Caroline's Happy Tutu

>Caroline turned eight years old on June 5th. These are pictures of the birthday girl on her way to school.

Caroline's teachers at school wanted to do something different/special for her, so I sent some goldfish, Trix and a few chocolate chips. Lately, everytime we try to feed her by mouth, she has gotten incredibly excited for a few bites, followed by irritation, followed by screaming for 15-20 minutes, so we don't feed her very often. Because her reaction is the same everytime, we can only assume that she gets upset because she wants more and faster. Her teachers enjoyed watching her flail and kick in excitement as they fed her a few bites, but sure enough, she got irritated and then upset.

We had a party for her at home. We sang "Happy Birthday" and clapped as hard as we could to get her to laugh. We gave her more music toys and more rings (to replace the ones she has chewed to shreds).

We decided to risk giving Caroline a treat as well. But we first sang and gave her her presents, and then we gave her her night meds so that she'd be calmer. When the meds started to work, we fed her Triple Chocolate Pudding. Amazingly enough, she did not fuss, but smiled and enjoyed every bite (we loved it too --the recipe is a keeper!). She fell asleep right on schedule, after smiling and laughing for several more minutes, with no irritation at all.

<

We hope she had a happy birthday and that someday she will remember the taste of that yummy pudding.

Gabelle's Happy Tutu

Gabelle (Joelle) turned four on May 13th. She chose a little people cake.


And this is Gabelle with her "chicken Babs" smile.

Gabelle always knows exactly what she wants and does not change her mind. She knew what food she wanted and although we gave her myriad choices, she never swayed from what she wanted: pancakes for breakfast, gyoza for dinner and a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting and Oreo ice cream. She ate sooo many gyoza, I lost count. We had to be creative to try to decorate a cake that had brown frosting-- thus the Little People standing on thrones so that we could make them cute.

This is Gabelle with some of her presents : Little People dvds, a fairy house with five new fairies and a Tinkerbell table setting. Joelle is exactly opposite of Aria. Whereas Aria had all her presents opened within 3 minutes, Joelle took a long long time and drove Aria crazy. Joelle very carefully unwrapped each present rather than ripping the paper. Then she thoroughly examined the gift. She took the time to take each gift out of the plastic or box and then began to play with each one. We had to remind her several times that she had more presents to open. Aria had received fruit tic-tacs and ice breakers for her birthday, and Joelle was really looking forward to receiving her very own tic-tacs and ice breakers as well. When she opened them, she was very excited, but instead of immediately popping them into her mouth, she stopped and went around the room and shared one tic-tac and one ice breaker with each of us before she even ate one herself. She is very thoughtful and loving.

We had to wait a couple of weeks for her outing, but we went to the same park as we did for Aria's birthday and had another picnic. This time, however, we were almost carried away by flies.

Creative apology

Rob walked into the bathroom one day. All of a sudden we heard, "Why are all the towels on the floor?'' Wondering what he meant since no one had had showers recently, I followed him into the bathroom, and this is what I saw. At first I was confused, but then I realized that the towels were arranged much too carefully to be a random act slovenliness.

So, I looked more carefully and realized that each towel was shaped into a letter.


It was Jairin's way of apologizing for his tantrum a few minutes before :-)!

Easter Eggs and Killer Bunnies

The children woke up Easter morning to too much candy, a kite, bubbles, balls and the games Killer Bunnies and Kinderbunnies. They learned how to play Killer Bunnies at Grandpa Bob's and Grandma Nette's house, and they have wanted to own it themselves ever since. Kinderbunnies is the little kid version of Killer Bunnies. We have had a great time playing this game since Easter, and the children are looking forward to someday receiving the expansion packs.

Here are the three little girls, Lana and Joelle with their mouths full of candy, and Aria with some of the eggs she found hiding around the house.

This is a picture of the candy after all the Easter eggs had been emptied into the big blue bowl. Can you say "sugar high"?

Good food and Good fun

Adam's 14th birthday was on May 3rd. Adam has inherited refined tastebuds from his parents :-), and he always spends quite awhile trying to decide what meals to have on his birthday. He only gets to pick the meals three times a year (once on his birthday and twice on his special months), so his meal choosing is a serious, time-consuming business.

He finally decided on Eggs Benedict for breakfast and Chimichangas for an early dinner. (We have to forego lunch in lieu of early dinners on birthday days because usually the meals are so filling (ie. fattening), we can't fit in three meals.)

Actually, Adam's birthday was on fast Sunday, so he announced to us all, well in advance, that his birthday was actually on Saturday. He ended up getting two special meals because, on his real birthday, we had pizza Sunday evening after church and then his "cake" which was a Flourless Walnut Chocolate Torte. Yum!!



