Our Christmas

This year we had to do Christmas on the 26th instead of the 25th because my fam came into town on the real Christmas day in the late afternoon. Normally, we would've just opened up the gifts then, but Elina had been practicing her "Night Before Christmas" game for the past few weeks. In this game she says, "Mommy, it's the night before Christmas! We have to go to sleep!" Then we lay down somewhere, put the blankets over ourselves, and pretend to sleep. After a few minutes, she opens her eyes and screams, "It's Christmas morning!! We have to open our presents!!" And we run to the tree to pretend to rip open all our presents. It was a simple pretend game, but she knew we opened presents up on Christmas morning. So we decided to just open our gifts on the morning of the 26th.

On "Christmas Eve," Elina left cookies and milk out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. I told Elina she could pick out special plates for them and she wanted to use her own plates and bowls just for the occasion. She was really excited to think that Santa was going to eat off her plate! Then the kids opened up their first presents--Christmas PJs. Each year we're going to let them open up new Christmas PJs on Christmas Eve so that they can wear them to bed and have them on for Christmas morning. I did something I don't normally do though...I got them kind of matching PJs. I never wanted to do that to them, but there were only 2 choices for girl PJs and I preferred this one over the other. And, honestly, I liked the semi-matching PJs. It makes for cute pics. (Plus, my friend told me to match them for as long as they'll let me because it doesn't last for very long.)

That night we put Elina to bed and it took her a few hours to fall asleep. She was SO excited for Santa to come. She kept singing Christmas songs and dancing around. We finally had to go into her room to tell her to go to bed. J went in and Elina just looked at her and quietly asked, "Is Santa here??" J told her that Santa couldn't come until she went to sleep. Elina asked, "But what about you?" J assured her that we were all going to bed soon. Elina finally went to bed around 10pm...2 hours after we had put her down! I thought Elina would be up at the crack of dawn to open her presents, but since she had gone to bed so late, she ended up not waking until 9am or so (these days she's usually up between 7 and 8am).

After everyone got up, we ate breakfast while we opened presents. It was a lot of fun for Elina, but it took her SO long to open up all her gifts. Elina definitely received the most presents out of all of us. She was excited to see that Santa had brought her the animal hospital and candy cane she asked for. Eli quickly lost interest in opening presents, so we let him open his gifts gradually over the next few days.

My family has always been obsessed with gift bows and ripped up wrapping paper. We usually make everyone wear bows and we also lay on the wrapping paper. So we're going to start doing this with Eli and Elina. I decided to be more "fashion forward" and make a hat and a necklace with the the bows for the kids to wear for a picture. In the wrapping paper picture Eli is VERY serious and nervous, while Elina is having lots of fun with it. Then we tried burying the kids in the paper, but both kids weren't happy with that.

It was a really wonderful Christmas this year. Like I've been saying, things change once kids can really take an interest in holidays and outings. Everything's so much more fun! Hope everyone had a happy holiday season!

Elf'd

J's friend made one of these for her and we thought we'd try it out. We made all 4 of us into elves and included Elina's Cuddlebunny as well (we needed a 5th elf for some of the dances). It ended up being cuter than we had imagined. We cracked up so hard because Elina and Eli's faces made the best elves.

Elina loved watching us do all the different dances. She kept asking funny questions like, "How is Cuddlebunny standing up?" and "How did Daddy get so small?" She thought it was all for real. Cute.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

O Little Town of Bethlehem

This past weekend our neighbors invited us over to their house for a Bethlehem dinner. Basically, we ate food like they did back in the day in Bethlehem--cheese, bread, fruit, nuts, hummus. We also had to eat on the floor. After the dinner they had the kids act out parts in the nativity scene. We thought it'd be fun for Elina to do this with some of her friends. Plus, we thought it would be cute to dress the kids up in Bethlehem-wear. All the kids looked adorable dressed up. Luckily, the adults didn't really have to dress up.

The dinner was simple, but good. The kids really enjoyed sitting on the floor for the meal. The nativity scene was really cute and entertaining. Elina was a shepherd in white carrying a unicorn staff.

