Princess Tea

Over a year ago Leilani, Vanessa, and I with our girls met up for tea. Figuring it was long overdue, I set up a tea play date on 1/9 at our house. Vanessa and Mia hadn't yet been to our house.

Hansel took the boys to the Hiller Aviation Museum while we girls enjoyed our tea. I made cranberry orange mini muffins (one of my go-to recipes), fruit salad, and nut-free, egg-free, and milk-free tea sandwiches. We already had a variety of tea but I specifically bought some caffeine-free fruit teas for the girls. They all tried the peach, but didn't care for it even with honey. No real surprise. It's still tea.

I was a little worried about Mia being a little left out since Maile and Hannah are such good friends. I even reminded Maile ahead of time to include Mia. But I had nothing to worry about. The girls got a long great and all played and hung out together.

Alexander's 5th Birthday Party

Beck was invited to one of his classmates birthday party at Pump It Up Jr on 1/8. The Evite said siblings were welcome, but I thought it might be kind of obnoxious to bring all 3 kids, so I just brought the boys.

There were a lot of kids. Mathis got nearly trampled twice -- one of the times by an adult. They both still had a good time.

Mathis made himself quite comfortable next to Beck for snacks and cake.

Later a bunch of kids started climbing on the birthday chair and Beck joined in.

Christmas at Home and Maile's Birthday

We had ordered Santa's gift for the kids while we were in DC. We knew they would be unwrapped sitting on our front porch in Amazon boxes. I figured even if we got home late the kids were going to want to see if Santa had come while we were gone and left them presents. So I gave Hansel the dimensions of the products, and he bought gift bags while we were in DC. I put the bags in my backpack. We were then going to let the kids watch TV in the car while I raced inside the house, unpacked the boxes, and put the items in the gift bags.

Well, the items in their packaging were too big for the gift bags. So, I taped the boxes back up and just labeled them to the kids from Santa. When we brought the kids into the house, I pointed out the gifts under the tree from Santa and said they would get to open them in the morning.

Before the kids woke in the morning, we also had to wrap the rest of our gifts to them. So the next day was our family Christmas. The kids didn't seem to think it was weird that their gifts from Santa were in shipping boxes. I think I said something about them being too big to wrap. From Santa, Beck got a take-n-play Thomas toy since he had the trains that go with them but no track. Yes, Thomas trains come in three different models that fit three different tracks. Total racket. Maile got an old fashioned-looking Snow Cone machine that Tabitha has. And Mathis, got a pillow pet since Maile and Beck got ones and he didn't.

That day was also Maile's actual birthday. We had talked to her a month before about having her big birthday celebration on her half birthday (instead of around her birthday) and she was okay with it. So for her actual birthday Maile wanted to go to the Jungle, the same place we went for her actual birthday the year before.

Afterward we took her to ToysRUs to pick out a couple of birthday toys courtesy of GrandMama. We budgeted $40-50 for these gifts. We talked about her picking out a Littlest Pet Shop center to go with the LPS pets she got for Christmas from her cousins. She immediately gravitated to this LPS Rescue Center. I pointed out that if she picked that one it would be the only thing she could get, but that if she got a cheaper center she'd have enough money to get another toy. I was a little surprised when she said she'd get the cheaper center. It ended up being a good thing deal-wise because ToysRUs was having a buy 2-get-1-free sale on various toys, including LPS. And on top of that, if you spent over $25 on one LPS item, you got a set of triplet pets for free. So Maile ended up with 4 different LPS toys for around $50. LPS overload but what a deal!

I didn't realize until the next morning that Maile didn't get any birthday candles on her birthday, so the next morning I made her some birthday pancakes.

Heading Home

We flew back home on 12/30. Our flight back also had a stop in Dallas with a 2-hr layover. So, when we got to Dallas, we went straight to a food court. After eating, we took the kids on a ride around the airport in their monorail.

After, we headed to our gate. We checked a board to see if our gate was the same and saw that it said "Cancelled." We immediately talked to an agent at an empty gate. He said our flight was cancelled because of mechanical issues and that all future flights to SF were booked. He said the best we could hope for is that a future flight would be upgraded to a bigger plane, but he wouldn't know until later.

