We had a very nice Christmas day in Hawaii with both families. Isla enjoyed finding all the presents in her Santa stocking and has got pretty good at unwrapping (although she can get easily distracted and stop with a half way unwrapped gift!).
We unfortunately didn’t get photos with everyone together, a little preoccupied with taking photos of Isla probably. Here she is opening presents from her Macdonald family.

After a very nice day of beaching and swimming we went over to the Tougas condo and had a meal together. Isla kept everyone entertained and delighted in having so many people watching her antics!



Isla loved having a bit more freedom with sleeping while in Hawaii. Here in Alaska she has to sleep in at least two layers plus a sleep sack and usually two covers. In Hawaii she mostly was able to sleep in short pjs with no covers and sometimes in just a nappy. This lead to lots of creative sleeping, usually upside down in the bed and often sideways. Here is an example.

It is New Year’s Eve here tonight. Happy New Year everyone!! Unbelievably there are still MORE Hawaii photos! And yes Aunty Virginia she did need her own suitcase for all her clothes. Her Grandma and Aunty Rachel had been getting her things for Hawaii for weeks so we just had to bring them all ….

We are just back from a fabulous trip to Hawaii. We flew to Maui from Anchorage on 21st of December, spent Christmas there with most of the Macdonald family and all of the Tougas family (minus Stewart and Kathy and Angus, Janet and Isabel) and flew back on the 28th. The weather was absolutely stunning and we all enjoyed the opportunity to be bare foot for a change. Isla did not initially like the sand or sea at all but by the time we left she was having a great time sampling and swimming. Since we have approximately 1, 000 photos we will be putting them up in installments! Here are the first batch.

Isla on her first look at the sea, wondering what all that blue stuff is! href="http://alaskanewzealand.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/C-family1.jpg">
Isla enjoying catching up with her Meme.

And with her Pops.
With her Dad on the beach, still very suspicious of the sand at this stage.
And the last photo for today, Isla modeling her first bikini!

Stay tuned for more exciting installments!!
Love April, Paul and Isla

These are some photo’s one of the other parents sent us from some of the kids play groups we go to regularly. She generally spends the first ten minutes staring at what the other kids are doing but then she warms to it gets to playing about. The indoor playground meetup is in the gymnasium of the local technical school and it gives the kids a chance to run about without their winter clothes, the second event is the library ‘play and chat’ where I sit about and talk video games with the other fathers while they play with the awesome toys that are too large/loud to have in a home.

Isla and Henry

Paul turned 31 today so we had the Tougas family around to celebrate. We unfortunately forgot to get any of the group but we do have one or two of Paul and Isla!
Here she is grinning up at her Great Grandpa Howie.

Slightly different photo than last years one of Isla on Paul’s lap!
Paul with the cake I made him, a new recipe called a Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese icing.

Very tricky getting her to keep this hat on her head, it only lasted about two seconds each time, until we gave her a cracker to distract her. She kept it long enough for me to snap a quick photo!


Here are a few photos from the week. Paul has been taking Isla to toddler activities around town. Here they are at the library story time on Friday. They both went swimming on Thursday and this week he plans to take her to musical playgroup! Such a busy schedule she has!!
Obviously nobody told Isla not to wear stripes with stripes!!
Demonstrating another cupboard that needs a kiddy lock on it, this time she is sampling the soap!
Back into the onion container.
Here she is on Santa’s lap last weekend. As you can see not too happy about it. These are not the official santa photos just the ones I snapped from the side. She didn’t actually cry but she was pretty keen to get back into my arms again.

Isla has to be watched a lot more closely now that she is crawling. She can be across the room and into a cupboard in seconds. We have to finish putting the child proof things on all the cupboards before she does too much more of things like this.. This time it was cornflakes, although Paul also found her today getting into the vege bin in the cupboard and eating some raw onion!

Not sure what we can do about the fireplace though. This is not the first time she has got a chunk of charcoal for a snack!

Just discovered Isla has another tooth finally coming through on the top. She has been doing really well learning to ride on her little truck from her birthday last week. She seems to enjoy the mobility and definitely has her favorite tunes!