New Years Eve "Ro-Ro's"!

After today, this year will be over. It was good year. It had it's ups and downs. It had it's smiles and tears. It has held so much emotion, feelings, and happiness. I went on many adventures and met so many people this year. And I am glad that I was able to spend this last day with my family.

We did something different for the kids this year. We had CINNAMON ROLLS for DINNER! How cool is that?! And I love my sister's cinnamon rolls! :)

The house smelled super yummy! The company was loving and fun! It was a wonderful way to end this year. Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Christmas!

This is another holiday party where I failed to take any pictures! But I would much rather live in the moment than trying to find moments to take a picture of. :) Today we had our family Christmas party at my brother's house, and his wife (my sister-IL) cooked an amazing meal and I loved it! I had a lot of fun...and the food was amazing...and the company was even better! :)

This picture was taking a few minutes before we left to go home. My brother-IL and my sister had to take KaiBoy home since he was getting sleepy, and so they left my DollGirl here so that we could finish the Gingerbread house that we were making and decorating sugar cookies....and then we had a little bit of SUPER yummy, homemade apple pie and cranberry cider!

I love my family. I know that no matter what happens in the years to come, we will always have each other. My prayer is that I will find someone that I can spend the rest of my life with that my sister and brother can be happy that he is their "in-law." I love my brother-IL and sister-IL...and I want my sister and brother to be able to say that about the person that I will marry into the family. But for right now, my family, is my family and I love them.

Merry Christmas Eve!

I have a confession. I did not take a lot of pictures of our Christmas Eve party at my sister's house. But that does NOT mean I did not have fun. In fact, I was having TOO MUCH fun that I didn't have time to take pictures. These two pictures I took in the beginning when I first got to the house and the last pictures was when everyone had left already and there were only a few of us. It was a fun night. And I am tired. But it was a SUPER fun night! :)

I honestly thought that my anxiety of lots of people was going to kick in, but I was okay. There were a few times where I had to step out and take a breather...but other than that, I could NOT stop laughing nearly the whole time!

My good, good friend had made tamales and a lot of other yummy Mexican food. I love authentic Mexican food! :) But her and my sister slaved away in the kitchen and when everyone arrived we all sat around the table and ate and talked, and laughed and just had a really good time stuffing ourselves! Then came the games! My other sister had planned out all the games and they were a lot of fun! We were all laughing and having a very, very good time! It was fun. :)

See, like I said, I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was having way too much fun! This last picture was my friends prize that he had left behind. He said that we can have and so my friend Tracy and I wanted to eat one, but we didn't know what was inside of them, so we "opened" all of them. That was fun...and we did get to eat a "good" one. :)

It was a good Christmas Eve filled with lots of good food, good friends, and happy moments. I loved tonight...and I had a lot of fun. :) Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! Have an awesome Christmas tomorrow! :)

Honolulu City Lights 2016.

Today was a ridiculously exhausting day, but it was SO worth it! I really was contemplating whether or not I wanted to go to the city with my family to go see the city lights. I really didn't want to, but then because I like spending time with family, I really wanted to go. I love spending time with my DollGirl and KaiBoy and I love going on adventures with them...but today was a real rough day at the preschool! It was crazy! The kids were crazy! If ever I forgot that we had a break coming up, I just needed to look at my kids and their behavior would remind me. *laughs*

I decided to go. It didn't take much convincing really, just I needed the energy to go...but anytime I think of my little ones, I somehow muster enough energy to LOOK like I have energy. *laughs*

Even though it was still light out, I'm glad that we went early. There wasn't that many people there yet, and we had really good parking! That was what I was worried about...the whole parking dealio! It can get pretty crazy...and sometimes you can spend a lot time trying to look for a place to park. But not this time, we drove up and got real good parking!

"Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say, on a bright Hawai'ian Christmas day!" I couldn't leave without taking a picture of this! (Keep in mind, a lot of these pictures were taking one handed since KaiBoy decided that he wanted to stay with me. I like to think it's because I don't ever believe rushing kids if they don't need to be rushed. So we took our time walking around. I would only carry him if there was a huge group, or you could tell he was tired...but for the most, he loved walking everywhere. But yes, I would be holding his hand...so one handed pictures here! :))

It was funny because it looked like KaiBoys head was going to fall off while we walked under the trees with the lights because he couldn't stop looking at the lights! :)

And there is the official sign of the Honolulu City Lights!:)

Every year they would have a Christmas Wreath contest...and there were some really awesome wreaths! SUPER creative! I really liked that Dream Catcher wreath!

