A Box of Treasure from Nani

I'm very late in posting this, but the pictures were too much fun to leave out, so here they are...
My grandmother sent the girls a HUGE box of dress up clothes and accessories that they absolutely LOVE! When Alyssa's friends, Hannah and Faith were over for a sleepover on Good Friday, the girls were in heaven as they dove into the box of treasure and put together their "dream come true" outfits.


They each wanted to wear every item, so there were lots of wardrobe changes, and several phases of their Fashion Show Extravaganza!

There were lots of very carefully orchestrated dance moves performed too!

And plenty of fashionista fun! Alyssa and Hannah considered themselves to be taking high fashion to a whole new level :-)

Thank you so much, Nani, for all the fun dress up clothes!! The girls will jump at any excuse to play dress up and they have had a lot of fun pretending and staging shows with all the outfits you sent. I think the only photo I'm still missing is one of Rebekah carrying around the big fancy purse with the boa on it ~ Emma has pretty much claimed that one as her own lately, but Rebekah looks so cute carrying a bag that is just as big as she is.

Alyssa likes a couple of the shiny shirts so much, that she has worn them to school. Thank you for the awesome gifts!

Kamele's Sweet Shadow

 I loved how this tracing of her shadow looked just like her. Even when Kamele wasn't standing next to it, it was so apparent that it was her form.


 Making flower wishes in her sassy pink cowgirl boots. A favorite hand me down from Emma at the moment.

Operation: Build Treehouse!

The girls spent most of Spring Break at my parent's house where they embarked on an awesome backyard project!!! My parents have always wanted to build a play house for the girls, so they decided this week that they would build a tree house. And let me just say my dad does not do any kind of building project in a small way...this is no ordinary tree house!
My dad started by building a platform a few feet off the ground. Emma was eager to help and get the project started.


Once the first platform was in place the girls were very excited to climb up and check out the progress.


I thought I was taking pictures each step along the way, but after looking through what I have, I can see that I missed some stages of work. Rebekah loved jumping up on the platform as the second level was framed.


Hooray, a climbing wall to the first level is in place! The older girls loved helping, and occasionally argued over who got what job, or one of them would come into the house looking disappointed, because she felt that her sister was helping more than she was at that point.


Emma was especially enthusiastic to work! Acts of service is probably her most dominant love language and my dad had a constant shadow throughout the whole process! She went with on errands to the lumber yard and everything, where they added their own twist to the save big money at Menards jingle. Emma came home singing proudly "Pay Big Money at Menards!!" {Menards may be a midwest only establishment, sorry if you can't relate to the song :-)}


Thank you, Grandpa for your cool vision for the tree house! The girls love it a lot!! He lost me a little bit when he mentioned a flying gable for the roof. I'm not exactly positive what a flying gable is, but it sure sounds fancy.


 The top level feels pretty high up! Something I didn't quite realize until I actually jumped up there and took this photo of Ka'iulani. The view is really neat too.


 The kitchen they decided to make on the first level.


It's not completely finished yet, the girls want a slide off one side, but already it's such a wonderful place to play! I know my parents are a little worried, hoping their neighbors to the back don't mind looking at it, but I also know the girls are going to LOVE this special place for years!! I'll probably have to beg them to come down all summer long every time we are at G&G's house! Thank you so very much Grandpa ~ the tree house is AWESOME!

A Birthday Visit From Ms. Tooth Fairy

Emma lost one of her top front teeth on her birthday. She came running to me after school with the biggest smile on her face, and the gap that the missing tooth has left is huge! She was so excited about it, but I think Alyssa was more excited, if that's even possible. Alyssa couldn't get over the special timing of the lost tooth and she told me, "You have to put a picture of this on the blog! Call her the Toothless Wonder on her birthday!!" So, I'm a little late posting it, but here it is...


Toothless Wonder Kahiwalani on her 7th Birthday!!
She's holding the lost tooth in her fingers, although it may be hard to see.


You can see the gap a little better in this photo (if you click on it). The last time she had x-rays taken at the dentist office I could see her adult teeth up in the gum line. About the only thing bigger than the window that her baby tooth has left behind, is the grown up teeth that are now waiting to come in! Awkward {but sweet} huge toothy grins, here comes Emma :-)


I also thought I should post a closer up photo of the pig cupcakes since they were Emma's favorite. When she described the cupcakes to my mom, she talked about each of the little candies that made the animal faces. She pointed out that the little nostril dots on the pigs were tiny pieces of twizzler {she calls them twisters} and that on the cows they were drips of chocolate. She also mentioned the eyes being made of chocolate chips, and how the ears were either m&ms or gummies, and that the chick's beaks were cut up starburst. I was just surprised with all the little details she cared about, and it made me feel kind of good that she appreciated and noticed them :-)

the number 7, cupcakes, cupcakes, and more cupcakes, and even a little Elvis

Emma turns 7 today!! Hip Hip Hooray!!

