Month: September 2007

Trude is visiting

My mom is here! We are having lots of fun, and Leilani just loves her so much. Brushing teeth? Going swimming? Going potty while there is a party? No problem if Oma takes her. Oma is also fixing up our garden, feeding the cats, working around the house, and helping us to go to the beach more often.

Lots of other things happening here. Andy got laid off work yesterday. We did have some advanced warning, and he’ll be paid for a little longer, so we really need to ramp up the video business, and have a few keep-us-above-water plans for the meantime. Check out my main site Simplify-Your-Life.com for one of them. The Video business on my side is about 300 hours (very rough estimate) away from making money, my little camera got broken during the filming of a reception, and then completely messed up by an incompetent repair man, without much hope of even getting it back. We need to buy audio equipment, and in a year or so upgrade to HD, which is a lot of investment. Andy considers being part of the video business, and is developing his own business ideas, and he has 2 months to find a job within Sun. He is also actively trying to find a new job or contracting in Silicon Valley and looking for job openings on Kauai.

JoJo the cat got hurt and had to stay a day at the vet. She got all stiched up and needs to take antibiotics now. Mikey seems angry at us again, we don’t know why but at least he comes home to eat. Maybe it is because Leilani and I sometimes smell of other cats, we are volunteering at a cat sanctuary down the street.

Monday we are leaving for the Big Island, we’ll stay 3 nights, so my mom can see the volcano. We’ll see lavatubes, and hopefully some lava flow.

Leilani is addicted to Jamba Juice, and smoothies are becoming a staple in our household. We use them as rewards for being good at Joy’s toddler school, and also drives by the store on Tues and Thurs after “Tutu and Me”pre-preshchool. Leilani now asks for them by name, Jamba Juice is how she says smoothie (I bet some marketing person is cackling somewhere).

Andy and Trude took Leilani to Kalapaki Beach and the Marriott after running some errands in Lihue yesterday:

School!!! and other news

Leilani stayed the whole day at the toddler school today! Alone!!! She did not cry or whine a single time, and neither did she ask for me. I left at 8:45 and sat 1/2 block away at the Lihue library “on call”, to about 12:15 and then went to picked her up, she was all happy and playing.

Leilani loves the circles

The kids have to raise their hand to request songs. Leilani still requests Heidi and is a little disappointed that Auntie Joy can’t yodel :-) But she is very happy to get her second choice of “Funny Clown”

Sometimes they dress up:

Three girls in a tent:

Joy’s daughter, Elsa, who is good friends with Leilani

Leilani’s vocabulary is incredible, her sentences get better and better, just the pronounciation needs improvement. Andy pulled up the blinds, and Leilani said: “Oh! I can see better now.” One of her favorite books is “Cat Heaven” – she asks for it “Mommy please read cat heaven.” because she can not pronounce it well, and heaven sounds like “…have” or “haben” I never understand, and she then translates for me “Katzen Himmel Buch” (with much better pronounciation). Andy got days mixed up and Thursday he told her she was going to Auntie Joy’s, and she replied “No daddy, going [to] Tutu and Me”. Another one “My hair needs washing” – then she poured a glass of water she was drinking from over her head, “My hair is all clean now. All done.”

When we let her taste a mango smoothie she said “Baah. Dump it out Daddy!” – She loves smoothies, but hates mangos. Usually she wants blueberry – banana, or strawberry. She likes mainland fruit now: apples, strawberries, grapes. Island fruits: bananas, passion fruit, starfruit, lychee and all similar fruit – rambutan, longan. She does not eat guava, hardly any papaya, no figs and oranges, but likes limes and lemons.

Recent hikes: Kuilau with Adam and Jaya

And Nounou with Aditi and Jaya:

Ruby’s Birthday party

Pillowfight

What if… Leilani grew a lot of hair…

…if it was orange…

…until then: hibiscus flowers!