Mele Kalikimaka!

For the first year ever, I celebrated Christmas somewhere other than home in Oregon. Spending the holidays in tropical paradise was definitely a big change from Baker, aka the North Pole, but we still had a wonderful Christmas.

 We kicked off the Christmas season with the tower lighting at Hickam Field, the Air Force base that is joined with Pearl Harbor. We sat really far back so the loud music wouldn't hurt Sarah's ears, which meant that we couldn't really see the stage or hear what the speakers were saying.  They were late lighting the tower, and all we could tell was that someone important was up front talking and people were clapping a lot.  It wasn't until a week later that we learned from the news that Emma Stone and Bill Murray had been there to flip the switch on the lights. Maybe we should sit a little bit closer next year.

 The week before Christmas, the Navy opened the USS Arizona Memorial ferry boats to the general public for evening harbor lights tours. All of the surface ships and submarines, as well as USS Missouri (Mighty Mo), decorated themselves with Christmas lights for the harbor tours. Sarah even enjoyed it. It was her first boat ride.

Really, I think Sarah is kind of oblivious to her surroundings and the historical significance of Pearl Harbor. She still had fun, though.

 Santa looks slightly different (more tanned?) in Hawaii. Sarah asked for more toys. Mom asked for baby-quieting toys like a swing.

 We got a late start hanging Christmas lights, but Kelson still got them out there 4 days prior.

 And Santa granted Mom's Christmas wish. This baby-quieting toy really works!

 And she is a perfect complement to this Christmas family. That is a Mosier prerequisite.

Here's Sunday before Christmas. She looks cute in her Disney Christmas dress.

 For Christmas candy, since Chrisanne was not here to guide, our efforts turned internationally and we took a page from Brazilian holiday traditions. Emily instituted a new Christmas candy tradition with bon bons brigadeiros! Personally, I think we took their recipe and improved upon it. I never saw brigadeiros this beautiful in Brazil.

 Kelson has been quite the decorator this Christmas season. He found a package of fake snow (polyacrylic acid-based) and created a cute scene.

 We made some finger foods to take to the Watson's house for Christmas Eve. While Em was away shopping for Secret Santa gifts for ward members, Kelson made pita chips on the pizza stone in the oven. SO many food firsts this Christmastime.

We spent the evening at Joe and Julie Watson's house. They have 6 gregarious children, who entertained the baby and also acted out an entertaining theatrical of The Gospel of Luke, chapter 2.

Here they are on Christmas Eve in front of Kelson's fireplace, which is lit to keep our home warm during the tropical winter nights. The stockings are even hung by the chimney with care. Kelson is giving Sarah the "what every girl needs to know about a proper Christmas" lecture. Sarah was in her Christmas jammies getting ready for Santa. She may have even dreamed of sugar plums that night.
  

Christmas breakfast! Kelson went a bit crazy in the kitchen during the holidays. We made 15 items he saw on Pinterest, which was a little much, and we ended up being in the kitchen for much longer than we ever anticipated. I think he managed to generate two loads of dishes a day for a whole week. This picture is of apple cinnamon pull-apart bread for Christmas breakfast.

 During Christmas breakfast we Skyped with family members.

 On Christmas morning, the baby was not quite ready to be up yet and open presents.

 Here is yet another of Kelson's Pinterest Christmas concoctions: homemade wassail (pronounce "wossle") served in apple cups. By the way, the wassail was amazing. I think Kelson drank 10 cups of it before Christmas day was over.

 And yet another of Kelson's Pinterest holiday must-haves: pear tarts baked inside mason jar lids. They turned out well, and we added some caramel topping and whipped cream.

Here is the advent calendar the Hindmans made for us a couple of years ago, complete with handmade clay figurines (a la Chrisanne) and other mini keepsake articles that we have gathered from our travels to different places to purposely include in our advent calendar. It makes it more eclectic and Mosier-unique that way.

The best present of all this year was from the Lord. He gave us Sarah Helen Mosier. She came without ribbons…she came without tags…she came without packages, boxes, or bags (but lots of diapers). Christmas didn't come from a store. In fact, this year it meant a little bit more.

