Daddy's Cinderella

After cutting Liliana's hair, we looked in the mirror and she exclaimed, "I love my Disney princess hair!" Then she ran out of the room to her bedroom. She appeared a few minutes later wearing her princess dress, requesting to dance with daddy. She put in this CD (Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman), and danced several dances with her daddy. I took the opportunity to capture the special moments on film. These are moments we will cherish always. Daddy's little princess.


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Princess Liliana

The ladybug wanted to get her hair cut again. And just like last time she requested a "Disney Princess haircut!" Mommy decided to cut her hair this time, into a really cute princess haircut. Here is her new cut!


Dressed as a princess, looking at her dress.


Totally cute little, bitty, toes!


And, of course a girl always has to have some awesome shoes. It's all about the shoes!


~~Aloha!

Christmas Eve

Christmas at our house is usually rather quiet, except for the squeals of excitement from Liliana. Since we happen to live in the middle of the United States, and the ladybug's grandparents live on either coast, we often do not spend Christmas with them unless we travel out of state. This year we opted to stay home and enjoy a cold snowy Christmas with just the three of us.

Liliana started by chatting it up with Santa through a video message he sent her.


She then got her delicious cookies ready on a special Santa plate and placed them near the tree.


Finally, she placed a special Santa key on the door so that Santa could get into our house since we do not have a chimney, to deliver toys and gifts.


After we all went to bed, Santa placed all of the gifts (both his and ours) under the tree.


And then... Liliana woke up!


~~Aloha!

Cookies for Santa...

... and us too!

It is time to make some tasty cookies for Santa Claus when he visits us on Christmas Eve. Last year's sugar cookies were good, but nothing great. However, before school got out for Christmas vacation this year, a fellow teacher brought some home-made sugar cookies to school that his wife made. They were WONDERFUL! These amazing cookies reminded me of those absolutely perfect, super soft, uber tasty sugar cookies with perfect frosting that I ate when I was a kid. I never thought I would be able to make these cookies myself. But... Eureka!

Liliana started by rolling the dough flat.


Then she meticulously placed the cookie cutters on the dough and "squooshed."


However, until Mommmy intervened the cookies were almost 2 inches thick!


Then the bug placed the dough on the cookie sheet and placed it in the oven.


While the cookies were baking, Liliana played with the flour, cookie cutters, and rolling pin like any good little Chinese girl should... with chopsticks!


Next it was time to creatively decorate the cookies with lots of frosting and lots of sprinkles.



Lastly, Liliana enjoyed the cookie goodness that only homemade sugar cookies can bring.


Merry Christmas to all.
~~Aloha

Growing Candy Canes

"Growing candy canes" you ask? I learned about growing candy canes from a fellow adoptive parent this year. I never thought in a million years that this could be done, but lo and behold, growing candy canes is a possibility.
First, you get a nice container to put the seeds in. Next, you put in some special candy cane dirt (fake snow worked great for us). Then you plant the seeds and water. Further watering is not needed (we stopped watering since doing so would have changed our white "dirt" a pinkish red). Before you know it, you will be growing beautiful striped canes!

We started growing them this holiday season when Nana F. was still in town.

First, we planted the candy cane seeds.


Then, we sang a happy, holiday, candy cane growing-type song!


Then with a great big smile, we started watering the seeds to make sure they would grow.



And then with a wink and a smile we wait patiently for the candy canes to start growing.


Two weeks later we have a little candy cane forest!


Aloha~~

Makin' Muffins

Liliana and I decided that we wanted to make some muffins. Yummy, yummy muffins! Mmmm, Mmmm, good. Unfortunately we ended up with far fewer muffins that we intended. Blow is the event in pictures.

After mixing the batter we put it into the muffin cups.


But, placing the batter into the cups was simply not good enough.


"Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, this is really good!"


However... forget about using my finger, it really is so much easier eating it with a spoon!

Bedtime conversations

The following is a cute conversation between daddy and The Ladybug at bedtime. Who knew that she had such interesting dreams?

Daddy: "Sweet dreams little one. Are you going to have a good sleep?"

The ladybug: "Yes."

Daddy: "Are you going to have dreams tonight?"

The ladybug: "Yes."

Daddy: "You have dreams? What do you dream about?"

The ladybug: "I don't know...noodles."

Daddy: "You dream about noodles?"

The ladybug: "Yes...like in Kung Fu Panda!"

An Elfing Giggle

While Nana F was out visiting the bug and family over Thanksgiving, I decided to "Elf" the family. For those who have not done this before, you upload an image to the Elf Yourself website, choose a dance, and then watch yourself Elfing. We have done this previous years and have thoroughly enjoyed the cute little dances. Well, this year I created a couple dances of the the family Elfing. After creating the dances, the Ladybug and Nana eagerly watched as Ladybug Elf, Momma Elf, and Daddy Elf discoed their hearts out.

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Below are the two Elf Yourself videos that we created. The first one is of the family getting our Disco-groove on. This is the video that is playing in the background in the above DropShots link that is making the Ladybug laugh so hard. Who knew we could dance so well? The second video is of us learning to dance country-style. Hope you enjoy!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

~~Aloha