Holiday Aloha....

 These days I often think of our friends and family in colder climates and try to imagine you all in a winter wonderland! It's rather hard to do when it's sunny and warm here! We've been attempting to get into the holiday spirit and are accepting that it just feels different here!

 

The Kihei Salvation Army set up a boutique of all things Christmas, so we went in there a couple of weeks ago and bought 2 little trees.... one for the main room and one tiny one for Bella and Thor! We also got a bunch of little colored fairy lights, tree decorations and some fun cookie cutters. Last week we made 3 batches of salt dough ornaments and had so much fun cutting them out and decorating them.

These sweet little trees were made with love to give out at our caroling performances that we've been doing with a group of homelearners. We've been going to Senior Centers around the island to share some holiday spirit playing ukuleles, singing carols, and dancing hula. Zara is one of the MC's for the program and loving that role. Bella and Thor are handing out these ornaments while we sing our last song as well as singing and shaking bells throughout. Everyone is involved and having so much fun! 

This is in our living room, which is part of one big room that also includes the eating area. All the walls in this house were bare white cinder blocks, so I've been trying to put up a few colorful items. The pink canvas in the background above is one I painted to bring some pink into the "relationship" corner of the room (according to feng shui!)

This has been one of Thor's favorite spots since the kids decorated this gingerbread house! He has spend countless minutes, probably hours, gazing at the house. He has been trying to figure out how to make the door swing open and closed for next year!!! He'd like the fairies to be able to use the house!

(It's in a pan of water to keep the ants away from all that candy!)

This was a fun little project that has added some life and color to our bare walls! I had been imagining it and then last week the kids and I went down to the ocean nearby and as I walked down onto the rocks, there was the PERFECT piece of driftwood! It was exactly as I had pictured! (Thank you, Universe! I love it when that happens!) So we came home, strung the ornaments to it and fastened it to the wood above the cinderblocks.

 

Here are some other random photos from the past couple of weeks. 

Zara has been teaching herself to play the piano. I brought a little "teach yourself to play" package from home and she has just taken off with it! She put the static cling labels on the keys with the name of each note and what it looks like on the music and started with basic songs. She is now to the point of playing both hand together without needing the labels. She sometimes practices for hours a day! She tried lessons back when she was 6 and did not like it at all. But now she is ready and teaching herself and loving it!

This was the first egg we got from our chickens! We were all pretty excited!



Some corners of our house that make me happy!

A bowl of beautiful feng shui crystals waiting to be hung in just the right places!

 

Tonight the kids brought down some wrapped gifts to put under the little tree. They are so excited about Solstice... they don't mind that there's no snow on the ground! They have been counting down for weeks now! We'll do some holiday baking this week, some more caroling, a little holiday party at our house, and before we know it, we'll be celebrating the return of the light.

 

Happy Holidays to you all!