I Like Santa...A Little Bit

Elina has always been a shy girl, but things have been changing ever since the school year began. We thought we would use this opportunity to ask Elina if she was interested in seeing Santa. She saw a Santa from afar at the beginning of the month and she seemed pretty excited.
Elina: Mommy, I saw Santa!!
Me: That's great! Would you want to sit on his lap...to tell him what you want for Christmas?
Elina: Ummmmmm. No, thanks.
Me: You don't like Santa?
Elina: I only like Santa a little bit, so I don't want to sit on his lap.
Me: Ohhhhh....ok.

So that's what she would tell us for awhile. She liked Santa, but not quite enough to sit on his lap--even if it meant she could tell him what she wanted for Christmas. That was fine with us because we weren't into standing in long lines anyway.

Then a few weeks went by and we read lots of books about Christmas. She saw pictures of children sitting on Santa's lap. She also saw Santa leaving presents under the tree. She started to put two and two together. So then one day she told us, "Maybe I want to sit on Santa's lap, but only for a little bit." We couldn't believe it. We thought for sure she wouldn't want to visit Santa. After all, she's always had an aversion to 3 things--1) men, 2) white people (no offense to any of my readers), and 3) facial hair. I mean, we figured Santa didn't even have a chance! So we were really excited that Elina wanted to visit Santa. She figured out what she wanted to ask Santa for (a wooden animal hospital) and we rehearsed it every day.

We decided to go to Bass Pro Shops to visit Santa because we had heard they had a nice display. Their Santa was very convincing! Luckily, there was no line when we went, so Elina went straight up to Santa. She let him pick her up and put her on his lap. I was so proud of her because I knew she was very nervous. She told Santa what she wanted, but you could tell she was wary of the whole situation. (In the picture you can see how her head is slightly tilted away from Santa.) They took a quick picture and he gave her a candy cane. She was the happiest little girl! We're so proud of her!

I had wanted Santa to hold Eli for the picture, too, but Eli would NOT let go of Bogie. He has some stranger anxiety right now. So here's a little video of Elina's first visit to see Santa. You can't really hear Elina talking to Santa because I was a little too far away to catch the audio. But you can see them talking and you can see how Eli is holding onto Bogie for dear life.

The Kind of Day I Had

I just wanted to quickly write about the day I had. Overall, it was a nice, relaxing Sunday with the family. We like to use Saturdays to run errands or go out, but we've started to just hang out and relax on Sundays. This has helped my stress level a lot because we can just focus on the kids and take it easy as a family. It's our favorite day....

...but oddly, it was not a good day for me. I am definitely a clumsy person, but today just took the cake. First I spilled a bunch of flour on the kitchen floor. Then I sliced my thumb with a knife. Ouch. After that I proceeded to spill a 1/2 cup of water on the floor. Then these 2 glass bowls almost slipped out of my hands and shattered. And then to top everything off, as we were getting the kids ready for bed, I slammed my sliced thumb into Eli's door. Double ouch.

Why me?

Lights, Lights, and More Lights

This year we went to see a lot of Christmas lights because Elina absolutely loves lights now that she's older. We went out to see lights 3 separate times...I know, it's a little ridiculous, but once you have kids, you'll do anything fun for your child. Trust me.

So here's a list of the places we went to--

1. Santa's Ranch: This place is about 45 minutes away and costs $20 per car. It's pretty neat because you drive through this Christmas light wonderland in the comfort of your car. We think it's fun because we let Elina out of her car seat so she can get a better look out the window. She LOVES to be out of her car seat, so she was amped up about the lights the entire time. (You can hear her excitement in the video.) We drove pretty slowly because we wanted to see everything and because there were other slow cars in front of us. Plus, it cost $20 to get in, so you want to absorb everything. One of our favorite things was driving through tunnels of lights. Overall, it was a fun experience, but I don't think we'll do it again next year. Just because they usually have the same stuff and the admission rate is kind of high. Another thing that bothered us a bit was the fact that not all the lights were working properly. Some weren't on and some were half-on. I'm sorry, but for $20, I expect all the lights to be functioning and blinking. C'mon now.

