of tagen and his buddy josiah and a funny one of Tagen's first experience eating corn on the cob - this is definitely one of his favorite things to eat.

videooooos

ok so it's kind of pixelated but it's the best i could figure out for right now!

This picture says it all

Tagen found these pink and green goggles at the beach last weekend and has worn them ever since. He would probably even sleep with them on if we let him. It is the funniest ever watching him run around with them on... usually lop-sided but he's actually getting pretty good at putting them on by himself ("My Try!" is the latest phrase we hear 100 times a day) and getting them to go on at least one eye correctly. There's a crab and a seahorse on them too but he calls the seahorse a sea cucumber because we always find sea cucumbers at the beach here and he's never seen a seahorse before. I love the way this little mind works.

a good morning even at 6:30am

So Tagen woke up this morning at 6:30am. That's been the average wake up time in our household lately. Despite what I keep telling them, kid A or kid B decides this is a good time to get up in the morning. One or the other is my alarm clock every morning. Usually I wake up pretty groggy, stumbling toward the crib. This morning Kyle went and got Tagen and brought him back to lie in bed with us. A few minutes later Aveda woke up and so he went and got her too and brought her back in bed. So it's me, Aveda, Tagen and Kyle all squished into our queen size bed (and one wiener dog somewhere under the covers). I began to nurse Aveda and the sweetest, cutest thing ever Tagen did of his own accord. He was look down at Aveda and just started gently petting her head and whispering, "hi beyda.... hiiyyyy beyda." Every so often Aveda would stop look up at him and smile real big. So even though it was about 3 hours earlier than I really wanted to be waking up it was well worth seeing this gem of a moment. Tagen is such a good big brother and loves his little sis so much. The love is mutual seeing how much Aveda adores him as well.

Aveda Violet's 7 1/2 month birthday!

20 things I love about you, Aveda Violet Maligro (this was supposed to be in honor of your 6 month birthday which was jan.25… and at the time you weighed in at 17 pounds 14 ounces; measuring 27! But now it’s march so let’s call it your 7 and 1/2 month birthdays because really – how many people do you know get honored for that?! So, 1-12 are when you were 6 months and the rest I wrote today)
1. The way you crawl around like a caterpillar except for some reason you go everywhere backwards. You’ve also figured out how to spin in circles so I place toys in a circle all around you and you’ll spin from toy to toy.
2. The way you’ve mastered this fake cough/cry thing if you want attention or to be picked up.
3. Your baby chub – I love to touch it, sqeeze it, hug it and kiss it and I love your earlobes too – weird? – ok yes but they are like velvet!
4. How happy you are after you wake up. Huge grins and happy squirms from head to toe – it’s like your whole body smiles when you do this. Now THAT is how we should greet everyone.
5. How much you love bath time.
6. The head nuzzles. Nothing beats these. Both Tagen and Aveda – when they’re tired or sad or just need some cuddle will nuzzle their head under my chin and into my neck/shoulder and although few and far between these are treasures of gold.
7. The way you smell. I wish I could save this in a bottle forever. Even your poop right now is still sweet to me (perhaps one reason I’m holding off giving you solids for a little while longer) – daddy thinks it smells like popcorn but still it’s a lot better than what Tagen’s smelled like tonight! Beyond just the poop – you smell so wonderful to me. And I love that your blankie smells like you because you cuddle with it every time you sleep.
