Twas the Night Before Christmas...

We spent Christmas Eve around the house getting ready for our friends to come over for dinner and for Santa to come that night!  Gavin and my Mom baked cookies, while my husband Clark Griswald put up last minute Christmas lights outside :)  It was so nice to have a full house for Christmas - just wish Stephen was here to spend it with the rest of the family!  

Our Hawaii family came over for dinner - the Martin's and Hughes (Katie's parents), Jaimi and her mom, Debbie, and Jerrod & Tanya Weida.  I only managed to take one picture while everyone was here because I was busy being the hostess with the mostest :)

Baking cookies for Santa

If Mark is like Clark Griswald hanging Christmas lights, then I'm Martha Stewart with decorating....the "table-scape" for the evening.

A few for Santa...a few for us....

My FaVOrITe food to eat at Christmas...German Chocolate cake all from scratch...YUMMY!

The kid's corner for dinner....yes we had to run the vacuum after they were finished.

Aunty Tanya and Dylan

Gavin's letter to santa and the plate of cookies

Finally a family picture that has our "dog"ter in it!

Pixie's last hiding spot of the 2011 Christmas season..see you next year!!!

Honolulu City Lights

We made our way down into Honolulu to see the city lights at Honolulu Hale while my parents were here. Our only mistake was going down on a Friday night, Dec. 23rd....the place was PACKED! It took about 40 minutes of driving around the city to find parking and then when we got there the lines for the rides were so long that we didn't ride any (Luckily, Gavin can easily be bribed with popcorn and didn't mind missing the rides).  Glad we went though, because it has been  few years and it is a neat thing to see, especially for the kids.  On a side note, right when we got there, Obama's motorcade came right through on his way to dinner in Waikiki!  There were about 10 cop cars, 5 black SUV's, an armored car, and an ambulance....I wonder which one he was riding in?

Dylan didn't want to stay in the stroller, so we had to watch him closely in the crowd.

Shaka Santa and Tutu Mele

Gavin is showing off his new light up sword he got there.

The Most Wonderful Time of the YEaR!

There are so many fun things to do leading up to Christmas...it really is the most wonderful time of the year! So this blog post is just a hodge-podge of Christmas happenings in the Buelow household. 

Gavin loved singing Christmas carols and his favorite this year was "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"; both of the boys loved to wear their santa hats; we went to see Santa twice (Dylan wasn't a fan either time); one of Dylan's new words was "Santa", and I'm a sucker when it comes to anything Christmas, so the boys had two sets (matching of course) of Christmas PJ's.

Matching Christmas PJ's

Gavin got to meet his favorite Christmas Character...Rudolph

Pixie - our Elf that watches the boys during the day and reports back to Santa each night. When he comes back in the morning, he finds a new hiding spot.  Gavin got really good at spotting him this year!

Dylan and Papaw watching TV....either CSpan or Barney....

Gavin and I made a Gingerbread house....SO much simpler from the kit than from scratch!! 

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Valley of the Temples

The Byodo Temple in Kaneohe has become a new stop on the Buelow's Tour of Oahu for our visitors.  Since our first visit this summer, we have been three more times and I think this is a place that I'll never grow tired of visiting.  This place is so tranquil and one of the most beautiful places on the island.  This past Thursday my parents, the kids and I packed up the car for  a road trip....we drove over the Koolau Mountains to the Valley of the Temples and then around the coast up to the North Shore for shrimp and ended the day with a stop at the Dole Plantation for pineapple ice cream.  

Ringing the bell for good luck before entering the temple

The kids favorite part of the day was feeding the fish and swan.

Waikiki Staycation

We had a great weekend (Dec. 16-18) down at the Hilton Hawaiian Village to celebrate graduation, spend time with family and friends, and enjoy playing tourist for a weekend.  

The resort was decorated for the Holidays and the kids favorite was a sled set up for pictures...nearly every night we had to stop for a few pictures in the sleigh

Spent our days playing at the lagoon and pools

Silly boy!

Saturday night (after graduation) was certainly bittersweet...It was a night to go out and celebrate graduation but also the night we had to say goodbye to Heidi. The Staffaroni's are now Connecticut residents. Best of luck Mike, Heidi, and Jackson - we will miss you dearly!