I Love to See the Temple // Raleigh NC

We had an incredible experience visiting the small temple of Raleigh. Leka totally thought it was a stake center when we passed it- and yes, we totally passed it when trying to find it. Regardless of its size, it has tremendous beauty. Being the closest temple to Charlotte, I was a little bummed that we didn't actually get to go inside, but just walking around the grounds gave me a peaceful feeling and my babies loved to explore. Definitely worth the 2 hour drive.

All pictures are my original work and taken with an iPhone 6s. 

Norman Lake

accidentally captured this kid, mid-trip! turned out to be 2 pretty cool shots.

no big deal- just saw a family of geese with their young- I got really close and they kind of let me take some pictures

almost got a decent pic of all 4 of us- it's like a game these days

 

Being a stay at home mom is fun, don't get me wrong, but like, I need an adventure every now and again.

Since Sunday's are Leka's day off out here, we get to do whatever we want and usually that means watching movies and doing nothing all day. Needless to say, I finally convinced him that we needed to explore our new home while we're here. This is Norman Lake and the park is called Jetton Park. It just so happened to be open to the public when we went so we didn't have to pay. I love free stuff.

We walked around for about an hour - when the kids get restless around 7 we know its time to pack up and head home cause these boys take their bedtime VERY seriously.

Leka is killing it out here.
He plans to break all the records.
Hahaha well, I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

ps- I can't wait until I can afford a real camera! I feel like I was born to be a photographer. hahahahahaha jk I don't think I'm that good but I absolutely LOVE it. Enjoy!

Happy Mama's Day

7 am- wake up to crying baby. Change diaper, feed, and let him play until brother wakes up around 8. Make toddler breakfast (which will probably end up on the ground or in his lap), change another diaper, try to find time to make breakfast for myself, end up feeding whatever I made for myself to toddler, say goodbye to husband who's off to work. Entertain toddler with whatever works for that day (some days it's bubbles and some days his toys work just fine). Make a bottle and put that baby down for a nap.

When you finally get the baby back to sleep, the toddler grabs your hand and begs you to come play with him. By now, you're hungry and it's time to eat, so you turn on some type of cartoon in hopes he'll be distracted for 5-10 minutes while you shove a cheese stick in your mouth. It's now about 11 and you haven't even looked in the mirror. Toddler starts to throw a tantrum right as the baby wakes up. Change more diapers, start to prepare food for lunch, which most of, again, will probably end up on the ground. Set the baby down with some toys and feed the toddler lunch. When he's finished you try to bribe him to take a nap- it usually doesn't take much convincing when he gets his binky. Baby starts to cry so you play with him until he's tired again. Feed him a bottle and put him down.
It's now almost 1 and you FINALLY have some time to yourself. There's a couple things you can do now. Clean, eat, get ready? But what do we usually do? Nothing. Lay down on the couch and literally do nothing. Not even sleep. Genius. 3 rolls around and we realize the kids are going to wake up soon and we've literally done nothing for 2 hours. We get up, wash our face and clean up the 10 toys laying around on the ground. Eat a quick lunch and right when we really start to feel motivated- BOOM- both kids magically wake up!

This is the time of the day where I might even put on pants and take the kids outside. By 6, it's time to take them inside and get ready for dinner. Dinner?! Why haven't I thought about this all day? I literally had all day. Okay, mac and cheese is easy, lets go with that. Change more diapers, feed more kids, play with them. Time for baths and jammies- let's throw in a couple meltdowns from the toddler because I made him get out of the water or simply because he's a toddler. Get the toddler in his bed, say prayers, and give kisses. Make the baby a bottle, and swaddle him to sleep. After about an hour, the baby falls asleep.

Its now 9 pm and you finally find energy to clean up the kitchen and living room and maybe put that laundry away.

It's not easy. Everyone knows it's not easy. It's the hardest job in the world because it never stops. The description above is just a typical day- and definitely different for everyone. It's rewarding in the most emotional way.

Happy mother's day.

Summer Sales

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

Here's an update on our life- we're moving!
It all happened so fast and I couldn't be more excited to start this adventure! Don't worry! We're definitely not leaving for good- just for the next 4 months.

For the last 6 months or so, my husband, Naisa Leka, has been working for my dad. He's been learning the business from the bottom, up, so that eventually, he can take over and buy it from him. Flashback to about 18 months ago, October of 2014. Leka had gone to Hawaii, without me, to sell solar, door to door. It was there that he discovered his passion and natural ability in sales. Fast forward to now, we know that this business can be slow sometimes and the money isn't always guaranteed.

