Happy Birthday to Lissy the Toad

Lissy turned 4 on March 14th. This has been a year of progress for Lissy, who used to only refer to herself as "Lissy the Toad." At the start of the year, Lissy still had trouble not getting upset when placed in her car seat, when taking a bath, getting dressed, or basically anything that dealt with telling Lissy to do anything she didn't initiate or do herself. I think the term some people use is "hard headed." But Lissy has made great strides. She can now dress herself, brush her own teeth, and use the potty by herself. She has even made some friends at her preschool. We love having Lissy be a part of this family, and we love her funny sense of humor.

We celebrated Lissy's birthday over the course of many days. We went to Disney's Princesses on Ice on the 12th. The tickets were relatively cheap because we were in the top row, but the snow cones (in souvenir Little Mermaid cup), suckers (in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears), and cotton candy (with Mickey Mouse king ears) were not. Fifty dollars later and Kulani getting a case of vertigo, we made two girls pretty happy for all of one night. Poor Kulani's eye had an ulcer earlier that day, but luckily he went to the eye doctor before the show started, so it wasn't hurting "as much."

The next day we drove to St. George for Kulani to attend Continuing Legal Education. We stayed in the Green Valley Resort condos. It was a great condo. The girls' room even had it's own Mickey Mouse TV. I don't encourage TVs in kids' rooms, but this was vacation, so we let it pass. While in St. George, we ate at Ruby River, Outback Steakhouse, the Blue Bunny ice cream shop, Godfather's pizza, and Jon and Delena's house. We had a very good time in sunny St. George, and we came back with a new member of the family. On our way home from St. George, we drove through a serious snow storm. It was not a nice welcome-back gesture. At one point, Kulani couldn't see anything out his window except whiteness because the windshield wipers were not working to full capacity. We made it back, though, so we were able to be at church the next day to teach our nursery class. Aahhh nursery. I seriously love being in the nursery. Kulani, however, is not so keen, but he's surviving.

Later that night we had cupcakes for Lissy's official birthday party. We invited the "cousins": Susan and Kuhia's family who live three miles away. Lissy got a Cinderella doll, a card game, a puzzle, and a painting kit. We asked her later that night how she felt about her birthday. She said, "It was awesome." I think that's the most praise I've ever heard out of Lissy's mouth.

On Monday, we took the girls to their first dentist appointment. They each had cavities. Lilia had her cavities filled with no problem. Lissy cried pretty ferociously when the dentist filled her cavities. They are now taking the task of brushing their teeth very seriously so they don't get any more cavities.