Mone's Preschool Program

Filimone's preschool put together a little Christmas concert for all the parents.  They just sang a bunch of Christmas songs with their teachers and the parents got to go and watch.  It was a cute little performance but a little unorganized...hahaha....then again it would be really hard to try and organize and teach 3 and 4 year olds.  haha  here are a few pictures I snapped....

They even had Santa come to the school for the little preschoolers

Mone stood in front of Santa for a while and when Santa tried to lift him up on his lap...he made a little grunting sound and said "wow, you're heavy"...hahaha  Ova and I couldn't stop laughing!  He is a 60lb. 4 year old....he really is HEAVY!!

The Stockings were hung....

Christmas is in 4 days and I'm finally getting into the Christmas mode.....I know it's a little late, but finally my brother's wedding is done, finals are done and the semester is over, and my kids are on their Holiday break from school.  I have all the time in the world now to focus on Christmas.

As we were pulling our Christmas trees from the shed, we realized that we left ALL our Christmas decorations at the old house in the move....I was a little bummed about it, but honestly they were just ornaments and had no sentimental value.  We put up the trees (we have two of them)...one in the kitchen so people can see it through the window and one in the living room.  Funny story with the second and nicer Christmas tree, I got it for FREE with my coupons....hahaha that was a couple years ago, and we just don't get deals like that anymore!  Needless to say,  both of our trees are up with no decorations on them.  hahaha  Luckily the one in the kitchen is pre-lit and Ashlee threw some dollar store tinsel on it and there ya go....it's simple, but it works.  Here's our kitchen tree....with the one and only ornament calendar that Makai made at his school...hahaha

I did want to hang some stockings for the kids, and normally I would sew them myself, but since time is running low, I had to be cheap quick and creative....I ended up going to the dollar store and buying their stockings made of felt.  I went to Walmart and bought some extra white, red and green felt to add their names....It was only like $2 for the additional felt and $2 for the heat press iron on stuff...I came home and cut out everyone's name, ironed them on and made little holly berry decorations for all the girl's stockings.....they turned out pretty nice for such a cheap and quick little project!!  :)

With all the hustle and bustle of Christmas, the shopping and baking and everything that goes on with it, people tend to lose the real meaning of Christmas.  Since schools are not suppose to talk about God or anything religious, the kids tend to grow up learning from society that Christmas is about Santa and gifts and materialistic things of that nature.  It's been a struggle for me to try and find the balance where my boys can understand that Christmas is not about getting gifts, its about Christ and giving.  This past Monday night at our family home evening, I was reminded of how blessed I am and how grateful I am to constantly be reminded of the spiritual side of things....in all things, not just at Christmas time.... from Ma.  She had the lesson for our FHE, and it was Makai's turn to conduct.  We did our opening exercises and then turned the time over to Ma for her lesson.  Before she started, she asked Makai and Mone to come and sit on the floor right in front of her. 

 As they were sitting there, she explained to them the true meaning of Christmas.  She was holding Makai's hand and asking them questions to make sure they understood (keep in mind that Ma doesn't speak any English at all so her lesson was all in Tongan)  She was asking them where Jesus was born, and then where they were born.  She explained to them that Jesus, the son of God, was born in the most humble of circumstances and even we were all born in a better situation than he was.  As she was teaching them and asking them questions, they understood her and answered her questions.  She told them that we need to be like Jesus.  We need to be humble and be happy with what we have, that it's not the presents and materialistic things that are important.  I sat there and watched Ma teach my children of the importance of humility and that Christmas is about Jesus Christ.  I cried.  I am very blessed to have her living with us.  She has the strongest spirit of anyone I know.  She lives the gospel.  She loves the gospel.  You can constantly find her reading...she reads church books and prays all throughout the day.  My kids get to see her doing that everyday.  She is going to be 88 in a couple weeks and she's getting really old.  Ova and I have tried to have the conversation of what it's going to be like when she passes on.  We don't ever get very far into the conversation because it's something we just don't like to think about.  Ma is an amazing person.  If you've followed my blog for a while, you know how much love and respect I have for her.  There is a communication barrier between us, but we always find a way to communicate.  I love her so much and I love to see the relationship she has with my kids.  What a blessing!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I really apologize for not sending a Christmas card this year, with my computer dying and with so many things to do, I never got the chance to make one.  I wish you all a very very Merry Christmas and a wonderful and happy new Year!!

They're Eternal!

Part III:  Misi's Wedding

The sealing was beautiful.  Elder Samuelson is a close family friend and my dad asked him to conduct their sealing.  I always love going to sealings to hear the blessings and covenants....such a spiritual blessing to be able to be sealed to someone forever and ever and ever.  I can't believe he's married.  What an incredibly emotional day.  I'm so proud of my brother for being who he is.  I'm so proud of him for always being such a great kid and always showing a great example.  I'm so proud of him for serving a mission.  I'm so proud of him for finding a lovely young lady and for being worthy to take her to the temple.  I can't believe all of us are married now (except Leka).  We're all grown up!  What a great day!  I have TONS and TONS and TONS of pictures.....it was hard to choose, but I will just post a few of them.....

These are from the temple right after the sealing...

(keep in mind my computer is broken, therefore no photoshop so I wasn't able to crop out the excess of the pix...)

Some of the groomsmen...

Bridesmaids Leka & Lexi

Some of the flower girls... Lote, Yana, Finau & Liva

Misi's family that was @ the temple

Our Makai family!