2. Windcrest: This is a community in the northeast part of town. Every year the residents are highly encouraged to decorate for the holidays. They also hold a contest. These aren't high-end houses and they do an amazing job of decorating! Usually the homeowner will pick a theme and then go all out on that theme. It was really great. The only downside is that if you go before they announce the contest winners, you drive around blindly through the streets just looking for bright lights. After they announce the winners, they hand out maps with the winning houses listed. We went before the contest took place and we enjoyed ourselves, but we're thinking of going back now that the map is out just to make sure we saw the winners. This is something we'll definitely do again next year.

3. Trail of Lights: This takes place in Zilker Park in Austin. The cost is just parking ($15). It's similar to Santa's Ranch, but the difference is you walk through the lights. So it takes place at a slower pace. The lights are really great and there's food, games, and photo ops everywhere. We got to walk through tunnels of lights, so that was really neat. Last year Elina went with B, J, and A. Unfortunately, I was stuck at home with a newborn. So this year it was my turn to go with Elina and J! We were sad though because the "finale" lights weren't working. Bummer. Everyone told me they're really neat, too! The downsides to Trail of Lights are that it's a 75 minute drive up to Austin and it doesn't begin until 7pm. Are you kidding?? That's the time our kids are getting ready for bed. So this is a tough one because we get home late and Elina is seriously tired, but we all have a blast. J says that it's pretty much the same every year, so I doubt we'll be going back next year.

So that was our Christmas light adventure for the year. I'm glad we went to all 3 events because now we know that going to Windcrest is the best option for us because it's in town and it's free! Who knew?

Gingerbread House...with an Avalanche

Now that Elina is older, she can finally appreciate holidays and traditions. So now we're starting to think about what kind of family traditions we want to start. One thing I wanted to do was a gingerbread house the weekend after Thanksgiving, when all the Christmas decorations go up. I'm not talking about baking your own gingerbread and making your own icing to put the house together. I'm talking about a store-bought gingerbread house kit for $9.99. I asked my friend, K, if I should even attempt to make my own gingerbread cookies for the house and she told me that if I was simply going for the "experience" for Elina, then I should just go buy a kit. K and other people have told me that it's a lot of work to bake your own cookies to make the house. I love to bake, but I just don't have the time to experiment with that at this point. But K reminded me a few things about buying the kit--the cookies are inedible, the icing is toxic, and some of the candies are too hard. Knowing this, I still opted to go out and buy the kit.

First thing I didn't realize was how long it would take to just build the house. I didn't know you had to let the walls and roof sit for an hour or two to let the icing harden. Secondly, I didn't realize how hard it would be to ice the roof. Elina wanted the roof to look like it had snow on it. Essentially, you ice the entire roof and use a spatula to "fluff it" so it resembles snow. Wow. I'm really terrible at icing things. I wasn't good at icing Eli's cake...and I definitely wasn't good at icing this roof. I mean, I was awful. I used too much icing so it slowly started to slide off the roof. It looked like an avalanche. I just had to do it real quick and then throw it in the fridge so it would harden faster than it could slide off. Elina was nice enough to tell me that it still looked like snow. What a sweetie! I guess it looks ok from afar. (Or if you squint your eyes a bit.)

So has it officially become one of our traditions? Definitely! Elina had a blast putting all the candies on the house..while she consumed some at the same time. Over the past few weeks, Elina has eaten gumdrops off of the house. She's even eaten the icing "icicles" and liked it! I don't even dare try that stuff. But then again, she's a kid and will eat anything sweet. She loves looking at her gingerbread house and even plays with it with her dolls. So we will definitely be doing this for years to come!

Who's Hand is That?

I just thought I would post this random video of Eli. Last week we went out to eat at this Korean restaurant. There was a TV on and Elina and Eli were both in a trance. So here is Eli staring at the TV while someone is stroking his cheek. It's funny because Eli doesn't even care about what's going on around him. (And, by the way, J is the one who is stroking Eli's cheek.)

Wrapping Gifts

Elina is at that fun age where she can start appreciating holidays and birthdays. She was very excited for Eli's birthday. I took her to a toy store to pick out a birthday present for him. She picked a nice pounding toy with a hammer. Then I let her wrap the gift all by herself. She was ecstatic that she could do this on her own! So here is video footage of her doing this all by herself:



The end product definitely wasn't pretty, but it's the thought that counts, right? Plus, Eli is one and won't know the difference. He'll play with anything right now.

