Pippi was not loving the clip-in bow on the side of her head. She tried to rip it out several times.
So what does a mother do?
Uses that baby girl’s hero to show her how it’s done.
And my trick worked like a charm.
She didn’t tug at her bow for at least 15 minutes!
My mom threatened me with never buying my kids another thing if I touched Pippi’s hair.
Not because she didn’t think she needed it — but because she thinks she has the magic touch and/or she thought I was going to massacre it.
Well, I like living on the edge.
So I grabbed the scissors, and my 18 month old, and got cutting.
And shaped the cutest little bob I have ever seen.
And drum roll please…………..
Nonnie approved.
I had Ella Hansen watch my two littles for a few hours today. While I was gone, I got the text from her dad, John Hansen. (Who my kids call Hansen, John because that is what our caller ID calls him.):
“I just saw Ella taking the kids to the park down the hill. I stopped and asked Dash why he was such a handsome kid, and he said, ‘because I took a bath today’. Pipster started laughing. Love those kids.”
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When they say it takes a village to raise your kids….I agree.
And I couldn’t be happier about the Hansens being part of that village.
Navy told me she kind of wet her pants at school today. Apparently, she was working, and had to get her assignment done, so that she wasn’t benched at recess. So instead of getting benched, she worked on, and leaked a little. So tonight, as I was helping her get undressed, I told her to show me how much damage was done. As far as I could tell there wasn’t really any. BUT, there was a little bit of rolled toilet paper (about the size of an almond). I thought she had put it there to kind of clean up, but then she grabbed it really fast — like she was embarrassed. I asked her what it was, and she coyly replied, “Ummmm…that is my tampon.”
What?
I asked her if she wanted to be just like her mom, and she said, “Yes, and you use them, so I made my own.”
Holy Cow!
I started laughing so hard.
She tried to act embarrassed, but then she started laughing too.
How classic is this girl.
But Navy….don’t jump the gun on life’s little annoyances too quickly!
We got home at around 2:00am. It was quite the long day of travel. And I am pleased to report that when 6:45 rolled around, my Scout and Navy both shot up with smiles on their faces. I was SO impressed, because I could barely take the lack of sleep. And my younger two? They slept in until past 11:00 in the morning.
It was a dream!
And just to elongate the baby-free time I have had in 8 days, I treated them to suckers in the bath.
(I usually do this with Vitamin-C suckers, but today, we all deserved an exception.)
There is just something about the Kea Lani that is special. We went there for our honeymoon, and I don’t think there will ever be a hotel that is as nostalgic and heavenly as that place. Just like always, our part-of-our-huge-family trip was amazing. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
All packed up and ready to get on the airplane.
This is the first ten minutes of the flight.
And I KID YOU NOT — the only ten minutes on both flights where she was sane.
Both flights, I had to take her into the bathroom and hold her with every muscle I had to get her to fall asleep.
The flight attendant offered me the strongest drink I wanted!
I took water to cool my sweaty/wrestling self down.
It was all in the past once we got settled and in vacation mode.
Navy spent hours catching frogs and tadpoles from the pond.
Everyone loved the hammock — I think we commandeered it the whole time we were there.
Dash literally thought he was one of the big kids.
Navy took dolphin rides on her dad.
We surprised everyone by getting NayNay over to Maui.
Dash was with his favorite sidekick again.
Scout scored some real-deal snorkeling gear from Nonnie.
And he was amazing at it.
No fear, and went out crazy far — following turtles and an octopus.
WE had some really fun exploration walks with the cousins.
Where we found a rad grassy hill that was drenched — perfect for a man-made water slide.
(We also found a rad grass sledding hill, but don’t have pics.)
The rock climbing was calling Navy’s name.
Pippi was all glammed up this day.
We had hammock wars left and right — but Ka was too wimpy for them.
Scout got buried alive!
This lame team won the “Nonnie Sand Castle” contest.
It was Grant’s face in a mermaid silhouette (which was Nonnie), holding her best friend’s hand (which was Dash).
How cheesy that they had to use Dash to secure the win.
On Sunday, we went to the other side of the island to check things out.
One of our favorites was when we were looking for a location to have our Easter egg hunt. I made everyone follow me, and we came upon the old burned-down Maui high school. There was caution tape everywhere, and do not enter signs. So obviously, we asked the groundskeeper if we could have our hunt there.
He said yes — as long as we didn’t enter the building.
It was the raddest place.
Dash got to be the very first to hunt, and he took off like a mad man.
Then the big kids searched high and low.
And then the big, big kids searched — especially for the $50 egg.
Afterward, everyone sat on the grass, opening their eggs.
When all of a sudden, we realized that mini cockroaches were coming in and out of the grass by the dozens.
Everyone quickly picked up their eggs, and we cleared out.
And then Micah told all of us…..the old Maui high school is haunted. The old groundskeeper was killing students one by one over the course of months, and they finally had to shut the place down. There was a fire later…and it is rumored that every once in a while, the locals see a groundskeeper mowing the grass while smoking a cigarette.
Did I mention that the guy we asked was smoking a cigarette?
CREEPY!
The worst part of the trip was the one night when Pippi was determined to cry like a banshee from 1:00 am until 5:15 am. The only way she was happy, was if I was strolling her or holding her. Well, that gets old after four hours….so I decided we needed to skinny dip. I actually put a towel around me — for fear of cameras, but you wouldn’t believe how happy the Pips was in the jacuzzi for those 30 minutes.
The kids loved the huge banyan tree in Lahaina.
These twinners were the perfect pair. They played non-stop without any problems the whole time. I can not believe how well they get along.
And we finished the trip off with a good old-fashioned tube war.
It was that war that had me sore for days after getting back.
It was the best, best, best trip.
I wish I was still there.
And cheers to the moments when this little doll was sleeping.
Because a lot of the awake moments looked like this!
Just Jon with a stray dog and my four kids.
Good thing they were loving him at that moment, because I was NOT!
Nate got his mission call, and invited us over to see him open it.
He got called to the Montreal, Canada mission, and he will speak french.
These are really blurry pictures, because clearly, it was hectic and everyone was excited.
My kids always love when they get the invite from “Daddy John” to go boating.
Today was Dash’s turn, and it was reported to me that he loved it, and that he was an angel.
As night time was approaching, we were all very worried about where “Tallulah” the bunny was going to go. That is — everyone except Navy, who was going to let Tallulah sleep in her bed. We made signs, but got no call. We thought and thought, but couldn’t figure out what to do with our new bunny. It was literally getting dark, and then it came to me!
I called James Jones — owner of Goat Lunch.
I said, “Hi James…I know this is random, but do you have interest in having a bunny at Goat Lunch?”
Then I told the story of Navy catching it.
He said, “Yes….when do I get her?”
We arranged me to drop it off about an hour later. By the time I got there, he had a cage set up, with a water drip, and alfalfa hay for Tallulah to eat. He and Loni were so excited, and said we could go visit anytime.”
It was a very happy ending.
Except for my sweet little Navy who was partially devastated, but wanted Tallulah to have goat friends.
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