Day: December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We had lots of gifts. Too many probably… but nothing that can’t be fixed with a little foodcoloring. Sadly Leilani got some, and behaved so badly, that we started to take away gifts.

If you spoke to her on the phone she might have admitted to refusing her lunch, and not going to bed, but she left out the things that happened in the 12 hours between (she went to bed around midnight, about 2 hours after I tried to go to bed the first time…)

Today fortunately she was almost back to normal, just very hyper and wild. Here she had almost finished dressing dressed and looked very pretty.

In the background you can see the gifts that actually stayed. The rest went to the garage and will stay there until next year. Leilani is very famous for stoically enduring punishments (I admired that many times on her) and suggested we give these gifts to the needy children…

Her best friend at school gave her the dog for her birthday, she loves it.

Opening presents.

Santa still brought her a bunch of gifts – just what she wanted: Light up candy…

But he also wrote her a letter, warning her there would be nothing next year unless she learned to behave better…

Mushrooms. Mount Tam. Rain.

We went mushroom hunting. I dare to post this now, because I am now and official member of the FFSC who describe themselves as “an informal, friendly, fun-loving group of fungophiles dedicated to the knowledge, pursuit and appreciation of wild mushrooms.” They eat them too, as well as we do (just the edible ones, after we very carefully ID them)… anyway, that might be something you did not really know about us. We have repeatedly told Leilani not to tell people here about the mushroom eating – in Austria it is normal, but here people often think we are totally out of our mind… We could probably still get in troubles because I now know we’d need a permit to pick the mushrooms…

The stars of the adventure, photographed by Leilani.
Andy – not yet wet.

Sonja soaked, but too far away to see.

Leilani – dry for unknown reasons – probably shortly after we changed her clothes (we had 3 sets of clothes for her)

Ainalaa, who got scratched a few days earlier

The real stars. We found so many mushrooms, it was incredible. We photographed a few to ID at home (but still have no positive ID on any)

This is a russella which is called Speitaeubling in German. It is not tasty unlike most russellas.

Leilani forgot to zoom. I am showing off some really nice mushrooms here.

She also forgot to have mushrooms in the picture. Actually that day it must have been hard to find a bit of forest ground that big without any mushrooms.

Later in the day the weather got better.

Doe, a deer, a female deer… oh wait, the does don’t have antlers… must have been a striped-legged Mount-Tam Leilanidear

Well, I think everything above I would have posted anyway… but not that. We ate mushrooms for 2 days. We deep-fried boletes (the first home-deep fry in about 3 years, done with ghee and butter because we had no cooking oil that could get hot enough.) We froze about 6 mushroom dishes, and I worked 4 hours cleaning. We tossed about 20 pounds of wormy and too soggy mushrooms in the compost.

Thank You!

Leilani loves to write cards. Christmas cards, thank-you-notes, even letters. They are a lot more work than if Andy or I would write them… Leilani tells us what to write, and if it should be upper or lower case, and then traces the letters.

On this picture I hold her hand, not guiding it just steadying. The later ones she wrote mostly by herself

I also made a slideshow.

Random Photos, Leilani’s Art and visiting friends

My dad made this nativity scene, and months before I travelled to Austria to say Good-Bye to him I got new figurines for it and painted them (not the angel, she is played by one of Leilani’s Schleich Fairies as you can see by the un-angelic neckline and gloves)

Leilani took a photo of our Christmas plants…

…and of Christmas Rudy…

…of her Christmas stuffed animals that she gets to play with just once a year

…of random decorations…

…and of my office (in the background I am working on her school’s website and probably talking on the phone judging by my hand).

She still tends to photograph her fleeting art…

Leilani is playing nicely with her friend. Even though I like her and her sister, that could have been our last visit. She decided that the one Barbie they were playing with was too ugly and shot her with a pretend gun. Leilani was almost as upset as I was. I told her Nanny, who said she’d talk to the mom… I wish I had called the mom myself… but Leilani reacts really good to these things (she has 2 no guns signs now, actually one is a no-blasters sign after Andy pointed out that Stitch has blasters…)

Recently at school I was the art teacher… we made coffee filter flowers. Lots of fun!

Other photos we took early this winter.

It’s a monster. No its scare-cat!

Leilani made this purse from a kit she got for her birthday, and was so proud of it!

What could I do with these flowers?

I know!

Can I be a model when I grow up? I already know how to pose!

Leilani’s Birthday Party

I feel exhausted just to post all these birthday events… seems all of December was consumed by birthday preparation, school birthday, party, Christmas preparation…

Rain or Shine, the party was outdoors at Lemos. Leilani had invited all her friends, so we did not have a backup location. A storm was predicted and I got a lot of phone calls and a few people decided last minute not to attend… but Leilani inherited my good weather fortune and instead of a storm we got occasional drizzles and a little sunshine in between.

Lemos Farm is a great place, lots of fun activities for kids.

Say “Cheese”

Trains are almost as much fun as horses…

But where are the trains taking us?????

No foodcoloring on that cake…

Within minutes of leaving the party the rain started pouring and Leilani fell asleep

More Photos Here