8. When I am lying next to you as you take a nap I can tell when you are awake or asleep from listening to the rhythm of your breathing.
9. Your lengthy stares. You have chocolate brown eyes with which you love to make eye contact. You search deeply into the things or people you are looking at. I think you may have it all figured out by age two the way you focus and study things.
10. You have the sweetest spirit. You are so full of energy but such a sweetie at the same time. I can’t wait to see how this plays out in your personality as you grow.
11. You are incredibly strong. I could’ve guessed this from the womb how crazy you would kick at times. It still amazes me now – I think there are times I could probably let go and it wouldn’t matter because you cling to me like glue.
12. You make noises just like Tagen did at your age. Did he teach you this? How? Maybe it’s genetic or something. Regardless, it’s super cute!
Ok so between 12 & 13 I took a break for a month or so and now you’ve totally changed. It’s incredible how rapidly you babies grow and develop. Just when I’m getting the hang of you, you change!
13. You’re sitting up now. No support – just all by yourself! You’ve fallen back and bonked your head a few times but you get over it super fast because you’re a tough cookie (sidenote: whenever I say “tough cookie” your brother T looks at me and says “cookie? Cookie?” and doesn’t stop until I convince him we don’t have any cookies in the house)
14. Not only are you sitting up, you’ve totally got the scoot crawl thing mastered and you can get yourself pretty much anywhere you want to go. It’s really funny when you see something you’ve obviously gotta have because you crawl with such focused determination and NoThInG will get in your way.
15. Today you even crawled over and pulled yourself up to standing. Incredible. See how much you’ve changed just this month?! We’ve got a whole new baby in the house.
16. I love how much more you and Tagen are interacting too. You laugh. He laughs. You copy each other and just love to act silly. So sweet to watch. He’s nicknamed you “beyda” by the way and whenever you are crying he says… no he SHOUTS: “OTAY!!!!! Beyda OTAY!” with his eyebrows raised to the ceiling. He does thisbecause I asked him once to go over to you and say “It’s ok baby!” all sweet and gentle like. Oh well. His own rendition is pretty funny – somehow it even sometimes calms you down! That’s how much you love your brother.
17. You are such a little water baby. You’re probably the one who is going to be all into surfing like your daddy! You LOVE to sit in the shallow waters of the ocean. We also just got a kiddie pool that you now play in every day. You long outlast your brother in it and would probably stay in there playing all day if I let you. You splash, sit up, lie down on your belly, try to stand holding onto the edge (meanwhile mama’s heart skips a beat as you almost fall) but it’s so cute how happy you are in there.
18. You’ve learned from the professional (your brother) how to scream at a pitch that should not be legal. How did we birth babies with such loud lungs?! It’s crazy. I think you must be teething right now too because you’ll shriek many times a day for no apparent reason. Or maybe you just enjoy hearing yourself. Note to you: you could still hear yourself if you toned it down like 10 notches.
19. You’re chubbier than ever and I’m loving every piece of you!
20. That you, also, are mine.