On Sunday (4/10), we were at my parents house for dinner and we were talking to my brother about how he had dropped out of summer sales and kind of left his best friend hanging, but how the friend handled it so well. Then all of the sudden we were talking about Leka doing it, then my dad was encouraging it, then my brother was telling us about all the incentives and how much money you can make and we were getting all excited! We pretty much decided that night that we were gonna do it, but Leka hadn't even had a real meeting with Bennett.

The next morning, they had the meeting and Leka came home more excited and pumped than ever, telling me he was ready to leave on Wednesday (4/13)... WHAT?! Literally giving us 1 entire day to pack everything up in our little car so he can drive it 2000 miles across the country. Me and the babies will be flying out in a couple weeks.

I'm so excited to share our adventures here! So follow along if you want to know how we're doing, and we'll see you, Utah, in August!

*pic found on pinterest

Bear Lake 2016

Click here to watch the video

(link to vimeo)

We planned a quick, 2 day trip up to Garden City, UT for Leka's week off and MAN did we have a blast. This was technically our first vacation- or trip- as a family of four, alone. It was surprisingly smooth sailing for the most part and our boys did awesome. Special thanks to Leka's boss, Dennis, for letting us stay at his super nice cabin. We definitely plan on going back!

2015 // a year in review

It's the end of January and it's about time I reviewed the past year. It's whatever, at least it's happening.

At the beginning of 2015, I thought my life could not get more eventful than 2014. Marriage, baby, how could there be more?

I was so so wrong.

JAN

Let's start with January. Leka turned 21 (I know- we're young. According to Leka he's an "old man"), I was coaching club volleyball and I just had to give up playing for the UVU women's club team because I couldn't afford it... little did I know it was a blessing in disguise because I found out that I was pregnant at the end of January. Ammon was barely 6 months old, but I wasn't nervous in the slightest. I love being a mama and I felt like having a second when we did was the perfect thing for our family. This pregnancy was already 100x harder though because of nausea and fatigue, which I didn't really experience with Ammon until the 3rd trimester.

FEB

February 1st was Ammon's blessing day. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary with a weekend up at Aspen Grove. It was a couples retreat for Valentines Day that my parents thought would be great for us. Well, not only were we the youngest ones there, we were about 10 years younger than the youngest couples there. It was still awesome, and we spent a lot of it hiking the beautiful snowy mountain trails and enjoying the scenery.
Me and Leka decided to keep our new pregnancy to ourselves, but my family found out about baby number 2!
Also Ammon got his first 2 teeth!

MAR

In March, my best friend Amanda got her mission call to Italy. We took an emergency trip to Cali to visit Leka's family and take care of some stuff. It just so happened to be the weekend, so we traveled back all Friday night (Leka drank so many energy drinks that he started to see things- like cops chasing him) so that I could make it to my club volleyball tournament Saturday morning, which also doubled as my birthday. I finally turned 20. I'm not going to lie, it was not a fun birthday. I was super emotional, had no sleep, and we were about 1 1/2 hours from home, but my team finally won a set, so it turned out to be a promising day.
Ammon started crawling in March and had his first dentist appointment!

APR 

April was pretty chill. Leka and I got to go to General Conference for the first time together. It was actually his first time ever. Also my lovely friend Kate got married! My sister noticed a very soft and slightly swollen spot on Ammon's head and I decided to have it checked out since his soft spots should've been gone by now. My doctor called me in a panic after getting the x-ray back that Ammon had a skull fracture. He kept hinting that it was no bump on the head, he had to have been dropped from a significant height or had some major impact. We guessed that it might have happened at the 24 hour fitness daycare since I dropped him off there twice a week while I coached practice. I'm still not positive that's what happened, but we tried to be a lot more careful with who watched Ammon after that.
We also got to walk through the Payson temple open house which is essentially the day we decided that's where we wanted to be sealed.
Leka's dad and stepmom welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Elisa on the 26th! It was such an amazing experience to meet Ammons new aunty.

MAY

In May, I got to take a trip to Arizona with my mom and sister for a "mother's retreat" for Mother's Day. It was a blast! If you've never been to Last Chance, it's an experience you definitely want- especially because I got 2 pairs of Nike Air's for $60! What a steal!!
Mother's Day is also the day I announced my pregnancy at about 4 months pregnant, and in the same weekend, Leka's brother Mike came to live with us!
My little brother Kevin graduated from high school!
We had our family reunion down in Las Vegas where Ammon took a couple of his first steps!

JUN

 

June was the month I found out the gender of our new baby via confetti cannon. Best decision I ever made. I love surprises! I think with the next one I'll wait until baby is born for the gender reveal!
We discovered a splash pad around the corner from our house and spent a lot of good summer days there. We also celebrated Leka's first father's day. My BFF Kim who also doubles as my cousin came home from her mission as well! We entered Ammon in the baby contest at Orem Summerfest, and although he didn't win anything for being cute, I told them they were crazy, cause obviously my baby is adorable (we did win a raffle prize though!)