Elina was so proud that when I took her picture, she actually flashed the universal Asian peace sign for the camera. (For those of you who don't know, most Asians love to strike this pose for the camera...especially those Asians who are new to the US.) After I stopped cracking up, I asked Elina, "Who does that with their fingers?" And she said, "Maybe Yaya?" You're busted, J! Or maybe she meant A. A is known to do this a lot in front of cameras as well. Well, whoever it was, it's pretty cute that Elina is doing it.

The Flash

We've been so lucky to have our friend, T, take pics of the kids. She was here taking pics for Christmas and for Eli's party. I purposely left the kids in their pajamas for the pics because I am a total sucker for kids' PJs. Kids look so cute with jammies on. I think we'll be doing PJ Christmas pics every year for the kids.

We got lots of great pics this time because the kids are more cooperative. It really helps that Elina is more social now. She even had a moment where she was doing all these poses on her own. It was hilarious! We hardly recognized her!

I had lots of favorite shots, but this, by far, is one of my top ones of Eli. It looks like Eli is going super fast! I mean, he's quick at crawling now, but this pic makes him seem like The Flash, right? And that look on his face is his classic troublemaking face. He knows he's supposed to be sitting with Elina to pose for a picture, but he is SO out of there! And Elina is being so well-behaved..sitting there smiling...still posing for the camera. What a sweetie.

Happy 1st Birthday, Eli!

This past weekend our little boy turned ONE. (Can you believe it???) There was a lot to prepare during the week (hence, the lack of posts). Not only was I teaching for preschool, but I had to get ready for Eli's big day and for a weekend visit from B's parents for the event. Nonetheless, everything came together in the end and we all had a wonderful time.

Poor Eli's gathering was nothing like Elina's first birthday, but that's to be expected since he IS the second child. (I know all of you younger siblings out there feel the pain.) It was B's parents, J, us, and T (J's friend who has become our family friend and family photog). Later in the day, B's cousin came to visit, too.

We had First Birthday decorations, balloons, and clothes for Eli to wear. We got him to wear this funny First Birthday crown--not a tiara, a crown. You know, like a king, not a princess. (I know, he's going to kill us when he gets older and sees these pictures, but I just had to.)

We chowed down on Rudy's BBQ (yummy!) for lunch and then had cake. It's always hard to think of cute cakes when kids turn 1 because they don't really have things that they really like yet. It's more for the parents than anything else. So one day Elina and I brainstormed about things that Eli seemed to like. (I know it sounds strange that I was discussing this with Elina, but we actually came up with the cake theme together! It's amazing how much preschoolers can contribute!) We decided that Eli seems to really like musical instruments, especially this one drum that we have. That's how we decided we should make the cake look like a drum. So I Googled "drum cakes" and there were lots of different (and fancy) ideas. I am SO not good at decorating cakes, so I was really worried. The idea was to make one big one for the adults to cut up and one small individual-sized cake for Eli to mess around with. After lots of mistakes and worries, here was the end result:

It definitely didn't come out perfectly, but I was assured by all that they looked like drums. (J was nice enough to provide moral support while I was flipping out about how I stink at decorating cakes.) I also made "1" butter cookies since I had a new set of number cookie cutters to put to use. All in all, everything looked nicely put together.

It was really cute how excited Elina was to sing "Happy Birthday" to Eli. She sang so loud, I'm sure you can hear it in the video. Eli couldn't blow out the candles, so Elina was more than happy to lend a hand here. What a helpful big sister!



By the time we got to the cake Eli was already getting ready for his second nap. I think this was why he didn't tear it up. With the way Eli eats, I figured he would devour the whole thing, but I think he was just getting too tired. He looked like he really liked the icing though. (Honestly, who wouldn't??)

We actually didn't open presents until Sunday. (I'm sure Eli didn't mind waiting an extra day.) Again, we thought he would just rip through the wrapping paper since he LOVES to tear up all our magazines, but he was really hesitant to rip the paper. Maybe he thought he'd get into trouble or something. So Elina had to lend a hand...not that she minded because she thought all his new toys were for her to play with.

It was a fun-filled weekend for everyone. Thanks to everyone who came. The kids really loved spending time with the grandparents. Thanks to J for putting up with me and my craziness. And a special thanks to T for taking pics for us. We love you all!

