Rainbow Jell-O!

March 25, 2011

We love Rainbow Jell-O!

I have been wanting to make Rainbow Jell-O for so long, but never had the chance since the process takes a while. FINALLY, I decided to make the Jell-O. It was still a crazy day. There were so many things going on, but the Jell-O got finished. The children were so excited to see it coming together, and they were even more excited to eat it!

Check out this blog for the directions on how to make Rainbow Jell-O. Your family will love you for making it! :)

[If you use the directions from the link, then please note that the blogger did not use purple gelatin. If you do use purple, then you'll need to use more unflavored gelatin and condensed milk, or you'll need to use it sparingly. Good luck!]

New Smyrna Beach fun

March 24, 2011

Fun at New Smyrna Beach

Anuhea and her friend, Kristina, decided that they wanted to go to the beach. I took a while to decide whether or not I wanted to drive all the way out there, let alone have to be responsible for all the children and provide food. I finally decided to go. The children would love playing at the beach, and this (Spring Break) was their chance to go.

Nalani had already planned to have her friend, Kayla, sleep over that night so we invited her to come earlier and hang out at the beach too. She jumped at the chance to go to the beach. Therefore, we had 6 instead of 4 children for me to be responsible for. Crazy? Definitely. But it was worth it. Normally, Jason would be at the beach with us too, and he would help with the driving (I'm not good with driving long distances/periods of time), but he was out of town.

We packed sandwiches, drinks, snacks, and fruit. The beach was beautiful and definitely worth the trip out.

Photograph by: Anuhea Chen

A lot of people were at the beach, but we were able to find a decent spot to park. Phew! I didn't even get to wear my swimsuit and enjoy the water, but I was happy to sit in the shade anyway. At least I got to put my feet in the water to get water in the bucket for Leiohu.

Kayla and Nalani enjoyed the water and the sand. They even got to use the boogie board.

We brought along our buckets and sand toys. Leiohu loved playing with the water in the bucket, because she doesn't like being in the ocean. Hokulani played in the ocean and on the beach, but joined Leiohu (where we were by the car) in the end. We were excited to see a pod of dolphins swim by so close to shore while we were at the beach too!

Anuhea and Kristina didn't even go in the water (except maybe with their feet)! They scoped the beach for friends from school (and may even have been checking out the guys). Anuhea failed to put on sunblock and got a bad sunburn. Hope she learned her lesson.

Photograph by: Anuhea Chen

Anuhea's friend, Kristina

Photograph by: Anuhea Chen

(Somehow I didn't get a picture of Anuhea while we were at the beach.)

On our way home we stopped at Wal Mart and bought a bunch of snacks. Everyone had fun!

Spring Break is here!

Spring Break has begun, and we have nothing special planned. Boohoo.

The children have been diligent about planning sleepovers, though. They have to choose different days, because I don't want a bunch of children all here at the same time.

What else to do? If only we had money to travel somewhere. Maybe next year...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We enjoyed getting ready to celebrate St. Patrick's Day on March 17th.

First, we got Hokulani's treats ready to give her classmates in school.

(This is a picture of the "model" I got the idea from at this website: bethproudfoot.)

I couldn't find the gold chocolate coin candy so we used Hershey's Nuggets instead. The children in Hokulani's class were so excited, especially since no one else thought to share a treat. :)

We also needed to find some green to wear, and considering that I needed to do laundry it was difficult to find what we wanted at first.

Finally, we added the finishing touch of Hokulani's hair (no one else was willing to sport the cool

hairdo). I made Hokulani's hair into a shamrock design. I found this idea online too, so I decided to try it. Unfortunately, I didn't have the clear elastic hair ties, but it worked anyway. Amazingly, Hokulani's hair stayed in the shamrock shape even by the time school was over. Wow!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

Jason Defended His Proposal

On Thursday, March 17, 2011 Jason FINALLY defended his proposal for his doctoral dissertation.

He was so stressed leading up to that day, and didn't sleep well the night before. However, the defense went well, and now he has to wrap up everything before he defends his entire dissertation. After that he will be a PhD!

Jason will be interviewing for a position at a university while wrapping up his dissertation. Yay!

Stay tuned to find out where we'll be moving...