The newlywed couple w/ their Makai parents

My little family w/ the newlyweds

Makai siblings w/ husbands, kids & parents

(Lautala was so not cooperating with the camera..haha!)

My handsome boys

Daddy trying to keep his mini-me warm (it was freezing!)

McAbe ~ Pola ~ Misi ~ Ben

All the bridesmaids

All the groomsmen

Their line...

Pola w/ her Maid of Honor

Misi w/ his Best Man

They had their reception luncheon at the Little America Hotel ballroom.  It was set up so beautifully and was big enough to hold everyone.  To be completely honest, I was totally against having a wedding in a hotel (it's expensive and none of us had our receptions there)  Forking out that much money to have it in a hotel seemed ridiculous to me, especially when you can have it in a stake center for free.  My mind was changed after Misi's wedding.  It was beautiful. Since it wasn't in a church people prepared tau'olungas and actually got to fakapale, so the newlyweds got a good chunk of cash to start their lives with.  Tongans don't give gifts, they just don't.  They give envelopes with money for the couple, or they prepare dances for the couple and people can fakapale (throw money).  Since there is no more fakapale in church buildings, and most Tongans don't give gifts......it's just smarter to have it outside a church building (my new opinion...hahaha) Also, it was great because the families got to enjoy the event instead of running around catering and making sure decorations were ok.  And, when it was over, it was over and we all got to go home and leave the cleaning for the hotel staff.  I was totally against it, BUT after seeing how well Misi's wedding turned out.....I told Ova we're saving up cause when our kids get married, we're doing it in a hotel.  hahaha.  It was such a fun reception and I was really enjoying myself, so I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to.  Here's a few...

Our table

Auntie Namu & Tea w/ my boys.....I LOVE these two women...they ALWAYS

come through to help me with everything!  I'm so blessed w/ them!

Their beautiful cake!

My parents with the Kolipoki's

(Elder Groberg is a good friend of my Dad, he's the one that sealed Ova and I when we got married.  It was nice to have so many church leaders there to support my Dad and my Brother!)

Misi w/ my Dad's brothers...Uncle Taniela & Uncle Tevita

Leka ~ Newlyweds ~Siu ~ Me

A bunch of wanna be's.....hahaha all my brothers...

Such a brat...

She only wanted me....such a Mama's girl...

The beautiful bride Sipola Fakalata Makai

Celebration Dance

Part II:  Misi's Wedding
Their wedding celebration dance was on Friday night, the night before their sealing in the Salt Lake temple.  I must say, I did not have a good morning that morning.  Like I said in my last post, I didn't get home until almost 6am and tried to get a few hours of sleep before I had to wake up to take Makai to school.  I would have just had him skip school that day because there was so much going on, but he was chosen to be the star student that week and Friday was his special day where his family could come in and meet his class.  I couldn't let him miss out on that.  Well, I got about 2 hours of sleep before I had to wake up to get him ready and take him to school....I was planning on getting up that early anyways because I had two finals that I had to do online and submit before midnight.  Since it was my brother's wedding dance and we had to be there at 5pm to help set up, I only had that few hours in the morning to finish my test and write 3 papers.  I was feeling completely overwhelmed.  I actually had a panic attack and had to stop and breath for a minute.  I needed to be a thousand places at once and it was very overwhelming.  I went to the school to do my final, but didn't have enough time to finish it before we had to go to Makai's school to do his spotlight.  This is the poster I made for Makai to take to school on Monday and they hung it in his classroom all week long.....

I asked him what he wanted me to put on it and he said just our family and that he loves Utah and the 49ers, so here it was!  I came home and picked up Ova and the kids and we headed over to Makai's school.  He was so excited to have us there, and we got to talk and brag about Makai and how great he is.  He was loving every minute of it. 

After Makai's school I dropped them all back off at home and I ran back to school to finish my finals.  It was like 2:30 at that time and I only had an hour to finish, go home, get myself and all the kids ready and head to Provo before 5pm.  O.V.E.R.W.H.E.L.M.I.N.G!!  I did get it done and everything worked out ok, it was just a little stressful!! :)

The dance started and we were in the kitchen preparing the refreshments.  We had everything you could think of.....egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches, rice krispie treats, fruit tarts, eclairs, mini cheese cakes, pieces of bunt cake, brownies, muffins, a water fountain with lemons in it to drink, three layered sandwiches with ham, turkey and cheese.....we had TONS of food there, and I must say we planned pretty well because we started serving the food around 8 o'clock and all throughout the night we were refilling the plates to make sure there would be enough!  The dessert stands were beautfiul and my auntie Finau decorated the table so nicely!  I didn't get great pictures....but here are the few I snapped:

The DJ was ok....haha but we had a lot of fun gettin' our groove on....hahaha!  I helped out in the kitchen until I heard a song I liked and then I'd go out and dance with my husband.  It was a lot of fun, good times!

And of course our kids did a number for their uncle.  I wish I recorded it because it was so cute, but Leka taught them a ma'ulu'ulu to a Tongan song with a hip hop beat.  They did such a great job!

Halle~Misi~Lia~Pita~Lote~Makai~Jalen~Mone (8 of the 13 neices and nephews)

The dance ended at almost midnight and by the time we cleaned up the refreshments and put all the chairs and stuff away it was almost 2am when we got home.  Another long late night and we had to be up bright and early because their sealing was at 8:20am.