Takeshi's birthday

 So our little cute Takeshi turned 4 on the houseboat.
I always feel a little bad for Takeshi with his summer birthdays as I'm not sure I put in quite as much effort into his birthdays as I do with my other kids.
Every year I tell myself I'm going to make more of an effort and every year something comes up and I'm busy or we're doing something or somewhere you know.
BUT.............the good thing is..........I really don't think that Takeshi cares you know.  He's always been happy and glad and has a great time.
He's such a good boy and we love him so much.
So last year he had a monkey cake.  Well this year we asked him what he wanted and he said he wanted a monkey cake again.  I couldn't believe it.  I left it for a while then re-asked him and he was fixed on having another monkey cake.
So I steered him into the direction of monkey cupcakes and he went with it.
He's such a good kid.
It was nice too since we were having his birthday on the house boat.
I think he's shared his birthday with his cousin Ella for his whole life!!  It'll be a sad day when that doesn't happen.
He wanted another monkey pinata but we left it too late and couldn't find one.  So we got this angry birds pinata instead.
He loved it.

 Since the whole family was together no one had to send gifts.  Everyone was able to bring what they wanted down to the houseboat.
It worked out great.
Kristin and I co-ordinated together to put the party together.  It didn't consist of much.
"What are you thinking?"
"Monkey cupcakes"
"Sounds good.  What can I bring"
"The icing and eyes and liners"
"Ok and I'll bring the candy for the pinata"
"Perfect"
"Sweet"
Done!!

 Awwwwwwwwwww look how cute these monkey cupcakes turned out? 
We had some one eyed monkey's and some zombie monkey's cause we ran out of the cute candy eyes.  The kids thought it was fun and they loved them.
I'm glad it worked out.

 Here's all the kids with their pinata time.  It was harder than what you thought to get that candy out.
I'm surprized we didn't break anything as we did it inside the houseboat.  I don't think that was our finest idea.  But nothing broke so it was alright.

 Then the candy came tumbling out and the kids all went for it. 
Emiko took one look and was into it.  She wasn't going to miss out on candy.
So when the kids were or weren't looking she'd get into their piles and steal their candy.  It was pretty cute.
Takeshi got his stash and then protected it with his life as you can see from the pictures above.

 Then the present opening began.  He was very blessed with all the gifts he received and I'm always so grateful for the thoughtfulness that goes into my kids presents from family. 
Takeshi loved them all.  He got a dream light, toy lawn mower, sand toys, truck sand toys, a nice clown balancing game, cool nerf gun and some hunting clothes and NZ chocolate. 
He was in heaven and loved them all.

 I mean look at that face?
Is that not the cutest face?
That's the kinda face you wanna see when opening presents. 
He honestly loved everything and I was so happy for him.

 I think he had a great time and was really happy with everything and will continue to be happy with his gifts when we get them back to Boise and he has a chance to play with them all daily.
Good times.

I love Takeshi.
He's pretty happy go lucky you know.  He definitely has parts of his father in him and parts of me. 
He loves matching and things to be in a neat row.  He like to sort things and have things in order and be colour co-ordinated (totally his father).
You have to let him finish his ideas, you can't cut him off.  He has to be able to finish his story or he won't do anything for you and he'll get upset.  So if you just sit there and listen to him and let him tell his story, then when he's finished, he's more than will to do what you ask him to do, just once he knows he's been listened to you know.
He's my only child that screams.  He has an ear splitting scream.  It'll stand your hair up.  I haven't been able to fully get rid of that either.
He has a short, firey temper but he's over it pretty quickly as well (totally his mother)
He loves his family and he loves helping.
He's my adventurous eater.  He'll try new things and he'll eat salad and he loves it.  I enjoy cooking for him cause he likes what I cook and he'll tell me as well.  It's nice cause sometimes Yuki and Masaru can be drama about it.
He's my little dare devil.  Like I said in my other post.  He is not afraid to try crazy things.  I mean he went down that slide 3 times in lake Powell.  I haven't been down that slide even once!
He would do his run and jump off the back, he knee boarded, he was riding a bike at 2 years old and was swimming with his life jacket in the pool as well at the same age.
I love his personality.  He makes me smile all the time and I love him.
He can be naughty and needs to be reined in but that's alright.  I can forgive him if he can forgive me of my shortcomings.
I'm glad he's in our family.  He's a huge asset to us and bring flare and laughter and I don't know what we'd do without his wonderful personality around us.
I'm blessed to be his mother, I know it, and I'm so grateful he came to us.............so grateful.
Love you bub
Mum xox