Tagen Train is TWO!

20 things I love about you Tagen Train Maligro. 2 years old! 31 pounds of rock solid toddlerness…
1. The way you dance. Turn on some music and you just can’t help yourself. You love to copy daddy’s moves in your own awesome rendition.
2. How you have learned that if you come into our room in the morning and says “eat mama” it will get me out of bed. All you really want is for me to get up with you and you really don’t care about eating at all. Okay actually this drives me crazy but I will always remember it because it seems to happen every morning and every morning I fall for it because you’re too dang cute.
3. When I am cooking anything you wander around saying “shoe?” asking for your stool because you must stand and watch… ok stand and mess with whatever I’m trying to cook and take everything off the countertops.
4. You can now climb all the way up into your highchair and climb back down when you’re finished. I can’t imagine if I had to do this every time I sat down to eat. You’re such a monkey.
5. You have learned how to open the screen door to let yourself outside whenever you please. Some day we’ll teach you how to get back inside too.
6. You are one of the only ones who can actually make Aveda laugh. You show such concern when she cries and even though she’s been with us for six months and you know full well what her name is you still call her “baby”. Maybe you’ll call her this forever.
7. You are totally obsessed with any kind of ball – football, basketball, soccer ball, baseball - and you now say trow (throw) and katttch (catch) and talks story about baseball and football. I think you would throw and catch a ball with us the entire day if we would last that long.
8. shubel and beeech (shovels and the beach) two of your favorite things living in hawaii
9. the way you can’t not jump on me or daddy and attack hug us when we are lying on the ground
10. How much you love bath time… you’ve gotten to a point where you hate getting out because you’re having too much fun. You’ve fully mastered blowing bubbles and “floating” on your back and tummy.
11. All the words you now say. You copy so much of what we are saying and you are so proud to communicate. Funniest ever the ways you say “yeeesss mammmaa” or “yessss daaada” with eyes wide open and many overemphasized head nods. Another word I love to hear you say: “sorry” which you say like “soollly” (sounds like Japanese or something). Really makes the disciplining difficult when I’m on the verge of laughing.
12. The way you draw. Such detail. Such focus. Mostly you draw circles – big circles, little circles or some other rendition of a circle…but these aren’t your ordinary circle. Each one is some incredible piece of your imagination. A firetruck or fire”guy” (as you call a fireman). A lion. A gecko. A fish. You usually draws them very slowly and then will turn and tell me what you just drew. I am amazed at how detail oriented you are. Not only in drawing but also when we are reading a book – you notices things in the pictures that nobody would ever notice.
13. Finally, after 23 months of being attached to your binkie and blankie you call them their names… well not always… actually only on rare occasions. Usually they still are called that noise which I don’t know how to write as a word – but you make the same noise every time you want these. MmmMMMmmmMMMmmmMMMmmmm. Or something like that. It cracks me up when you do the noise and then say ppeeeezze (please) at the end of it. Like you’re mixing baby language and toddlerese or something.
14. You are such a “boy”… so into all kinds of balls – especially footballs. Your uncle got you a football for your birthday and you carry it around with you like it’s your new blankie or something. You can’t get enough motorcycles, trucks and the like and love to see the fire truck every time we pass the fire station.
15. How you are consistently grumpy (note: opposite of sister) when you wake up from a nap and that I am the only one you want. Daddy can get you as long as he mentions something super exciting – like that there’s a rooster outside or something. But it better be good or you’ll hear nothing of it and we’ll hear a lot of whines. Ok so we kind of look forward to the day this will end but as for now is such a part of you that we’ve gotta love you and all your weird quirks too!
16. You are so opinionated now. So sure of what you want and don’t want. If mommy or daddy asks if you want something your first response will usually be “no!” and then you turn around, turn back and ask for the very thing we just offered you. I guess it had to be your idea. Sometimes it’s hard not to laugh at how ridiculous this is.
17. You are so crazy cute with your big ol’ belly sticking out as you walk around, blonde hair getting blonder every day as we live in Hawaii now and your little tans lines. I noticed that you still have baby chub for which I am happy because that means there’s still some babiness in you and you’re really white inside the folds now. That’s how I can gauge how tan you are getting too. I love your Fred Flinstone feet and toes. Where these came from in the genes I don’t know but since birth you’ve had little square blocks down there and they still are.
18. The sweetest ever is the way you give kisses and hugs. Especially watching you hug a little person your size. You lean way forward and pat their little back as you lean your head on their shoulder. So sweet.
19. Sometimes you think you are so funny. You just crack yourself up! We’ll be driving somewhere and you tickle yourself and just laugh and laugh. I need to record your laugh. It makes me smile every time.
20. That you are mine.

christmas and things...

december 23rd we went to a full local Christmas parade with our kids and kyle's parents... too funny and super fun. Tagen just really figured out what Santa looks like a few days before this and (still) is soooo excited whenever he sees a santa. Doesn't even matter if it's a live santa or a plastic one. At the parade was the first time he met a live Santa. Here's the dialogue and pics:

Santa "hi"
Santa's wife: "you're supposed to say Ho Ho HO Merry Christmas! not "hi"


Tagen: "uh, dabaduba vroom-vroom... da wib a santa" (translation: look I got a motorcycle with a santa riding on it!)


Santa: "oooOOOOooo... akward silence. want some candY?"


Tagen then trades his vroom-vroom for some candy... but soon after grabbed his motorcyle and started gnawing on the wrapper of his candy. So what if we couldn't get Tagen to sit on santa's lap. The way he was talking about santa allllll night you'd think he did.




