Christmas Guests Galore!

This Christmas season brought many visitors to our home!

1. B's PARENTS
First B's parents came in for the first weekend of break.  We mostly hung out, but we also ate downtown and walked around the Riverwalk to see all the pretty lights.  Super fun!

2. B's BROTHER
Then B's brother and sister-in-law came into town.  We took them to a different part of the Riverwalk that we had never been on.  It was so fun to take the River Taxi up to the Pearl district.  The lights were great and riding through the locks was a first-time for us.

We spent the rest of the time hanging out.  We even did our gingerbread house contest with them and AM's family.  Lots of fun!  B's brother actually did an amazing job as a rookie!

3. COUSIN AY
My cousin (AY) and his girlfriend (IA) came in on Christmas night.  They just wanted to hang out with the kids and go to a few Spurs games.  AY was nice enough to buy 2 extra tickets to the first game against Denver to take Eli and B with them.  The seats were great and they had a great time!

AY also brought 40 pounds of fresh Dungeness crabs and 2 geoduck from Seattle.  Man, I'm so glad IA, AY, and V really knew how to cook seafood.  I would be lost without them.  I just stood back and pointed to things in my kitchen, while they did all the prep work and cooking.  Yay, chefs!  We ended up baking some crabs and making a crab bisque.  All SO yummy!

AY also celebrated his 31st birthday here, so I made him a bundt cake and the kids made him cards.

AY and IA were so great with the kids. The kids didn't want them to leave!
4. J and V
J and V also arrived on Christmas Night.  We started the 26th with presents by the tree.  Kind of fun to have a Christmas Part II!  The little girls got new dance bags and the big kids got techie piggy banks!  But the big gift for the kids from J and V was a Wii U!!  The kids LOVED it!  Well, actually, from the pictures, it looks like Eli ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!  It almost looks like the gift is just for him, right?  This boy is all about video games, so he was in heaven.  The other kids loved it, too, but no one can love a Wii U as much as Eli.  Ha!

We also did another gingerbread house contest with J, V, Cousin AY, and IA.  To spice things up this year, all the adults had to draw the name of a different building you would find in a Christmas town and then create it.  I actually thought this was easier because it gave me an end-goal.

The kids still made houses and they did such a great job!  

Again, Eulee had more candy in her belly than on her house.  She won Best Candy Cane Holder!

Eli got Merriest Message because he wrote Merry Christmas on top of his roof.

Evie won Best Christmas Lights for her rooftop lights.

And Elina just blew our minds with her house...so neat and beautiful, especially her rooftop.  She won Most Creative Use of Ingredients!

I got Prancer's Dance Hall, which won Most Jingle-Rocking...I had half of my bears on a disco floor and half of them line dancing on a wooden floor!  I even had a disco ball!

B got the Grinch's Grocery Store, which won Best in Show because it looked meticulous.  The plate was so clean, the details perfect.  Ugh.  This guy...I mean, one of his bears is pushing a shopping cart!

J got the Snowed Inn and won Best Convertible Home...J even had one of her bears playing a piano in a lounge and another bear was acting as a valet.  Fancy!

V got Rudolph's Restaurant which won Best Entryway...this guy is getting too good, too...he had a bear taking a picture of 2 other bears. Pretty impressive!

IA got the garden center which won Rookie of the Year...she worked so hard smashing all the graham crackers to make dirt!

and Cousin AY got the Post Office and he really struggled with this since it was his first time.  He was sketching diagrams and everything.  It was quite comical!  He wanted to make his Post Office look like the letters "UPS" but you can't make graham crackers bend to form a U, so he settled on making it say "DHL."  His Post Office kept falling apart, but he kept on working, so he definitely deserved the Never Give Up Award!

So many visitors and so much fun!  We love the holidays!

Christmas 2015 with Our Little Family

Christmas was very different this year.  Usually my whole family comes and celebrates with us--my parents, Aunt A and her family, and J and V.  Because of conflicting schedules, it was just our little family of 6 on Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day.  For the first time since Elina was born, we celebrated by ourselves!  I am almost 40 years old and I have never missed a Christmas with my parents!  I'm not sure if I should be proud, or if I should feel sad about that statement.  I have to admit that I was a little worried before Christmas Day, but it was actually really nice.  Even with just the 6 of us, it still takes FOREVER to open all the gifts when you take turns doing it!  And I didn't have to feel badly that the kids were taking so long to open and enjoy their gifts.  Don't get me wrong, I still love it when my sisters and parents celebrate with us...but this was a nice change of pace for us.

After we had a Christmas Eve candlelight dinner,

we headed off to Target to do our annual Light 'Em  Up project.  Just like last year, we printed out little thank you/Merry Christmas cards, attached some Dove chocolates, and handed them out to all the employees at Target who had to work until at least 10pm on a Christmas Eve.  Everyone was so thankful...some gave big hugs...some teared up...it was really cute!  The kids got really into it and just chased after employees to hand out their notes.  Of course, similar to last year, we had to have one Grinch in the group.  The kids handed him the note and he said, "Thanks, but you can keep it."  What???  The kids were a little stunned, but they didn't seem to mind all too much.  I, on the other hand, was trying to hunt this boy down to give him more dirty looks.  (That's the Christmas Spirit for ya!)