The plan was to have Adam receive his patriarchal blessing on Sunday since he was fasting. It seemed like a special way to celebrate a fast sunday birthday, but it turns out that the only patriarch in Maui only gives blessings on Mondays. So, although Adam did receive his patriarchal blessing, (and he fasted again without complaining, so we know he is truly growing up :-), it was not until two weeks later.

Adam has wanted to go to Hana ever since we moved here. We bought a used 15 passenger van a couple weeks before his birthday, so his birthday outing took place on Monday, the day after his birthday. We pulled all the kids out of school (except Caroline who did not go with us), and took the Road to Hana to the Seven Sacred Pools, which are neither seven nor sacred and therefore also known as Oheo Gulch. People drive the Road to Hana, not to see Hana, but for the road which consists of more than 600 hairpin curves and beautiful vistas and waterfalls.


How about this lovely waterfall?
Or these triple falls? And this is one of the beautiful vistas near the lava caves and the black sand beach. The brave kids (Adam, Jairin and Miri) and Rob actually swam in the pool in the lava cave which was icy water.

Everyone else waited to swim until Oheo Gulch which is actually beyond Hana. The water was freezing cold coming straight down from the mountain, but even the three little girls refused to be left out. They swam and swam and cried when it was time to go. In fact, Joelle said, "I want to move here." When I told her that we already lived here, she said, "No, I want to move right here 'cause I like to swim."

Aria and the Little Mirimaid.

Lana and Daddy.

The funniest memory was the big kids trying to get out of a pool that they had jumped into. Several months earlier, they had swum in this very pool, but they didn't realize the water level was lower this time. Jairin, Adam and Miri jumped in. After several minutes, Kamri was able to pull Miri out, but she could not pull Jairin out, and could hardly budge Adam. Jairin even tried to climb out by climbing on top of Adam while Kamri pulled, but nothing worked. Rob eventually had to come and rescue the boys.

The highlight for the big kids was cliff jumping. Adam, Kamri, Jairin and Miri all jumped off a cliff several feet up. Even Rob jumped off, but he didn't enjoy it; he said it hurt. Jairin is always the daredevil and the first to jump, but they all jumped several times.

It's my birthday so you have to be nice to me,,,,,

Aria celebrated her 6th birthday Apr. 29th. She chose toaster strudels for breakfast, a sack lunch from home (instead of cafeteria food) for lunch, and a picnic lunch at a park for her dinner. The same week, she was the "star attraction" at school, so each day that week, she got to bring things for show 'n tell, be first in line and help the teacher. She also took cupcakes to school to share with her class.

Aria couldn't decide what kind of cake to choose, so she let Kamri choose and decorate a cake for her. This is Kamri's first attempt at cake decorating and she did a great job. This is Aria's flower garden birthday cake.

And a close-up....
Aria is hyper, eager and implusive. She is the epitome of the poem:

There was a little girl who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good, she was very very good;

But when she was bad, she was horrid.

Her personality was reflected very well in the way she opened her presents. She grabbed a present, ripped the paper off as fast as she could, said, "Oh!" in an excited voice, and then tossed the gift aside without really looking at it and grabbed the next present. It took her about 3 minutes to get through all five presents and two cards. We had fun watching her open her gifts because she is so full of energy and life. We love to see the mischievous light in her eye, the cute little dimple on her cheek and her giggles as she charges full steam ahead through every day. Here is Aria with some of her birthday gifts.

Happy birthday, Aria!

My first 39th birthday in Purple Paradise

I celebrated my 39th birthday. And here I'll stay. I plan to be 39 again and again. Rob made me pasta with a yummy yummy shrimp and crab cream sauce. He hates anything from the sea, so we rarely have seafood. In fact, the only time we have seafood is when he makes it for me on my birthday or Mother's Day. He is so sweet to cook something he hates just to make me happy.

He also made Death by Chocolate Brownies. We have tried many many many many brownie recipes. And this is our very favorite. They are time consuming and have to be made the day before to let the flavors meld. But the time spent is well worth the effort. Delicious.



Here's what happened when I thought Rob was bringing me the whisk from the brownie batter to lick.

We have never been to Maui at this time of year before, but it is so beautiful --definitely the best time of year in my opinion. Everywhere on the hillside are jacaranda (pronounced jack-a-ran - dah) trees. In case you don't know what a jacaranda tree is, they are purple flowering trees--and now you know why I am in heaven. In several places up/down the mountain, the trees line both sides of the road and it's like driving under a purple canopy. They've been flowering for a couple months, first down the mountain, gradually moving up to where we are (because it is a little colder up here). Now there is a jacaranda tree right across the street from our house, so I can soak in the beauty daily.

I never had a favorite tree before, but now I do 'cause I'm in purple paradise.