Another great day at El Hogar! We were visited by the US Marines stationed in Honduras this morning. They brought a huge collection of Toys for Tots gifts for all the kids. We brought the kids in groups of the girls, the young boys, then the older boys into the auditorium where the Marines set up tables filled with toys. One by one each got to come up and chose which ever gift they wanted. Seeing their faces light up at the sight of all the gifts for them was absolutely precious, it was an amazing pre-Christmas surprise!

The rest of the morning was spent playing with the plethora of new toys and games ranging from coloring books and crayons, stuffed animals, toy cars, marbles, barbies, dolls, Legos and more! The El Hogar kids also completely destroyed the Marines at soccer, it was a great game!

After lunch while some kids continued playing with new toys, others helped make and decorate cookies in the bakery! We all were decked out in aprons and chef hats while making cookie dough and little round sugar cookies on trays. The kids loved decorating the cookies in sprinkles of every shape and color, some getting very fancy with designs, including a few Honduran flag cookies. We made several trays of cookies saving them for an after dinner treat, because nothing sends 40 kids to bed quite like sugar cookies!

Goodnight from "the Waltons!" (Walsh-Daltons)