Other than that, it was a special time for the kids.  The managers all came up to us to thank us.  They said that it really helps give the employees a boost because it's a long night.  They said that once we started handing them out, all the employees were radioing each other to say, "Did you all see those cute kids handing out the chocolates??"  One other manager also told us he remembered us from last year and that some of the employees had been on the lookout for us!  Ha!  (B says that now we definitely can't change stores for Light 'Em Up.)  In the end, we had a few extra notes so we went next door to Ross to hand out a few too.  One of the managers read the note and shook the kids' hands and said, "God bless you!"  It was all very sweet.  I know there are Light 'Em Up things we could do all month long, but honestly, time just slips away from me.  So I'm glad we can at least muster enough energy to do this one activity because we all feel so joyful after we spread some Christmas cheer!

Then before bedtime, the kids opened up their matching Christmas PJs.  I got these cute Santa and elf PJs...nightgowns for my little dancers and PJ sets for my older ones.  The pics were adorable.  BUT this year Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were about 80F and humid!  It's never been like this before!!  So the little ones kept their PJs on, but the older ones simply could not.  So after the pics, they stripped them right off.  Boo!

On Christmas morning, I had a new overnight French toast casserole (yum!) ready to go and we opened up all our presents!

The biggest deal was Evie's gift from Agong and Ama.  Drumroll please....Evie got a huge Barbie house!!  I've never been a big Barbie person...and Elina hasn't either.  But Evie just had to be her own person and like this stuff.  Barbie has never really had a presence in this house, but now she takes up a big chunk of our playroom!  The nerve of that girl.  BUT all the kids have been playing with this house.  I think it's an appealing toy because you don't have to just use Barbies (which is what they do) and there's enough space on the front and back for all the kids to play with it together!  So I can't complain too much!

The rest of the day was spent playing with toys and reading new books.

Then my cousin and his girlfriend arrived around dinnertime...then J and V arrived later that night as well.  After the kids all went to bed, we ended our lovely Christmas Day with 2 games of Ticket To Ride.  Such a fun game!!

We had a lovely Christmas this year...and we hope you did too!

Too Much December Fun Part 2

Here's more of our December fun...

7. KINDERGARTEN CHRISTMAS PARTY
We hosted Evie's class party at our house and it was a lot of prep, but so worth it.  We did the traditional gingerbread house decorating party and it was a huge success!  

Honestly, Evie and 2 other kids were the only ones who really decorated their hearts out.  

The other 10 (including Eulee) probably consumed more than they actually put on their houses...actually, I'm SURE Eulee consumed more than she put on her house.  I mean, look at this thing!  She basically only decorated the roof with cinnamon gum--the ONE thing I told her she couldn't eat.  Ha!  So Eulee won the All About the Roof Award.

Evie won the Best Gummy Bear House because she had lots of gummy bears in front of her house.  The funny thing is that all her gummy bears wore hats made of mini-M&Ms.  So cute!

Of course all the kids (and teachers) loved coming out to get high-fives after their names were announced. Look at these faces!  I love this party!

6. GREEK CELEBRATION
Eli's grade level had a Greek Celebration since they just completed their Ancient Greece unit.  This one was a lot less work than Elina's Dawn Treader celebration.  This one was also less organized because we ran out of time to let the kids really enjoy their food and to get seconds.  But the kids all had a great time.  They drew Greek clothing, made laurel wreaths,

and even competed in some Olympic games!  Eli chose to throw a javelin...and even though he didn't win, he said it was his favorite activity!

7. NUTCRACKER
The weekend Evie had bronchitis, we had tickets to watch the Nutcracker with a friend.  Evie was so sad that we couldn't make it.  So I bought tickets for the following weekend and we had our date then.  It was so much fun!  We went to a little French restaurant for lunch before the show.  I had the most amazing quiche that was so different from what I'm used to.  Yum!  Evie had hot cocoa and a Nutella crepe.  She loved everything!

Evie loved the ballet and we almost made it to the very very end.  But after the last main dance, I could tell she was getting antsy, so we ducked out a little earlier.  I was impressed she lasted as long as she did.  

We had such a fun mommy-daughter date!  We might have to do this every year!!  Evie is just so sweet and easy-going...I love this little lady!

8. PIANO RECITAL
Since the kids were all sick, they had to miss their Winter Festival piano recital at a local mall.  I think this was the first one we've ever missed in 3 years or so.  But a week later, the kids made it to a little piano recital at a local retirement home.  Our piano teacher's parents are there, so she wanted to do something special for them.  The kids did a great job with their songs! It was so nice to bring smiles to all those faces!

What a fun, busy time before our much-needed break!  Bring on the Christmas break!!