We went to go sit down at that gate. While I was off helping Mathis to sleep, the agent we spoke to found Hansel and said he could book us on a flight to Chicago and then catch a flight to SFO. There was still no word on whether a future flight was going to be bumped up to a bigger plane. So, we took it.

We went to the Chicago gate and boarded, and then they announced that this flight, which had already been delayed, would be delayed another hour due to weather. We then worried that we would be stuck in Chicago. I went out to talk to an agent and then went back to talk to Hansel. We figured it would be better to try and get out of Dallas then risk getting stuck in Chicago, which was farther away. We all deplaned and talked to the agent again. She said if we didn't take the Chicago flight that the earliest they could get us out of Dallas wouldn't be until Monday (4 days later) and still no word on a future flight getting a bigger plane. As they were preparing to close the gate, we decided to get back on the plane. As we returned to our seats, we saw that people had already taken them over. They weren't too thrilled about giving them up.

In the end we made the right decision because there were no problems landing or leaving Chicago. After leaving Washington Dulles at 8:30a PT and taking 3 flights, we finally landed at 10:30p. Hansel assumed our bags wouldn't be there, but I said we might as well check. They were already there in some cages. They were loaded on a flight on another airline. I bet with airlines charging for bags people are taking less bags, so more room in the baggage compartment.

What made the whole day bearable was the kids. They did great -- patient and cooperative. And Mathis  only had one crying fit.

Random Photos in DC

Hansel wanted to get a shot of the kids from above. Mathis is too busy looking at the girls to look at Hansel.

The kids doing YMCA.

The kids using Hansel as a ride. Mathis had a straight face through this whole session. The second photo is the most joy he showed. It was kind of funny.

Hansel wanted to get an action shot of the girls.

Christmas in DC Part II

One of the days we were out there, we went to the National Museum of Natural History. Everyone went except Anita, who had to work. Hansel and I thought Beck and Maile would like seeing the dinosaurs.

We got pretty good parking for both cars, which is almost near impossible around there. With Smithsonian museums being free and it being the holidays, the museum was crowded. We didn't actually spend that much time looking at the dinosaurs because that section was really crowded and laid out awkwardly. We mostly spent are time in that exhibit looking for Beck and Hansel's mom.

We also checked out the Ocean Hall, Human Origins, and the Mammal Hall. I liked the Human Origins section. Thinking about humans or early man living millions of years ago trips me out. The Mammal Hall was cool, esp seeing the strange mammals but it's also kind of eerie. I'd rather see live animals.

On one of our last days there, Hansel, Haniel, their mom, Grandpa Cliff, and the kids went to Great Falls Park, which is close to Haniel's home. Hansel had come across it during one of his runs. He thought the kids would love to see it. I stayed home with a napping Mathis while Anita was at work. I didn't think I was going to miss much. I figured it be more like a trickle, but then I saw the photos. Definitely interested in going there during our next visit.

Christmas in DC Part I

Our flight to DC was at 7:20a, so we left the house around 5:45. The night before we had the kids wear their day clothes to bed, so they could just get up and go.

The flights went pretty well. We had a stopover in Dallas, which was fine with us because we figured it would be better for Mathis, who gets really restless on long flights. He actually slept about 45 minutes on each leg.

On our way to the baggage claim, I took an elevator down with Mathis in a stroller while Hansel, Maile and Beck took an escalator with pretty much everyone else from the plane.When we got out of the elevator, noone was around, which I thought was kind of peculiar since I didn't think the elevator took that long. So, I went straight to baggage claim. Hansel, Maile, and Beck were not there. A little while later, Hansel texted me asking me where I was. Apparently, the escalator ended up somewhere else. Below is a photo of where they were waiting for me.

Haniel and Carter picked us up. We then had a late dinner at their home, and the kids went to sleep pretty late. Only the thought of waking up to open presents enticed them to bed.

The next morning we opened presents. Hansel, Mathis, and I actually slept in (9-something ET). So, while the kids waited for everyone to wake up, they looked in their stockings and helped sort the presents.

Don't have really any good gift-opening pics, but below is a photo of Mathis checking out Maile's  Fur Real pet.

Anita put together an awesome Christmas dinner that we shared with her best friend's family and Hansel/Haniel's cousins. There was a big spread for dessert as more families came after dinner. We ended up eating the dessert for a week.