Video's of Lake Powell

Here they are playing watermelon polo.
Here's Takeshi going down the slide.
He was fine by the way. Never shed any tears. He's so tough.
Here's Llewellyn, Ash and the kids on the tube.
Here's Yuki on the knee board.
And here's Takeshi on the knee board.

 I LOVE this shot of Dru's parents who are the reason we go to Lake Powell.  Without them we'd all have to be a little richer.

 And at the end of the trip here's how we took Emiko back to the van.
She was loving it.
Pretty sweet spot right?

Lake Powell

Lake Powell was awesome.
It was nice to have Llewellyn, Ash and Ayuri with us as well.
Lots of pic's sooooooooo.............
Here's some shots of Lake Powell in all it's glory.

We had some sand {above} for the kids to play in which was nice.

Here's our house boat we stayed on.  The 'Totally Hooked' boat.  I'm totally hooked to that boat.  It's awesome.

 We played games together.
Like watermelon polo which was a big hit.  I have a video but I think I'm going to do another post with videos cause I can't be bothered uploading them tonight since Dru's parents don't have internet and I'm over at his brothers house 'borrowing' theirs.

 I didn't play as I was working out at the time {I worked out daily, awesome aye} but next time I think I'll give it a go.

 Here's Dru's team.  They weren't doing so good then Llewellyn joined them and that made all the difference.

 The 'kids' played with these cool remote control cars my nephews had.  Notice my nephew aren't in the picture!! 

 There was wrestling going on the trampoline we brought which is always fun.

 Grandma did dress ups with the girls every day.  Dru didn't like it but it was nice for the girls to get all dolled up with their Grandma.  It's memories man.

 One night we played 'who can blow the biggest bubble' game.  I was useless but these three did awesome, but then paid for it later on.

 We played the 'who can turn their nipple hair into a waxed mustash' game.  Dru was the only one who played that so he won.
In his 'old age' he hasn't grown any hair on his chest or back but his nipple hair has grown longer.  What's up with that?  I'd rather have that though than chest and back hair.............

 The kids had extra Dad time all week which was a great thing.

 We got to spend time together as a family which was awesome.

 Everyone was tired enough to get to sleep pretty much anywhere during the day and nights.

 Fun with rocks, sand and fires.  Always a winning combination.

 Takeshi's my dare devil man.  He went down the slide three times and would take a running jump off the back deck, he knee boarded and was loving it in the water.

 I worked out Mon through Fri just here to exersize DVD's provided by my sister in law with weights, kettle bells and motivation.  I loved it.

 Emiko had a fairly good time but she was a struggle again this year for us.  We're hoping next year will be easier...............we'll see.

 Here's the only picture I have of myself {above} pretty sad right?

 Sitting in her favourite spot............

 Masaru with his catch of the day.
He loved fishing with his cuzzies.

 Then of course we had all the skiing, wakeboarding, tubing you could ask for the whole week.

 Look at my nieces' face?  I think she honestly believes she's going to die.

 The hole to Perth being dug.

I've got a couple of other post of videos and Takeshi's birthday to put up but this is the main Lake Powell post.
I had a good week.  It's hard with little kids.  I didn't get a nap in and didn't even get a 1/3 of the way through my book but it is what it is when you chose to go with littles.
I sit here and still feel like I'm rocking.  I hope that goes away some time soon.
The food was good and we had just enough for the week which was perfect.
I was 25 pounds lighter this year and next year I'm hoping to be about 25 more pounds lighter still!!
I'm glad the kids get along well and we have this for them.
Now I need to figure out how I"m going to pay for it, between gas and food and rent plus a mortgage we're in the red more than we've ever been {sigh} but it's about the memories right?