This one was my favorite wreath this year! I love how everything was made from the beach!

These wreaths always make me laugh! I swear that we can make one, or two, or three! at the the preschool, because the kids always leave their slippers at the school and then forget which one is theirs!

Christmas trees all decorated with lights just makes me smile! I love it! I makes me so happy to see this!

This little guy could not stop looking at the tree! The lights would change colors and KaiBoy LOVED it! I love watching his face when he is super interested in something! :)

And here is Santa and Mrs. Clause just chilling...:)

See, even Santa likes to go barefoot! :)

I love my family. I super love my family. And I am so glad that I can call them mine. :)

Right when we got to the cars, DollGirl said that she needed to go to the bathroom...and so while Papa took her to the bathroom, my sisters and I stayed with KaiBoy in the car...he's so cute. I love him. :)

They are my world. I love them. My DollGirl and my KaiBoy. I'm glad that I went. Any time spent with them is so worth it. :)

Family Christmas Exploring.

Last night my sister texted me asking me if I wanted to go with her and her family to drive around town and look at the Christmas decorations at the different hotels. I replied, why not and I went. I didn't take as many pictures as I could have, but I was too busy running (literally RUNNING) with my little DollGirl and then exploring with KaiBoy. Every-so-often we would stop when something caught the attention of one of the darlings and I snapped a quick picture and then we were running off again.

I love spending time with family. We wanted to do something different for DollGirl and KaiBoy, so we took them around town to enjoy the sites. I know that DollGirl has been to all these places before, but we still always have fun. I love my niece and nephew...I love my sister and her hubby. I love my brother and his wife (although my later didn't go today). I love my family.

My Little Monster.

Today at the preschool we allowed the children to come in their costumes, as long as there were no weapon props, or any"questionable" costumes. I loved seeing all the Disney princess, super heroes, and we had plenty of firefighters this year! My DollGirl came running into my classroom excited to show me her costume...and all I saw was a black outfit. So when she asked me to guess what she was I replied with, "a ninja?!"...and she gave me the most fiercest face and said, "I'm a MONSTER!" In my defense, she did NOT have her tail on...and her hood was down and she was just showing me the front of her costume which was all black...and so I didn't know!! :) That was when her dad walked in and showed me her tail and tied it on, and she put on her hood and turned around...

Yep, my sister is super talented. :) She made DollGirl's and KaiBoy's "monster" costume...and I was happy to see KaiBoy in his monster costume because my sister came by to the school later on in the day and he was running around with his tail...SUPER CUTE! :)

This is her showing me her monster face...gah, I just love her SO much! :)

Such a sill monster, she is! :) But do you see what I mean?! When you look at her from the front, she looks like a ninja! Oh well, she came be a ninja monster...:)

And YES! I was able to stock up on Vampire Blood! :) Be safe everyone! Happy Halloween! :)

To my family and fellow postcrosser.

Päivi of Finland will be getting this gorgeous surfing postcard! Although this wasn't one exactly on her list, I hope she likes it. I looked through her favorite postcards and she had a lot of water ones...and so I decided on this one. She also mentioned that she loved cats and the Christmas holiday. Because she she said she loved Christmas, I decided to put some Christmas-y stickers on her postcard and also a picture of a kitty cat. I hope she enjoys it!

