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Leilani’s advent-calendar collection. The big one she made herself, with little bags we had collected over the years, and I wrote a fun activity or little gift coupon for each of the bags, for example: “Christmas Parade”, “Crafts with Mommy” “Zentangle” “Pick your breakfast” “One cookie” “Get one privilege back”(*).

Leilani’s new Barbie house and the new huge toy box I made for her out of a seed catalog and one of the boxes we received.

I should print this for my neighbor, whose house it is…

Two days later (yes, it’s the rainy season again):

We dressed up our year-round wreath as a Christmas wreath:

Sonja got creative with the fruit plate again:

But the rainy season also has the best sunrises (though it also has duds):

Leilani liked this picture of Leela from Thanksgiving:

(*) Get one privilege back…big mistake. Leilani loses privileges (dessert, ipad, movies…) for bad behavior, usually for the rest of the day, or 24 hours. It was supposed to be something like a get-out-of-jail-free card in Monopoly. But Leilani did not (could not) know that it is good only once. She cried uncontrollably when she realized she had to give up her treasured card for good and could not keep using it every time when she lost a privilege.

Between birthday and holiday cards, Leilani wrote a lot this December.

Birthday card for Jaya:

Thank-you notes for her birthday presents:

The tiger poster from this summer was finally rolled up and put away:

For the “Secret Santa” present at school Leilani made this necklace for one of her friends:

A strange letter…

… and Sonja’s explanation why it’s strange: Leilani wrote this letter in December 2012, after asking me point blank if there actually is a Tooth Fairy or “Is it really one of the parents?” Of course, she got a straight answer, but the expected disappointment did not appear on her face. I explained adults made it up to make kids happy and for entertainment. Leilani seemed very relieved. I gave her a dollar [for her 5th tooth] and asked her to write a letter. This is what she wrote.

I forgot to photograph most of out Christmas cards, these were my last ones [made by Sonja, so not really Leilani’s art]:

And Leilani’s Birthday thank-you notes to her parents (these took a bit longer than the others):

I made that cake after the Christmas Parade and frosted it right before the party. It was an marbled oil-cake with coconut oil, and the yellow part turned out great. What should have been the marbling chocolate brown part turned into an unfluffy compact mass as soon as it touched the cacao powder. Lisa rescued me with the idea to bake it seperately and we called it a “brownnie-layer.” Even though it was a sweet and chocolaty brick I was very disappointed with that part.

We started in the yard:

Cake! And fruit salad! And marzipan!



We did a lot of painting and stamping instead of more traditional party activities. And trampoline jumping too.

The girls still like to play dress-up with Leilani’s box of clothes:

Adults need a break:

Because they know they’ll have to deal with this:

For the actual sleepover, the girls slept in a big nest of pillows and blankets in 2 big tents we set up in the yard. For some it was their first camp out, and for others their first night away from parents. In the end, they all did great and didn’t wake up too early.

Next morning we did crafts again… there are more party photos on Andy’s camera that I’ll post later.

When I was just about to start the cake for the big party tomorrow Adam called… I had forgotten the Christmas parade!!! It was one of my advent-calender and birthday gifts to Leilani, and she had forgotten to open the advent-calender so I had not gotten my reminder. I dropped everything, we jumped in the car and got there before traffic got too bad, we had dinner at the Kauai Chinese Barbecue and the kids played in the trees before it started.

The Lihue Christmas Parade is a fun local tradition where local organizations make simple floats on trucks and flatbed trailers, usually with a holiday theme and a generator to run a lot of lights. There is actually a second light parade later in the season in Waimea town.

Andy (who was on the mainland) says: I’m still not sure what’s going on in this picture:

It’s still not that great of a photo, but before it had no color whatsoever in Leilani’s face and hat, so I’m pretty proud of it.

People on the floats throw candy to the kids, who then run around collecting it all. Some save it for later, some give it to their friends, and others put it right in their mouth.

On Leilani’s actual birthday, she got to open all the presents from her parents, relatives, and Lisa who was visiting. There was no cake (that would be for the party the next day), but Sonja made marzipan animals as a sweet treat, and gave Leilani some candles to blow out:

Andy was in San Francisco, but thanks to modern technology, he could be “there” too:


… and that’s probably the last photo of my macbook. I’m a bit sad that it’s broken. At the age of 7 years I suppose I won’t have anyone try to fix it anymore… But I am so happy I got all the data off…

Just what Leilani loves: figurines, puzzles, and a vintage playhouse for her Barbies: