Hawaiian Girls

Aren't these Hawaiian girls cute?

Frolic and Play the Eskimo Way -- or not

We keep trying to find a Christmas tradition that will last. We have tried something new every year, from a six course candlelight French meal on china to simple chips and dips. But nothing ever sticks. Too time consuming or someone doesn't like the menu, or too many dishes at an already busy time or not filling enough, etc. But this year, I think we have found our new tradition-- at least for Christmas Eve. We celebrated with Margarita Pizza (Christmas colors of red tomatoes, green basil and white mozzerella cheese), and fresh red and white fruits with fruit dip. It was easy to make and clean up, and everyone, even the picky eaters, loved it.

Christmas morning, we all especially enjoyed watching the youngest three open presents. Baby Lana was particularly cute because she didn't tear through her gifts. She had to be prodded to continue because each time she reached into her stocking, she wanted to eat or play with whatever she pulled out.

Even though we each only get three presents (reminiscent of the gifts Jesus received from the Wise Men), it takes awhile to open 30 gifts. As you can see, Lana is dressed up in one of her new gifts, a giant beach towel. In fact, everyone received a big beach towel -- a perfect gift to go with our Christmas day activity. Right after a delicious breakfast of Rob's traditional nut bread topped with homemade guava butter and persimmon butter made from fruit we picked in our yard, we packed up our swim suits and all the new beach towels an took off for the pool and the beach. What a way to spend Christmas! I loved it. I don't miss the snow at all because I hate being cold and always have. Growing up, I was always the last out of the car to ski or skate and the first back in the car. The children think they miss snow, but they've never actually been around a lot of snow, only a few inches a year in Japan and then NC. And it always seemed to melt in a couple hours. Someday they can go off to school and enjoy some really good deep snow, but as for me, I think I'll be perfectly happy at the beach every Christmas.

Adam and Jairin decided to try "skimming," which involves riding a board on wet sand or shallow water. It was hilarious to watch them try to stay on the little board; they spent more time face down in the sand than upright.

The girls didn't try to skim, but they had fun in the waves.

Joelle had fun building sand castles with Daddy.

We also had a great time in the pool.

Mele Kalikimaka everyone.

Kamri's 12th Birthday

Kamri really really tried hard to avoid turning twelve, but it happened just the same. We had her choice of breakfast which was yummy apple breakfast cake.

Although she was not excited to be twelve and going into Young Women's, she was excited to finally get her ears pierced. We celebrated her birthday at the pool and beach.

She chose apple cheese cake for her birthday "cake" (can you tell Kamri loves fruit?). But unfortunately, we forgot the candles, so she only got to turn six today. I think she thought that if she only turned six, she wouldn't have to go to Young Women's, but we told her we'd have her turn six another day as well so she would have to go to Young Women's after all. As you can see, she was not too happy to hear this -- or maybe it's just that she doesn't like photos in her swim suit :-).

She received a jewelry-making kit (so that she can design and make her own earings and bracelets) and a watch from Papa and Nana among other things.

If you look closely, you can see the pretty new pink earing in her ear.

Happy Birthday, Kamri!!

Where does the time go?

So it is really hard to keep up with this blog thing. I have all these good intentions, but now I am way behind again. I think it might be easier with fewer children, but I don't feel like I can mention one child without mentioning all of them in some way, so every time I plan to add to my blog, I end up not having enough time. I think I am going to have to resort to smaller entries even if I can't mention each child each time. My goal is to catch up while Rob is in Arizona this week. After the other children go to bed, it is quite lonesome each night waiting for Caroline's feeding pump to finish. So I'll blog.

I think I'll start with now and go backwards to Thanksgiving until I catch up. We don't have any birthdays or special days until Feb., so that should give me time to catch up, right?

After having several not so good weeks including some awful days, Caroline, out of the blue, had five stellar days with no crying or even fussing what-so-ever. Now she is back to horrible days again. It always seems to go in cycles like this. She has terrible days until I am about to lose my mind, and I wonder how I can do this for the rest of my life. And then just when I think I can't take it any more, she does an about face and everything is wonderful. So then I think, "Yeah, I can handle this." I get used to happy, laughing Caroline again and then boom!!! Bad days are here again. I guess that is how God stretches me. I just hope that he really knows how far this balloon can go before it pops!

It was 38 degrees outside last night, the coldest it's been since we moved here. I woke up in the middle of the night, freezing. I lay there for awhile trying to keep baby Lana warm (she was even colder than I was because her bed is next to the outside wall). As I lay there, I thought to myself, "I am in Hawaii -- and I am even colder in this house than I ever was in Big Piney." I lay in bed awhile longer, sort of wishing that Rob would get cold enough that he'd wake up and see why it was so cold, but finally, my nose got so cold that I couldn't stand it. Rob thinks I'm crazy, but when I'm cold, my nose always gets cold first. And I simply cannot sleep with a cold nose, even if the rest of me is toasty warm. So, I left Lana crying and got up only to discover that our propane had run out -- of all nights. In case you didn't know it, I'm one of Murphy's best friends. I help him invent new laws regularly. I had to go outside to find the kerosene heater. Poor Rob woke up anyway because Lana was crying so loudly. He rescued me and got the other heater going. It took an hour or so before it got warm enough to thaw my nose. I never imagined being so cold in Hawaii.

And the mold. We discovered that we were living in a mold infested house. But "that's the price of paradise!" I pulled something out from under our bed one morning and found it covered in mold. So I pulled everything out from under the bed and found that everything was covered in mold. It turned out that under the bed was only the beginning. Because the house has no insulation, mold grows on anything that touches the floor or the outside walls. Lana's bed was covered in mold. Rob's clothes nearest to the outside wall in his closet were covered with mold etc. etc. We ended up buying a dehumidifier and an air purifier. We also pulled everything off of the floor and away from the walls. We think the mold might be part of the reason that we've all been sick with coughs for so long. After we got the inside of the house taken care of, we discovered that all the shelves in the carport were covered with mold and many of the things in the boxes on the shelves were moldy. So we spent yesterday de-cluttering and de-molding. We have to make everything fit into the spare room where Caroline sleeps so that the mold won't grow. We threw away a lot of things. There is something very freeing about getting rid of "stuff." It is rather liberating because suddenly we have fewer things to worry about. I rather enjoyed it. I think we'll throw away more. We can thank this little house for freeing us.

But living here is worth the cold, the mold, the tiny house and any other inconvenience. And here's why:

Did I say I love Maui????????????