Month: February 2009

As usual, unedited and uncropped, and on top of it the blogpost made with a macro (a program to include lots of pictures :-)

Andy turned off the flash for some pictures, that’s why they are blurry.

This time I got her to comment a little on her photos… I’ll write what I remember and add some of my own.

Andy says: I was tempted to make faces like she does sometimes, but then I realized they’d end up on the blog anyway, so I’d better smile.

Not the pizza – it’s about the angel

Andy’s legs

That’s all chocolate (Andy’s comment: “She can read!”)

Frozen ice cream stuffed mochi (although I’m not sure Leilani knew what she was photographing):

Where the pizza is not… emptiness

Then we had to walk/run up and down the main street in Millbrae (the town next to San Bruno where we go shopping). Again, she took photos again, this time of flowers and plants (I wonder where she gets that from?)

This was a sorry-looking palmtree on an overcast afternoon. I told her it wouldn’t make a good picture and she took it anyway. I told Mommy it wasn’t a great picture and she posted it anyway.

This is the first self portrait she took (good thing I had the flash off)

And of course – her feet.

Leilani is pretty good at little household tasks, but she is unbeatable at cleaning in tight spots. And while doing so she sang: “This is the way we get the dust, get the dust, get the dust, this is the way we get the dust so early in the morning…”

Saturday we went to see the Chinese New Years parade and gained some valuable insights. Neither of us reacts particularly well to crowds, noise and body contact with strangers, and there are a lot better things to do with our time than watch sunset parades in a cold place like SF. Before the parade we did go up to the coit tower and had some pretty views though:

Leilani makes awesome greeting cards (with a little help cutting, folding and gluing)

Leilani and I went to the Academy of Science once more – this time the lines were shorter. We even went into the tropical rain forest (still 15 minutes or so in line).

The most remarkable thing for Leilani was a movie – Bugs, in 3D. When we got our reservations I asked skeptically “Is it OK for…” and before I could finish the sentence the friendly guy answered “Oh yes, it’s geared towards the 6 an under crowd.” When it started we were there on time, got our goggles, and really good seats (Leilani sat behind 2 rows of children). It was really fascinating. Beautifully done, perfect 3D in color, and very artistic computer effects – but none of that impressed Leilani too much.

She fell in love with a “Papilio” while watching the tiny caterpillar chewing her way out of her egg, then munching on the jungle, avoiding predators and eventually turning into a beautiful butterfly. The the other lead role was “Hierodula”, a praying mantis, its life story just as fascinating and the footage awesome. The narration gave them a lot of personality while being educational. Lots of other bugs and spiders make their way in and out of the story, but it always got back to Papilio and Hierodula. In the end the finally met. When the narrator kept emphasizing how hungry Hierodula was I wanted to take Leilani and run… too late. When it attacked, Leilani did not really get it for a second or so – a bigger girl across the room started crying right away. And then the camera caught the wings dropping down. And Leilani sobbed and cried uncontrollably for the next 5 minutes. A few adults laughed at the 2 girls, but I felt so sorry for them. Leilani kept repeating how cute and beautiful the butterfly was, and how she loved it so much. Fortunately the movie was over and all the noise did not cause too much disturbance.

We talked about death and the food chain for the next 2 hours btw. And we talked about how Leilani didn’t even flinch when the Mantis ate flies.

Click on the “>” to play Leilani’s Mantis – Butterfly song!

Strawberry poison dart frogs in the tropical rain-forest

There were beautiful butterflies, I think this one is called Morphos

I asked her to say “butterfly”…

Banded Orange Heliconia

The had a seesaw bench near the aquarium. Leilani and some other kids had fun on it.

We finally took down our Christmas decorations last week. Before we did we had to take one last photo of Leilani’s little tree, and I need to tell the story: When we put up the big tree Leilani wanted one too. I checked out all the rosemary trees, but they all either had pests or looked sick, I did not find anything else the right size, so I made one from 2 sheets of green cardstock, punched a lot of holes in and let Leilani decorate it. She had lots of fun doing it, and it was in her room, on top of a musicbox with a spinning disk on top all (in our house twice extended :-) Chrismas season.

That’s how the finished bread looked, for kneading scroll to the end of this post

We went hiking to Hunter’s Point with Ethan and his parents Dave and Rebecca.

Let’s go, let’s run, the grownups will follow…

Here Mommy, a bouquet for you….

I can hippedy-hop like Pipi…

Leilani loves climbing trees. And she is pretty good at it by now…

With highly scientific methods we determined this to be not a dogwood, and not a cherry, but an almond tree. (I tasted one of last year’s nuts)