Calling all geneticists! Help me understand the way my mixed race child looks

[Feelingchipper]

We are a mixed South East Asian-Caucasian (European rather than English) family. My first child looks standard mixed race. My 2nd child has brown-blonde hair and blue eyes, which are no longer the dark blue of newborn babies. 2nd child is past the 6 month point and although she may lose the blonde hair and blue eyes soon enough, it still seems very surprising! On my side of the family, babies are usually born with brown eyes and black hair or, less commonly, grey eyes (for a short period) and very dark brown hair. There are no non-South East Asians in my family for as far back as anyone can remember, at least a century. However, there are some members of my family on both my parents' sides with lighter colouring (lighter brown skin, lighter brown eyes, very dark brown hair rather than black), which could indicate some non-local ancestry. All shades of brown though

Is it possible for 2nd child to have got her colouring from DH alone? Or is it likely that there is someone in my ancestry who is white-Caucasian and those genes have made their way down the ages into my child?

She definitely wasn't switched at birth

I love how genetics play out! I'm mixed race, half Asian and half white. Lightly tanned skin and green eyes. My older sister is darker with brown eyes. My eldest son is darker than me with blue eyes and my youngest has freckles, the faintest hint of a tan and blue eyes too. My ex is white.
From me, my kids and my sister's kids, it seems the second one is always lighter skinned! Is that actually other people's experience?

I have a mixed bag of kids I'm pale golden skinned & blonde blue eyed, the dad is golden skinned (darker than me) and brown hair, although was ginger as a child. More 'auburn' colouring in general.

My DD is golden / blonde, DS1 sandy blonde (but born with black hair!) and olive skinned, and DS2 is bright ginger with the palest skin. All blue eyed, although DD & DS1 have my deep blue eyes and DS2 has very pale / grey blue eyes. They're like a selection box. Everyone was giving me sly eyes after DS1 was born like he'd been living on a tropical island

I think most the time it’s either they get from one parent or the other with hair and eyes. I’m mixed race myself, half Egyptian and have a lot of family from different middle eastern countries on my mum’s whilst my dad’s family are all English or Irish. I got most my looks from my mum, my skin tone is a mix of both really, tanned but not as dark as my mum. I wouldn’t know what colour my hair is now because I’ve dyed it so much but when I was a young child it was light brown almost blonde, I definitely got that from my dad then it turned a darker brown when I was around 9. My DD is nearly 4, her dad’s family are all British from what he knows anyway. She has quite a tanned tone of skin like me but a little lighter, she has blue/green eyes like my DH and her hair is quite a dark brown compared to how light both mine an my DH’s hair was at her age. It really just depends what genes are more dominant. But there is the chance someone from your family down the line contributed to this because I think you’d need genes from both parents

You must carry recessive genes for blue eyes and blond hair. Othwrwise your child couldn't have them. There was a notable European presence across the region-presumably one of your ancestors had a secret.

We had a doctor remark 'they will turn brown soon' about mixed raced DS's eyes.
I said 'they probably won't' He said 'of course they will!'
Me and OH just laughed.
DS was our fourth blue eyed birth child so we were pretty sure there was a chance his eyes would stay that colour

I worked with an otherwise fab paediatrician who said 'well that child can't be his [father's], not with those blue eyes'
I thought we had moved on from that method of ascertaining paternity.

A lot of questions were asked about my dad having blue eyes - my poor grandmother, she came under a lot of scrutiny. But I presumed stuff moved on since 70 years ago.

I love how things pan out - how some siblings look identical and others look like they have totally different parentage.

It turns out that my DH's niece's hair is exactly the same shade of blonde-with-a-touch-of-brown-and-grey as my daughter's. Quite amazing since neither of her (white, European) parents were blonde as children (redhead and almost black). Seemingly they have both inherited the same gene from one grandparent and it has appeared in them unaffected by all the other genes their parents carry. Is this possible??