Ammon officially started walking!

JUL

In July obviously we celebrated the 4th of July! It was so incredibly fun! Then a week and a half later we got to celebrate Ammon's first birthday! We hiked to stewart falls (6 months pregnant!) and then Mike moved back to California.

AUG

August was fun! Leka and I got to do the moonlight lift ride and go to a REAL Salt Lake soccer game! Got to watch my friend from high school, Alexia Meyer perform and compete on SYTYCD! Took Ammon to 7 peaks, and worked a part time job in HR at Provo Canyon School. Took Ammon to his first carnival. Leka's best friend, Hunter returned home from Guatemala.

SEP

September started out great! Though I was feeling very huge, we went to lots of weddings and took Ammon to the aquarium! On September 12 all of our hard work paid off and we got to enter the temple for the first time to receive our endowments. It was the most wonderful experience for me because for the first time in my life, I really had to work at getting myself worthy to enter and all of that paid off. The Mount Timpanogos temple is beautiful by the way! I had our sealing all scheduled for October 2 (yes, 10 days before my due date :) Then, 12 days later, I woke up and had a baby! You can find that story here!
Anyways that pretty much set off a chain reaction of events! Obviously we had to reschedule the sealing ;)

OCT

On October 3rd, we took Fina to general conference for her first time and then we finally got to bring our little miracle baby home from the NICU! A couple weeks later I had to get a colonoscopy/endoscopy to test for Chron's Disease. They did find something that looked like an infection in my small intestine. Thank goodness the GI doctor did a biopsy and gave me the news that it wasn't Chron's, but it was odd that I kept having the pains... eventually they went away and at my follow up they told me that ibuprofen had probably been the reason for problems in the hospital that did something to my digestive tract. My best friend Kim, the one who doubles as my cousin... yeah she married her sweetheart on October 22 and I got to witness their sealing in the temple. It was the first sealing I'd ever witnessed and it had me so excited for my own. We also found out that my sister in law, Sesi, was expecting a baby BOY! Yay for boy cousins! Then we celebrated Halloween by taking Ammon trick or treating... AKA going to maybe 5 houses before we were all worn out.

NOV

 

In November we went to the 3A high school football semifinals to support our cousin Wayne Alofipo as he coached them to the championship game! It was freezing, but they squashed them! We got our family pictures taken and then celebrated Thanksgiving in Las Vegas with my moms family.

DEC

Finally, December was a great month. Ammon said "mama" intentionally for the first time. He also got his first haircut just days before our little family was sealed for time and all eternity in the Payson Temple on December 5. I've never had a more spiritual experience. It was seriously indescribable. I felt so blessed knowing that everyone I loved most went out of their way to be there, including Leka's beautiful mama from California who dressed us in our Tongan attire. Funny side note to that day: my sister woke up and couldn't even move. She'd been having pain for a couple days but it was progressively getting worse. So they decided to give her a priesthood blessing, which got her through the sealing, but after the luncheon, they took her to the ER and found out she had a kidney stone. Priesthood blessings people- they work wonders. The next day, Leka got the awesome opportunity to bless baby Tyson.
My best friend Maddi got her mission call to New Mexico.
OH! On Dec. 10 I entered an Intermountain Moms contest. Their 12 days of giveaways. AND I WON! I've never won anything before in my life. It was a $75 gift card to massage envy.
A few weeks later, we left for Florida for Christmas vacation courtesy of my wonderful loving parents. I had back pain the entire week. Luckily, I had leftover percocet from the C-Section and I used it all week to help ease the pain. If I didn't have that, I don't know how I would've made it through Florida because when we flew into Vegas and then drove to St. George to have our family Christmas party, I ended up going to the ER during dinner because I couldn't even breathe. I honestly felt so stupid for going in, but it ended up being critical! After 4-5 hours in the ER, they told me that I needed to get my galbladder out because it was BAD! So I made the executive decision to drive back up to Orem to get it removed so that Leka could go to work and I could recover in my own bed. That drive was miserable, but the kids did great and Leka was such a trooper at holding down the fort. We literally drove straight to the ER, I didn't even go inside my house. So I spent the next 2 days in the hospital. Had to get another endoscopy to get a gallstone out that had passed and gotten stuck.


These days I find myself frustrated with my body and I can't understand why I am so tired all the time and I have to keep reminding myself that I went through a lot of traumatic events lately and I need time to heal! By next year, I'll be back to normal... and hopefully not pregnant again for at least 2 years!