Anuhea's 13th Birthday

Anuhea became a teenager on January 26th! Jason and I can't believe we have a teenager in the house now. Anuhea has grown into a beautiful young woman, and she is a great help to us and others.

We were planning a birthday party for Anuhea when she suddenly decided she didn't want to do anything (I still don't know why). Instead, we celebrated at home with just our family.

Here are some pictures...

Anuhea received Jolly Rancher candies from her sister, Hokulani.

Anuhea specially requested Cheesy Potatoes for dinner, so we had Parmesan Chicken and broccoli to go with it.

Anuhea doesn't like cake anymore (for some odd reason). She wanted Lemon bars so here they are (with a baby fork instead of a candle, because the bars are so thin).

After a failed attempt at getting Anuhea a camera for Christmas (it turned out to be a piece of junk), Jason and I gave Anuhea a "real" camera for her birthday. Anuhea LOVES taking pictures of herself, her family, and random items around her.

Anuhea got roses!

Giant balloons are perfect for a big birthday so here they are with the perfect saying: I Love You.

Here's our beautiful daughter--Anuhea Sarah YiBei Chen!

Preparing for birthdays

This isn’t one of my catch-up blogs.  I’ve decided to write about what a process it is to prepare to birthdays for 2 children—who are VERY different.  My oldest 2 children have birthdays that are 8 days apart, and they both want to do something for their birthdays.  We can’t have a combined birthday, because they are at different stages in their lives, and they have different interests.

We’ve gone through so many ideas already, and have changed our plans.  Anuhea’s plans are what we need to concentrate on most, because her birthday comes up first.  However, we don’t know what to do.  We’re thinking now to do something simple.  I think we’ve got Nalani’s plans set.  We just need to prepare everything.

Any ideas?  Leave a comment or send me an email at car.maui@gmail.com.

10/1 Jason's birthday

October 1, 2008

Jason celebrated his birthday on October 1st. He's 42 now and still looks MUCH younger than that. (He's so lucky.) Unfortunately, Jason still had to go to school, because he has so much reading and other things to do. Also, the girls attended their Primary Girl's Activity Days meeting; however, we had a yummy cake (see picture below) and sang to Jason.




Here are pictures of Jason playing with Leiohu at the kitchen table.

Nalani's 9th birthday_020308

Nalani is 9 years old now! She had a birthday party on Friday, February 1, 2008. After considering at least 12 people to invite to her party, she finally invited 4 friends from church. It was a challenge just finding a good time to have the party because of other activities happening that weekend, but Friday worked out well.

From our family were Dad, Mom, Anuhea, Nalani, and Hokulani. Nalani's church friends were Alani Perriton, Mackenly Howard, Adda Batterman, and Alexie Silva. All the girls are in Nalani's Primary class except Alani.

We started with pizza and salad for dinner. Mmmm! Then the party guests painted wooden shapes. The girls painted turtles, dinosaurs, flowers, and others.

While the pieces dried, Nalani opened her gifts. She got a lot of fun gifts, and was very excited to try them.

Nalani got a set of Kid K'nex from Adda. Nalani and Hokulani love playing with the pieces and creating interesting creatures. Plus, the pieces are big so they're a safe size for children (like Hokulani).

Nalani got a kit to make foam animals, and she got candy from Alani.

Nalani got an art set with paints and an easel, and a ream of paper from Alexie. Now Nalani can try out her art skills and paint or draw some pictures.

Nalani got a bunch of fun items from Mackenly: a jump rope, a frisbee, a giant compass with chalk, a large Chinese-style yoyo (except in plastic instead of wood), and some kind of putty to mold and it will bounce. Fun!

After opening the gifts the girls were able to frost their own cupcakes. Then we sang "Happy Birthday" to Nalani who had a number 9 candle in her cupcake.

Everyone had a great time, and they LOVED talking. Nalani was excited to have a birthday party, and celebrate with her friends and family.

Happy 9th Birthday, Nalani!

Anuhea's 11th Birthday_01262008

Anuhea Chen was born on January 26, 1997. Today she turned 11 years old. I can't believe my oldest daughter is already 11! Last night we had a slumber party for Anuhea and her friends. It was quite an experience, and I think Jason will never want to do that again. There were 10 girls, including Anuhea, and the other 4 of us in the family for a total of 14 people. Anuhea's friends who attended were: Heidi & Hunter Winters, Kaitlyn Handler, Kati, Kennedy Howard, Laura Telson, Maile Perriton, Olivia Melli, and Shanique Williams.


All of the girls had a great time and screamed a lot. First, we had pizza and salad for dinner. We also had 4 bottles of juice that went very quickly. Second, the girls painted something they brought with fabric paint. Some girls had t-shirts, other had bags, pillowcases, jeans, etc. They had a great time, but it was a challenge to make sure they didn't get any on the clothes they were wearing. We moved all of their painted items to the back of the house to dry on newspapers.

Third, we had cake (chocolate) and ice cream, and Anuhea opened all of her gifts.

She got some great gifts! Anuhea received a cat with a Bruster's (ice cream) gift card from the Winters sisters;

a card with a Target gift card from Kaitlyn;

a Wal Mart gift card from Kati;

2 canvas boards, oil pastel paints, and 2 Hershey's candy bars from Kennedy;

a fuzzy poster (to color), High School Musical 2 party planner book, and a monogrammed (with "A") notebook from Laura;

Scrapbooking kit from Maile;

and a card and Target gift card from Olivia.

Finally, the girls settled down--a little--to watch the movie "Ice Age 2". They were kind of restless during the movie, but most of them watched the entire movie. Kennedy and Maile had to leave early because they weren't allowed to sleep over. The rest of the girls got their sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows and got ready to sleep in the living room. Even Hokulani slept in the living room with the "big girls". Nalani had to sleep in her room because she's still sick. The girls were still so loud even though it was around 11pm, but they finally went to sleep sometime before midnight. 3 girls slept in Anuhea's room.

This morning the girls started stirring and making noise and it was only 7am! I didn't want to get up yet, but I did anyway because I needed to cook rice for breakfast. Soon Jason and I started preparing breakfast for 12 people. Jason cooked scrambled eggs, portuguese sausage, and Lil' smokies sausages. We also had milk. Everything was delicious! Jason explained that in Hawaii people often eat portuguese sausage, eggs, and rice for breakfast. If they didn't like it, then that was okay, but we wanted them to try it. Most of them enjoyed it, and Kaitlyn really liked the rice. She kept asking for more. With all of the craziness from the night before, and the continued craziness at the breakfast table, Jason was so funny. It was about 9:30am and the girls were supposed to be picked up at 10am. Jason was saying to himself, "Only half an hour to go. . .only half an hour to go."

After breakfast we had one last activity for the girls to do before they went home. We had foam sheets of different colors, and self-adhesive insect shapes and letters for the girls to decorate the sheets. They could put their name on the sheet and add insects, or anything else they wanted.

They completed their creations, and decided to have some dancing fun while they waited for their parents.

Shanique was the last one left, but her aunt never arrived because she couldn't get a ride from the hospital. We ended up dropping her off at her grandmother's house before going to Chinese school.

We were relieved when the party was over, but glad too that they all enjoyed themselves. Anuhea enjoyed the fact that she had a party, and that her friends were able to be there.