She is the easiest, and funnest of our girls to make birthday cupcakes for. Alyssa doesn't like frosting, and Rebekah doesn't like many of the gummy candies that can make a cupcake cute, so Emma by far brings the best {most creative and most decorated} birthday treats to school. She recently saw these farm animal cupcakes in our Family Fun magazine, and knew right away that she wanted them for her birthday treats.


I started with the pigs because I knew they would be the most important to Emma. She loves pigs! All three girls loved how they came out, and after sampling one for dessert last night, Emma was so excited to bring them to school this morning. She insisted on carrying the huge tray all the way to her classroom by herself.

The cows were the hardest make, they involved melting chocolate chips in a ziploc bag in the microwave, snipping a corner of the bag and piping the melted chips into the shape of cow spots. After organizing the cupcakes on the tray I stood back to take a look at {or admire :-)} my hard work and noticed something funny...

Awesome ~ I made about 13 mini Elvis cow cupcakes.

Happy, Happy Birthday
Precious Emma!!
We Love You!!!

Happy Easter

Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!
Matthew 24: 5-6
 The tomb is empty! While we'll have lots of fun celebrating Easter today with fluffy dresses, egg hunts, and way too much candy, we are most of all thankful for the new life we are able to celebrate. As Rebekah's artwork describes, praise God ~ the grave could not hold Jesus.


Some Easter morning family pics...
 Doesn't it figure that the best family photo we have taken in quite a while would happen precisely when I figured it would be okay to skip putting my makeup on until the drive to church :-)


 Every year, the girls always look so cold in our early morning Easter pictures.


 Warmer inside, and more awake after a morning at church.




After church we drove down to my parent's house to enjoy Easter lunch/dinner. My mom had set up a cute Easter Egg Hunt for the girls in their yard.
 Alyssa ran around the yard so excited!! Just when I think she might be out-growing the excitement of certain traditions she proves me wrong.


 Emma thought it was funny that she found an egg in this tree ornament's mouth.


 My mom hid some of the eggs "less well" or at least closer to the ground for Kamele's benefit. We had also instructed A and E that the eggs that were pretty much out in the open should be left for the little one. About three fourths of the way through the hunt, my mom peeked in Rebekah's bag and she had probably three times as many eggs as the older girls :-) All eggs were fair game at that point!


 The girls stopped running around the yard long enough to pose for a pic with Grandpa.


 Some of the Easter eggs were filled with candy or coins, but some just had numbered slips of paper in them. The numbers corresponded to cute gifts like this sidewalk chalk, pretty socks, memory games, and a few awesome books. The girls loved it! Thank you, Grandma for setting up such a cool egg hunt for the girls!


 
Happy Easter!

Easter Fun with Friends

 The girls on Good Friday.


 After Good Friday service, Alyssa's friends Hannah and Faith came over. We colored Easter Eggs.


 Faith carefully examining Alyssa's work.


 Emma loving the cute stickers to put on the eggs.


 
Rebekah hard at work on one of her eggs, while Alyssa sings in the background.


 Some of the finished eggs. I loved the pretty glitter ones we did last year, they are my favorite. These polka dotty ones turned out cute though too!



We also took the girls to the grocery store around the corner from our house for a chocolate egg hunt. There were over 3,000 mini eggs hidden! I changed most of these photos to black and white because all my pics had a weird orange glow in them. I'm not sure if it was the grocery store lighting, or my lackluster photography skills, but they looked so much better in b&w.
 Alyssa and Faith running up to show me their "loot."


 Sweet little Em finding some eggs hidden in the shelves.


 Peek :-)


 Her eyes just look like she thinks she's doing something naughty. We found a huge stack of eggs when we moved the bread and she kept sneaking all the chocolates into her bag like it was some big secret that she was taking them.


 There were 8 plastic eggs hidden in the aisles, and the kids who found those got a special prize. Rebekah had help from a store employee, but she got one of the plastic ones. The girls tore into the brown grocery bag that held the surprise...


 Cute bunny. And you can probably tell from the photos that Kamele was not at all excited about her bunny!


 These are just some of the chocolate eggs we brought home. Looks like a big belly ache is headed our way.

Good Friday

Spring is making an appearance in the beautiful weather we have been enjoying the last few days, and even in our yard! These daffodils had not popped open just yesterday when Rebekah and I walked around the yard taking inventory of flowers we expected might bloom soon. Kamele wanted to pick them right away.
 