I really am still in shock that a year has already flown by. Where has the time gone? Why am I still extremely tired every morning when I wake up with Eli between 6 and 6:30am? Why haven't I scrapbooked anything from his first year? It's amazing how a year can go by so quickly.

Eli had a rough start like his big sis. Thank God his colic only lasted 3 months. Now he's become this happy, laidback baby. He smiles so easily and is extremely cuddly.

So, to end this post, here is a list of things Eli can do at 1 year:
*Eat non-stop. He eats enough for him and Elina.
*Clap his hands with sound now. Yay! (Clap, clap, clap.
*Blink when you blink.
*Raise his arms to be "so big."
*Pat himself when you ask him, "Where's Eli?"
*Sign "more," "milk," and "all done." Although "more" also looks like him clapping his hands.
*Drink from a sippy cup.
*Play peekaboo with an object in his hand.
*Pretend to "talk on the phone."
*Give "kisses." It's more like he leans into your face with his mouth open, but it's still cute and he can do it on cue.
*Scream like a girl, especially if he's excited or hungry.
*Smile without teeth. Seriously, people...where are his teeth??

Happy Turkey Day!

It's been awhile since I posted anything. I think it might be like this for the rest of the year since the holidays are so busy! (I apologize to my few faithful readers.)

Well, Thanksgiving was great this year. Elina and I did a lot of crafts to prepare for turkey day. She's at a fun age where she can really get into holidays. At school, she made this Thanksgiving turkey countdown calendar that had a certain number of feathers on it. So every day we'd write down something she was thankful for on one feather. We were trying to teach her the concept of thankfulness. I'd say things like, "We should be thankful for our beds. If we didn't have our beds then we wouldn't have a comfortable place to sleep." Some of the things she was thankful for were Cuddlebunny (he made the list and we didn't!), toys, jell-o, and kitchens. It was a random list, but she could back them all up if you asked her why she was thankful for something (J tested her on everything). And at our Thanksgiving dinner, she said she was thankful for candy. Predictable. =) Here's a pic of Tom the Thankful Turkey (for some reason he has fangs at the end of his beak)--

My parents didn't come to town until Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, so we didn't have our official Thanksgiving dinner until Saturday night. This was fine for us because it didn't matter which day we celebrated. But since we didn't want to cook twice and make a mess twice, we decided to eat out on the real Thanksgiving day. We chose Golden Corral and it was pretty good. We got our turkey and stuffing there and we didn't have to wash a single dish. Nice.

Then on Friday night we went downtown to the Riverwalk to watch the annual Holiday River Parade and Lighting Ceremony. We went last year and had a blast, so we decided we had to go again! It's a parade on the river with floats, but it's just a cheesy thing to do to get into the holiday spirit (but we have lots of fun). Plus, I love the Riverwalk in the winter because there are less people, the weather's nicer, and the lights make it look beautiful. Eli and B stayed home since it would be WAY past Eli's bedtime. So it was just me, J, Elina, and my parents. Some of the floats were more entertaining than others. A memorable one was a float full of these dancing ladies dressed up as cats.

Other favorites were the HEB float with the HEBuddy on it (only moms here know how "exciting" that is!)and the Chick-Fil-A float with cows on it (people really cheered for this one!).

Unfortunately, this year the parade dragged a little. For some odd reason, there was too much lag time in between floats. Last year things went smoothly and we were out of there pretty quickly. This year we got home pretty late. Elina started fading toward the end of the parade. She wasn't responding to the floats or to anyone else. After we buckled her into her car seat and got out of the parking lot, she said, "Mommy, you're an adult." I said, "Yes, you're right." Then she said, "Mommy, A's an adult." And I said, "Yes, she is." 30 seconds later we looked back and she was already passed out! Then when we got home, we took her into her room and changed her clothes and she was still out. Wow! We've never seen her that tired before. Needless to say, we were glad we left Eli at home.

Our Thanksgiving dinner went well. Elina helped decorate our turkey cupcakes with candy corn feathers. The turkeys turned out cute...although some of them looked like they could use some help. The turkey in the front looks like it desperately needs help, while one of the turkeys in the back looks Asian. All in all, a great turkey day with family!