We DID get a cute pic of Aveda sitting on Santa's lap.



and other cute pictures too... dec.24 was mommy's b-day and we had a super fun day going out to a coffee shop in the morning and then to the beach and then to dinner at our friend's for the night. Christmas day kyle's parents and brother came to our house for breakfast and presents in the morning and we had an awesome meal at their house that evening. enjoy the pictures!

laughter

I know I have mentioned before how Tagen seems to be the only one who can make Aveda laugh... I wish you could have been in their room tonight to see how hard she was cracking up as Tagen was just being his silly goofy self. She laughed so hard she spit up and then got the hic-ups. As always, it only egged Tagen on to make her laugh even harder. Too funny!



Tagen's best buddy Josiah came to visit for a week along with his mama Heather. We had such a good time going to beaches and exploring different parts of kauai. I haven't seen Tagen so happy and wild as he was this past week with Josiah than in this whole time of living here so far! He would ask for "Ida" (as he calls him) every time he'd wake up from a nap or in the morning. I was very proud of Tagen how well he shared his toys and food and sippy cups and binky (unless he had just woken up of course) with Josiah. But now he is gone and Tagen is going to perpetually think Ida is on an airplane because that's where he went when he had to leave and he just doesn't quite get it that after the airplane he went back to his house. Days later he sees an airplane and says, "Ida?" ah, the mind of an almost 2-year-old.



He's learned that if he does a "no-no" and after I make sure he understand what he did wrong he needs to say "yes mama" which he emphasizes as "yeeEEESsss mmmMMMMAAAaaaama" and usually says at least 2 or 3 times like this while sticking out his belly and making his eyes wide as can be. It takes all that is in me to keep from laughing. Every day he becomes more independent and more assertive about his opinions. (And for someone only 22 months old he certainly has a lot of them!) Every day I think that surely he must have reached the pinnacle of his oppositional behavior, but then he goes ahead to surprise us by taking his oppositional behavior to new heights.

isn't she cute?

how cute ShE??? she rolls over now. looooves brother tagen more than ever - he really seems to be one of the only ones who can really make her laugh. she just discovered we have a dog in the house and is fascinated by her. she is sooo strong - she holds onto our finger and it's virtually impossible to break her grip. she's been half way into the ocean waters of kauai twice now and really liked it. she takes 3 naps a day and i wish i could say she sleeps through the night but that's not true of little aveda quite yet. she is perfect just the way she is though!

life on the rock

So we actually made it to Kauai and are living in our new home. It is still surreal that we are really living here - kind of feels like we are on vacation or something. But no, this is our new reality. The last days before moving was nuts and there were many moments I was wondering if we were really going to be able to pack up or get rid of or clean everything we needed to. Grandma and Grandpa from Oregon came to help which was a lifesaver. For sure we couldn't have done it without all of their help! We stayed in a Super8 motel our last week there and the last night before we left I think we were the only ones there who weren't there with the intention of partying in Isla Vista for Halloween. Needless to say it was kinda loud there that last night. We are grateful for any and all of your prayers though because God's grace proved sufficient many times. We bought 4 plane tickets for mom, dad, grandma and grandpa planning on the babies sitting on our laps... not to excited about that but that's just how it was gonna be. We ended up getting hooked up with 9 or 10 seats we could move around between... basically having the back of the plane to ourselves which was such an awesome blessing!
Grandma in Kauai *aka:Tutu* basically stocked our house full of what we needed before we even arrived here... couches, beds, crib, etc etc etc... what a crazy blessing. Maybe that's why we feel like we are on vacation living in someone's vacation house. We've hardly had to do a thing to unpack/settle in. Our "magical mystery box" hasn't arrived yet though. That will for sure take some time to unpack and organize (it's a huge 1300 pound crate with kyle's screenpress and everything else we wanted to bring crammed in all the nooks and crannies of it.)
So anyways, we're here now. It rained the first few days we were here: refreshing. Then it was super hot and humid and now the winds have changed and there's this wonderful cool breeze blowing on me right now. Some differences from Santa Barbara: 5 baby geckos living in our house, 2 large toads living in our yard - one of which i almost stepped on yesterday, and ants. lots and lots of teeny ants. you can't leave food out for 5 minutes before they discover it. oh and did i mention the chickens and roosters? sheesh, roosters here start crowing between 3 and 4am. kyle says you get used to it where you don't notice any more. i still notice. Tagen looooves them though and calls roosters "ooshers" The sunsets are beautiful here which we see setting over the ocean through our living room window and the ocean is warm and perfect for babies. Kauai is a beautiful island we have moved our family to.