These next postcards I decided to send to my family here and on the mainland. I actually was going to write them on Sunday, but then I got super tired and I wasn't able to write them until now...so that date is kind of off...oh well. :)

This vintage Hawaiian island postcard will be making it's way to my cousin in California. He just recently got two new jobs in the Bay Area and so he was able to move nearer to home (where we both grew up)...so I wanted to send him a congratulations postcard! Something fun to get at his new place. And plus, his wife (who just so happens to be one of my closest friend...err...cousin (now!)) told me that he rarely, if ever, gets anything fun in the mail...so I hope that this is a nice surprise! :)

Of course I couldn't send one to my cousin without sending one to his wife as well! So I send her this vintage postcard. I miss this girl so much! It's so fun to see how life happens. I know that I wrote about this girl in my earlier posts when I first started to blog. She actually was my room/housemate in the Philippines when we went to school there. My cousin and her had been dating for nearly 10 years before they got married this past January...and I am so glad to be able to call her my cousin. I miss her a lot. And I wish that she were closer to me...but I'm not complaining because although we are still an ocean away...California is still a LOT closer than Thailand!

This other Vintage Hawaiian Island postcard I sent to my sister. I can't remember the last time that I mailed off something to my sister and so I wanted to just sent her a little something something to make her day. I know that she has long days being a mom and having two business going on...she is doing an awesome job...but sometimes, I think, you need something random and fun to make you smile...I hope this postcard makes her smile. :)

Pumpkin Patch

Today our school had it's annual visit to the Waimanalo Pumpkin Patch! I was worried that it was going to rain, and either we were going to have to cancel it, or we would still go and it would be crazy muddy. Last year we went, and it was crazy muddy. This year was a perfect day to go! We went in the morning and so it wasn't too hot and it was a lovely day.

You had to see it in person, but I love how the pumpkin patch has a view of the ocean on one side and the view of the mountains on the other side! Since I've been to pumpkin patches on the mainland, nothing compares to that...but I love how we can at least have something like this...and it's perfect. The farm is owned by a lovely Christian family who enjoys opening their farm to the public...and they are one of the most down to earth, super nice people that you can ever meet! Super nice!

They had a sunflower maze for the children! I love it! I love being near all those flowers and watching the bees flit from this flower to that...and since this field trip was a parent participation field trip, the parents had to come. My sister brought my niece (who also goes to my school) and her little brother, so because I love them, I told my sister that she could just stay in the shade and enjoy some "me time" while I took her kids around. Some of my other kids decided to come hang out with me...so I was able to bond with their parents more and have a fun time! I let the children lead me around the maze...it was a lot of fun!

I just LOVE how the sunflowers looked against the mountains and the beautiful cloud formations! Like I said, it was a beautiful day!

Here is my lil Kaiboy enjoying himself. It was so hard to take a picture of him because he was wanting to run all over the place! I'm so glad that he isn't allergic to sunflower seeds because he was sticking his nose in the flowers and trying to smell them! I would say that he was having a lot of fun too! :)

One of my favorite reasons to come here is for their ono lemonade! They grow their own lemons and make fresh lemonade everyday! And it is one of the best on the island! My favorite flavor is Li Hing Mui lemonade! So ono! My sister liked the pineapple lemonade and the mango lemonade. Both were yummy too! :)

It's very rare that my Kaiboy will ride in his carrier...but for some reason after walking around, he wanted my sister to carry him in his carrier...and she she put him in, he just kept laughing and laughing! :) Then he wanted to get down and walk around again...which we did. :)

Here is a better view where you can see the ocean in the background. They set aside days where it's school days so that school can enjoy the pumpkin patch without the hoards of public people that love to come here. When it's school days, they do close a lot of the entertainment for whatever reason. We are always welcomed to come back during the weekend to partake in all the games, but for safety sake, since not all schools do the parent participation, they close the games. They have pumpkin shooting games, and launch the pumpkin, and other fun games. You can also ride on some of the animals that they have. :) This picture shows the area where a lot of the games are, so for right now it looks bare. :)

Can't have a pumpkin patch without any pumpkins! :)

Here are some of the animals that they had in their petting zoo area. They had a lot! They had a lot of different kinds of chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, cows, donkeys, llamas, roosters, turtles, dogs, and turkeys, to name a few!

Here is Kaiboy looking at the baby chicks! Which he loved!

A big turkey!

....and my favorite! Turtles and tortoises! I so want one! :)

It was a very good day today...I know that the kids liked it, and I could see the parents liking it too. I like events like this, where parents could meet each other and arrange play dates for the kids and just get to know each other. I feel as if a school isn't only for the kids, but also for the parents too, to get to know each other and to make friends. :)