"Begin today and write in it your goings and comings, your deepest thoughts, your achievements and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies. I promise you that if you will keep your journals and records, they will indeed be a source of great inspiration to you, each other, your children, your grand-children and others throughout the generations. Remember, the Savior chastised those who failed to record important events." --President Spencer W. Kimball

January 30, 2010

Lautala's Birth Announcement

I know she's 3 weeks old already, but I just finished her birth announcements. Thanks to Loyann's great photography work and my photoshop program! Here you go!

Quality time with Gramma Cindy!

It seems to be a tradition for my mom to give my kids a bath in a bowl or pot when they're young.... my baby Lautala isn't left out from that tradition! We were at Gramma Cindy's house this past Sunday to have our FHE and the little princess peed all over her clothes....so here comes Gramma Cindy with a pot of warm water, baby bath, lotion and all the necessary bath items..... I love capturing this tradition on film! Something they will look back at when they're older and think.... oh my goodness, I can't believe I fit in a pot....hahahaha!

This is the shot I found of Makai when he was about a month old.... Gramma Cindy and Lote Si'i gave him a bath in a bowl! Now that he's 49inches tall and 62lbs, it's crazy to think he was once that small!


Lautala didn't like the bath at first....

Then she got used to it...


Getting dried off after my bath in the pot...

Thank you Gramma Cindy... I love you! :)

January 29, 2010

Happy Anniversary!

A celebration of 33 wonderful years together!


Lots of accomplishments in their years together:

4 kids...


13 grandkids...



And a lifetime of memories!
I love you mom and dad! Here's to many more wonderful years together!

A Blessed Month

So this month of January has been a very special month for my family..... lots of special things have happened spiritually and we are very grateful!

December 27th, 2009

My little sister's husband Lini Kinikini got called to be the 2nd Counselor in their Ward Bisopric...Lini is a very humble man of little words, but this call does not come as a surprise. He doesn't talk much but he's got a huge spirit. It's a blessing for my sister, their kids and our whole family to have him accept such a great calling!

January 5th, 2010

Leka went through the temple for the first time....this was a very special day for us because we got to see how far she has progressed in the gospel. Leka is named after my mom, and has been here in America for almost 3 years now. She's the daughter of my Dad's younger brother and comes from a family that is very strong Methodist. She listened to the missionaries discussions and made the decision to get baptised, and now she has taken the next step to get her endowments.... she's is our little sister and we're so happy for her! Now, we just need to find her a worthy preisthood holder to take her to the temple! :)

January 8th, 2010
My little girl was born.... big blessing for my little family!

January 24th, 2010

My uncle Daniel got called to be the 1st counselor in the bishopric in the Spanish Fork 21st Ward in the Tongan stake in Utah County. Daniel is my dad's baby brother and it's so great to see him in a leadership position like that. Daniel is the kindest man, the kind that would give the shirt off his back to anyone who needed it, I guess that's how my grandparents raised their boys, because they are all like that. He's also the silent, likes to be behind the scenes types, so this calling is a great opportunity to come out from behind the scenes and share his spirit and talents with everyone! I love my Uncle Daniel, his calling is such a blessing not only to him and his family, but to our whole family!

The Lord is very mindful of our family and we are very aware and grateful for all the blessings he has blessed us with. I love going to the temple and being there with my whole entire family....there are only 4 of us kids, and Leka makes us 5....and having us all in the temple with our parents and our spouses/girlfriend at the same time was so nice....I imagine thats what it will be like in heaven! Peaceful, beautiful, and surrounded by family! We are blessed!

January 22, 2010

Baby's 1st Bath

So today my baby girl is 2 weeks old and her belly button just barely fell off.... that means YAY she gets to take a real bath instead of just getting wiped down with a washcloth everyday! Here are a couple shots of her first bath....which as you can tell by the pictures, she didn't enjoy very much! I remember my boys just LOVED taking a bath....I wonder if she will??



Since she turned 2 weeks old today, she had her 2 week check-up with her pediatrition... he told us she is very healthy and big! She's in the 90th percentile in height, weight and head circumfrence, so she's BIG, but very well perportioned!

She's such a good baby and she hardly ever cries....unless she's hungry of course! She just eats, goes to the bathroom, and sleeps.... she's so much fun because she stays awake a little longer now, especially after she just ate. She just sits up with her eyes wide open and looks around. My boys can't seem to get enough of her, always wanted to kiss her or hold her or feed her.... we're trying to teach them to be gentle with her, especially her head. Only uma her forehead, not her eyes or her mouth cause we don't want her to get sick....they need reminding every single day, but it's so cute to see how much they LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their little sister!