6DAYS&COUNTING

INCREDIBLE!
can't believe it, countdown to kauai. It's been pretty mayhem here in the Maligro Household.
i don't like moving from place to place. so much stuff/clutter to go through. i just want to burn
it all, except some things, and just start all over. ever had that feeling? we're in it. so that's it
for now. please pray for the Crazy Maligro Family. we need it! thank you. papa maligro

love binds

Upon reading a favorite blogger of mine: littlejourneymama... i read a post she recently wrote and couldn't have related more to what she was talking about. So, adjusting some to apply to our family, space and circumstances I have cut and pasted and rewritten some of the same...

I don't think you can ever know how having a new child will affect your family. How could you? The small person that is your child shines and darkens in ways that have never appeared to you before. Sometimes there is a spark of recognition, a piece of your childhood, the smile of your brother or the eyes of your husband. But this person is new; new to the world and to the small village that is your home.

With the birth of each of my children, I died a small death and awoke to new love. With Tagen, it was the death of my independent self, a self that spent hours reading and napping and creating this or that, a self that jumped in the car without checking lists, packing diaper bags, or shoving shoes on tiny feet. With Aveda, it was the death of having one baby, the concentrated affection, the passing back and forth of one child. This is what felt like a small death to me. It's what made me cry, during those first days as I missed Tagen while staying in the hospital.

But the awaking! The new love, the kind of love that you never have for anyone else, not even your spouse. Love for my husband is constant and HUGE in me, but how many times have I watched my children sleep and felt that clutch of pity, the fierce protection that brings tears to my eyes? I've never felt love like this before having these children. It has made me intensely vulnerable, easily shaken, and yet as solid as the hills.

I've also watched my children's hearts expand with love as our family has grown. They open and blossom in care for one another, and this is what forms them, in addition to the love they receive from us. Aveda has never known a life without a brother. Tagen has received Aveda with such joy. Yesterday was Aveda's very first laugh and Tagen is the one who made her do it... over and over and over again as he jumped and spazzed being his silly self. Aveda just couldn't get enough of him. At her tender age of nearly 11 weeks old she adores her older brother.

In all the craziness, the dullness, the frustration of parenting, LOVE BINDS. Love takes our family and makes us a small force in the world. In all the ways I've changed since my first son was born, the biggest is that I am more loved, and I have more love.

LEARNING LIFE THROUGH DEATH

It's like 6:55am. 6 days after the death of our beloved KETCHUP. see below for the story, it may be really loopy cause we were totally emo writing it. amazing what can happen just days after a death of a loved one. it's the hardest thing i think for us to go through, and i don't desire it for anyone. but the reality is that death happens. i was recently talking to one of my best friends about the whole scenario we just had gone through. he actually went through the same thing with his dog so he actually could relate to our situation which was really nice and a blessing. one of the things that was brought up was how death wasn't suppose to be. meaning, not suppose to happen. before the 'fall of man', death wasn't in the scene. well we all know what happened, eve and adam ate from the tree that God said don't. there were consequences. death. so since then we all have to deal with it. seems to me that there is a difference between some deaths then others. obviously depends if you were close the person, animal, etc or was just an aquantence. but it still is hard for someone to deal with. real hard! hardest ever!

after all that said: i wanted to shared something that i've learned through this whole experience. i know that some of you may be thinking, 'dude, kyle is whacked, it's just a dog!'. well, you have the right to say that eh. but for our little family, ketchup was like our first kid since kristy and i got married. you're not married to either one of us so you don't know. hehe.
anyway, through the death of ketchup i've been learning about LIFE. yeah, sorry, it's not sounding really deep. but what i've learned about this life on earth is that i can get really ungrateful or just let beautiful things slip by and so on. God has been really showing me a lot about that sort of things and i'm really grateful to relearn it again because LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. go watch the movie!

yes, there is more from the whole experience. but i'll share more later.

tons of love to you all!
kyle