When the counters look like grocery store shelves we know it's Muddy Buddy time!
This was the first time we've ever done them at night but Bug was gone that day so we waited for her to get home and knocked out 225+ bags in record time.
I think it was almost 250 bags...we lost count after a while.
The floor, table, and bench were a powdered sugar and crushed cereal mess but we did it!
A couple days later we took the bags and baskets up to the hospital and made the rounds.
Little elves.
Spreading some cheer.
One of the bags had a hole and Lou happily disposed of the spilling Muddy Buddies.
We grabbed lunch from the cafe and since there were no tables open we took it down to the board room which worked out well because these little Christmas elves were full of energy and bouncing/spinning off their chairs. :P
It's not always easy to take them up there, but it brings a lot of joy to the workers and also the few patients that we see!
We had a short advent this year since we didn't get back from Hawaii until late on the 6th, but we still managed to squeeze most of our usual things in to the month. We started the morning of the 7th with the Lego advent calendar and they took turns opening it each morning.
We did reindeer pancakes.
And Christmas tree waffles, although our area seems to be having a strawberry shortage. Walmart hasn't had any available in weeks.
One night we wanted to watch the Grinch. Bug decorated these cups for me and I dyed vanilla pudding green.
And Peanut made Grinch kabobs.
I also made green caramel corn.
Peanut made sugar cookies for us one day.
And everyone helped to decorate them.
Peanut, Peaches, Lou, and Daddy delivered them to the neighbors one night while Boo and Bug were gone.
We did a Christmas Lego one night.
This set was perfect because it had four separate builds so we were able to group off to work on them.
Lou is really good at following the directions and can do them with very little help.
Peanut did her own.
Lou and I did the tree and the train station.
Then we added it to our Christmas Lego village on the mantle.
We also had our usual things like painting pottery, ice skating, ect. I will post about those later.
The first half of these pictures are just miscellaneous from our trip.
Here are the kids eating popscicles one night before bed. F got the couch downstairs. Bug, Boo, and Peanut had the loft. T and I had the upstairs bedroom, and Noni shared the downstairs bedroom with the littles. I felt like I truly was on vacation because I never got woken up by little people with bad dreams and we got to sleep in every morning while Noni fed them breakfast and let them watch TV in their room. :)
Peaches' teacher asked for a handwriting sample while we were there so we sent her this!
Lou wanted a picture too. :)
Here she is another day when it was raining.
Here's a video Peaches took.
Here's a pic from when we still had the convertible.
These white birds were everywhere. We discovered they were called Cattle Egrets. The kind of looked like miniature Blue Herons, except white. :) Our balcony is there on the left.
The kids found a snail on the sidewalk one day.
I never got any pictures but there were tiny geckos running around the condo grounds every day. One thing I was surprised about was the lack of bugs. I thought all tropical places had tons of bugs but I never saw anything but a few tiny flies and some ants. Maybe all the wild chickens keep the bug population to a minimum?
Here's Peaches on our balcony.
One thing I liked about this area was there was always people walking or jogging. Right before we left for the airport we asked a lady walking by to take our picture by the sign for our condo. The girls kept saying that we were staying at the "Holy Guacamole". :)
One last picture at the condo, wearing their Hawaiian shirts.
Lou hitched a ride at the airport.
The flight back to the mainland was pretty uneventful and much less bumpy than the way there which I was thankful for. It was also a lot shorter. Because of the tailwind we made back in only four hours.
Then we had a four hour layover in Oakland so we spent some time walking the airport, playing games, and eating dinner.
Lou crashed on the floor.
The layover actually didn't feel that long. They enjoyed watching the planes as we waited to board.
Thankfully the plane wasn't full and Peanut was able to sit Bug and F, but Lou and I got our own seat and so did Noni and Peaches, and Daddy and Boo.
Our last flight left at their bedtime so I was hoping they would sleep on the plane, but no such luck. We read books and I tried to get Lou to sleep but her nap revived her and we ended up watching a show.
Peaches didn't sleep either, but she enjoyed the flight with Noni.
By the time we got bags and got home it was 11:30PM and we all had school/work the next day so we were tired, but it was a good tired. What an amazing trip!!! We are so blessed that we got to experience all of that amazing creation! It was a once in a lifetime trip and I am so thankful we got to do it!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