Today is Good Friday. A day, that if I'm honest, I have to say that I have never entirely enjoyed thinking about. When I was a kid, I always had a hard time understanding why we call the day Jesus was crucified, Good Friday. I've also heard it called Holy Friday, which seems a little better fitting, but I have never attended a church that called it that. In German it is called Karfreitag, which translates to Mourning Friday. To me this title makes so much more sense, but then with a little help from Emma, I got to thinking...

I had a conversation with Emma this morning and she asked me why today was a holiday. We talked about Good Friday being the day that Jesus died on the cross, and while she didn't ask the question, her face told me she was thinking, well what's good about that? I wanted very much to give her more than the "Sunday School" answer that Jesus' death on the cross made a way for all of us to spend eternity in Heaven someday. Not that there is anything wrong with that explanation, it is the blessed truth that we can rejoice in, I just felt like there was more to say. The good that we are able to find in Good Friday is the reality that God loved us so much that he sent his only son to Earth to die for our sins, and that in complete selflessness Jesus allowed his life to pay the ransom for our debt. On Good Friday, Jesus bore a burden so great that if any of us had to stand under it, there would just be no possible way to overcome it. As He hung on the cross He was mocked that He had helped others, now He should help himself. If He was truly the son of God, He could save himself. And He could have! But in the ultimate act of love, He purchased our salvation with His very life, and we may live victoriously as a result.

So while at first assessment, the German holiday of Mourning Friday may seem more like a more appropriate name, I can only reflect on how thankful I am that the story doesn't end at the cross. Even in death He was triumphant.

pint sized pranksters

I don't like April Fools surprises at all. In fact Emma was due on April 8th, and that year all day on April 1st, I felt like I was having contractions. I resolved that I would NOT be having an April Fools baby ~ and I didn't. She was born April 12th!

Anyway, earlier this week, some prankster recipes for kids were forwarded to me, and they were too cute to not give them a try. I think all these ideas came from Family Fun. We had a lot of laughs starting with breakfast:
 I dropped food coloring {in their favorite colors} into the girls' cereal bowls. When we added the milk a colorful surprise ensued. Alyssa's was orange.


 Emma had to do the trusty "one lick test" that she does whenever she is unsure of a new food. If she isn't immediately impressed, she won't even take a bite. Once she was confident that the food coloring hadn't compromised the cereal, she ate it all. Hers was yellow, which in this multi-colored cereal didn't even show up that much.


 I think Rebekah was more impressed with her blue milk than the older girls. In hindsight, I should have used a more plain looking cereal, the colored milk would have been a more dramatic surprise.


 A little gross, right!?


On to our big plans for dinner...
 Our first job was getting the dessert in order. My plans for dinner were meatloaf cupcakes frosted in mashed potatoes. Anyone who knows Emma, knows she would never dream of eating meatloaf! I figured I better have the real thing after trying to pull a stunt like that :-)


 Here, Kamele is helping me mix the meatloaf batter for the "main course cupcakes." She usually eats meatloaf, but had never helped me prepare it before. She looked down into the bowl as we mixed it up and told me, "I'm not eating this." I asked her why. "Because this is going to be very disgusting." I had never heard her use the word disgusting before, good to know it's in her vocabulary. And that she uses it to describe my cooking.


 Alyssa walked up to the table very inquisitively. It was our first time eating outside this Spring which was also a special surprise.


 The very colorful spread. Real cupcakes in the back frosted pink, meatloaf cupcakes up front in yellow.


 The girls didn't know quite what to think, but they seemed to enjoy the fun...at least before I asked them to dig in.


 The kool-aid was a trick too. Jello poured into drinking glasses with a straw stuck inside.


 Here Ka'iulani is figuring out her drink isn't so drinkable.


 Poor thing kept trying and trying to drink the jello through the straw. She had even helped me make them earlier in the day, so she should have guessed a spoon would be in order.


 About to trick Emma...


 Got her!


 Not as amused as I had hoped. In fact moments later I brought the girls actual root beer and Alyssa told her to smell it before drinking. You know mom might have put some April fools in there.


 
The Jello cups were a big hit though, so much so that we made more the next day to play the joke on two of her friends that were visiting.


 Em spitting out the meatloaf cupcake, big surprise!


 Who would have guessed that food she doesn't eat is still food she doesn't eat no matter how cute you cook it up?


 Examining the cupcake for any further surprises. She was the best eater of the night.


 The real cupcake she had been waiting for all along. Apparently, the joke's on me!