Sarah's 1 Month Stats

Time has flown by! Our baby was a month old before we knew it. 

Here are the highlights of Sarah's first month:

• Weight: 8 lbs 13 oz, Length: 21",  Head: 14"   50th percentile all around.                                     She is growing like a weed! 
• Sarah would eat all day if I would let her. There is a reason she is growing so fast.
• She loves to snuggle.
• Most nights she is up every 2 or 3 hours, but one time she slept for 6 hours straight. It was beautiful.
• She is a grandma's girl after having Grandma Hindman visiting for almost 3 weeks.
• She doesn't cry often and is easily soothed unless she is in her car seat. That is a bad place.
• After her first visit to the eye doctor, she was diagnosed with eye scarring and a congenital cataract. For now, we are just treating her with eye drops.
• Her mommy and daddy are completely in love!

A Visit from Grandma Hindman

Sarah got to have her first visitor from the mainland 2 weeks after she was born. We were lucky enough to have my mom come stay with us for 2 1/2 weeks. She was expecting us to pick her up outside the airport, we surprised her and met her at the baggage claim. Mom was so excited she cried. Success!

 Sarah loves her grandma already, and I was very excited to have an extra pair of hands to help hold the baby while I did wonderful things like sleep and shower.

 Since Mom was with us for the beginning of the holiday season, we got to introduce Sarah to some wonderful Hindman family holiday traditions, including making raisin bread. Yum!

 We had a little exploding pipe incident while we were making the raisin bread that resulted in water and sludge spraying across the kitchen. Mom was an awesome plumber.

 Mom was our special guest for Thanksgiving.

 We drove Mom up to the north shore one Saturday and took Sarah to her first beach at Waimea Bay. Sarah pretty much slept through the experience.

 Grandma loves you, Sarah! 

Thanks, Mom! We love you!

Sarah's Blessing Day

I am so grateful to be married to a wonderful man who is worthy to bless our little girl using the power of the Priesthood. Watching him bless her and give her a name was one of my happiest mommy moments yet. He blessed her that she would be a peacemaker and told her that her ancestors before her and her descendants coming after her were excited for her life. I know that I am excited to see who she will become. I wish we lived close enough for more of our family to have been there for her blessing, but we did get to have my mom here, which was a great blessing.

Sarah was blessed in the same gown I was blessed in, which was originally worn by my grandfather as a baby. It is over 100 years old. She looked beautiful.

The name we gave our little girl in her blessing was Sarah Helen.  Sarah was my maternal grandmother's name. Grandma was one of the most amazing women I have ever known. She told me so many stories of her mother, Helen, that I felt I knew her even though she died 70 years before I was born. We gave Sarah the names of these two Christlike women so that she would be reminded of the legacy they left for her and strive to be like them.

We had waited for Sarah's blessing day, when we knew we would all be dressed up anyway, to take some nice family pictures with the baby. Unfortunately, it poured down rain the entire weekend, and I was disappointed we wouldn't be able to get any good photos outside. My tender mercy for the day was that it stopped raining just long enough for us to run down to the edge of Ford Island and get some good pictures.

 Daddy loves her :)

 3 generations

We got a wonderful Christmas present this year.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We got to make Thanksgiving dinner at our house for the first time this year. We were especially excited, because we had two very special people joining us-our adorable baby and my mom, who was here visiting. Kelson had to work on Thanksgiving, so we actually celebrated the day after, but it was great just the same.

 We all had our jobs to get ready for the feast. Kelson was on turkey duty.

 Mom had the all-important job of baby holding while I worked in the kitchen with Kelson.

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 We put out quite a beautiful (not to mention delicious!) feast.

 I think we can definitely say that our first Thanksgiving as a family was a success. Sarah even slept almost long enough for me to eat my food, which was very kind of her.

 It must have been a good meal, because everyone passed out during the after-dinner Christmas movie.

We have so much to be grateful for this year. We are loving life here in Hawaii. Mostly we feel incredibly blessed to be celebrating the holidays with little Sarah this year.