Da Keiki Blog

On Sunday, Leilani’s actual birthday we went to see the San Jose Holiday parade. We were wondering why it started so early, it is pretty cold at 8:30 on a winter morning, but it was the longest and slowest parade I have ever seen.

More cotton candy. This time in green, later this day in blue… but Leilani still ate a nice sized lunch at our new favorite restaurant.

The Santagirls here were fun to watch, they danced nicely to jazzy versions of chrismas music. Most dancers were nice, but – like in all parades in this country – there were a lot of military academies participating, and the most perverted one had cheerleaders with fake guns dancing to christmas music and twirling their weapons and like batons.

Leilani loves supergrover like anything else she finds on sesamestreet.org

after 2 hours of parade the Blasblumen (blowing flowers) are more interesting

“What are you taking this picture for?” (Note the “333” in the background

Towards the end came the colorful Mexicans

and Santa too…

San Jose

Sunday, on her actual birthday we got up early to see the San Jose Holiday parade. Leilani slept in the car, the fog rolled over the hills.

In the evening we took Leilani to see the Nutcracker. She had seen it last year, and sat through the whole thing, and watched the entire (!!!!) DVD just a few weeks ago – she requested it at the library. I could not watch more than 15 minutes of the filmed nutcracker, but live it was great. Unfortunately around 9, about 15 minutes before it ended Leilani got bored and restless, and rather than annoy people sitting around us we left.

She got to pick out her own clothes, and chose this red christmas dress, and wore her tiara all night long.

Saturday, the day before her birthday we took Leilani to the zoo. We met Santa, and Leilani had lost all her fear, she ran right up and climbed into the sleigh and talked with him.

Even though Leilani still does not do well when she gets red food coloring we made an exception this weekend. She loves cotton candy as much as I did when I was a kid.

One of Leilani’s favorite books is about a Llama named Harley – she was certain that this Alpaca was Harley and fed him without fear.

Leilani sleeping with her beloved otter

We have pretty sunrises here too.

Leilani likes to draw on the chalkboard – here she copied what I had drawn (hers is on the left :)

Poor Mikey. Here he is still happy, but today he had 5 teeth pulled. All his fangs are gone now, he’ll have to give up fighting now. And Jojo and I were diagnosed with the exact opposite problem just 3 days apart – she has elevated thyroid and mine is too low.

Leilani arranged all her letters and other magnets to a gigant lei, she worked quite a while and when it got too tall to reach she got the steppingstool.

Girls will be girls…

We put Feng Shui crystals in most of our windows

Leilani has 3 strawberry plants, that she tends (a little) and harvests (a lot)

Dressup is still one of the favorite activities