January 19, 2010

She's finally here!

Our baby girl Ilaisaane Lautala Fangupo is finally here! Like I said in my earlier post, we were going to get induced on the 9th because that is Ma's birthday....but she had a plan of her own. I started having contractions on the night of the 7th (while Ova was at work) I tried laying down, but nothing I did would ease the discomfort of the contractions.... I must say, that I am lucky becasue I don't get those painful cramp-like contractions, I get the very uncomfortable tightening of the muscles in my back and stomach like someone is holding my muscles and twisting the heck out of them. I've always been induced a little after 37 weeks, so I've never really went all the way through the labor process, but this time since my doctor was making me wait until my due date....it was coming! My contractions got closer and closer and I was measuring that they were like 6-8 minutes apart. Ova got off work @ 6:30am and when he walked in the door I told him I didn't think she was going to wait another day. He said he was going to lay down and take a nap and that I should just wake him up if I thought I needed to go to the hospital. I took a shower and packed my bag and the contractions were getting too much to handle...after like half hour I woke him up and told him we needed to go! We got to the hospital and they put the monitors on me and my contractions were measuring about 3-4 minutes apart, but I still was only dialated to a 2+ They just monitored me for several hours and I finally was heading to the operating room at about 4 o'clock for my c-section. This was by far the worst c-section experience I've had because the anesthesiologist couldn't get my epidural to take. He had to do it 4 times.... after the 3rd time he told me that he was going to have to do it a little higher than normal because the 3 he did lower didn't work. He did it really high on my back and all the sudden I could feel my body getting numb. The tingling started in my leg and went up my body...normally on a c-section, they do a block and it just puts your body to sleep from the waist down....this time, the tingling kept going up and up until my chest and throat started getting numb and I couldn't breath or swallow....that was by far the worst feeling in the whole world...I felt like I was drowning! I looked at Ova and was crying and I could tell he was so worried. They ended up having to put me out....so I missed the whole thing. But I'm not complaining, because she is so worth all the pain!! Ova got to take the camera into the operating room though so he caught a few pictures of her first appearance into the world.
She was big and healthy and came @ 4:42pm on January 8th, weighing 9lbs.8oz. and she was 21.5 inches long! She beat both her brothers in both weight and height!
I didn't really get to see her until we were in the recovery room and my epidural started wearing off and when I saw her, I just couldn't stop crying! It's such a miracle to have a baby and to see this little angel, with her 10 fingers and 10 toes was just so overwhelming. Babies are a true testament that the Lord works miracles! We sure do LOVE our first little daughter!

Her first moments in the world:

This is one of my favorites because she was crying so hard and she grabbed on to her daddy's finger!
One day old...
Two days old...
Three days old...
Four days old & the first time to meet her big brothers....
Five days old...
Six days old...
Ilaisaane Lautala with her namesake Ilaisaane Lautala


One week old!



Ten
days old...

As you can see I've been a little camera happy with my little girl.... Babies just change so much from when they are first born to when they get older...so I wanted to capture her as much as I can! As she grows and gets older, I'll continue to post pictures!

Also, when Lautala was one day old..... Loyann Finau came to the hospital to take pictures of our little girl.... she's hasn't posted all of them yet, but here are a couple she let us see as a sneek preview....she's an awesome photographer and we just love her work! As soon as she posts the rest of the pictures, we'll post them on here too!! Thanks Loyann!

January 18, 2010

Christmas Gifts

Okay, so this post is way overdue but I didn't want to leave it out of my blog....just so next year Christmas time I can look back and see what I did this year....I always try and do something creative and original for Christmas...I've had this idea in my mind for maybe the past couple years of something do make for Christmas for the kids...but haven't seemed to either have the money or the time to finish it....still didn't do it this year, but I'm going to hopefully get it done for next year...hahaha talk about procrastinating! :) Anyways, this year I discovered Photoshop, thanks to my older sister Leslie...and I absolutely LOVE it! I got to make my own Christmas Cards (which we never have done before) and I found all these cools fonts that I uploaded to my computer that I can use to create different things. One of the fonts I found was Bob Marley....for each letter of the alphabet there was a different Bob picture....so I decided to create some pictures using the Bob fonts and my Photoshop and make sweaters for the kids....it turned out so nice if I say so myself!! lol :)






There were a few other designs that I made for my sister's girl that were flowers and stars and stuff, but I can't find the pictures for those ones..... these projects kept me busy for a while and I had so much fun making them!! :)