Christmas 2012 - Year of the Kayak

Doug and I had a lot of discussions about Christmas this year.  What do we want to get the kids?  What do we want Santa to get the kids?  (Parents can make special requests, ya know?!?)  We thought about it, and decided it would be awesome to have kayaks.  We've used them over the years and had lots of fun with them, but never had our own.  In Rhode Island we borrowed them from a neighbor and in Japan we could rent them easily and cheaply at Outdoor Rec on base.  Here, we don't have easy or cheap access.

So after the boys sent their letters to Santa, we sent one too--via Walmart.com.
Christmas morning, the boys alternated waking up super early and being sent back to bed--about a million times each.  At some point, Gabe went down stairs, saw everything and came back up to report what everyone was getting.  Serves us right for not getting up at 5 a.m.!

Regardless of the spoilers from Gabe, Santa really came through and the boys had a great morning!

We figured the boys might not be as initially excited about the kayaks as us and we were right.  But it was okay.  They got excited for those later.

The boys love this awesome pirate ship/cupboard/shelf thingy.  My neighbor Lisa saw it at Costco and just KNEW the boys needed to have it and so she bought it for them.  What an awesome lady!  

They love it and play with it daily.

Doug says it's my dream come true because it's basically a boy doll house.  (It's true.  I love it.)

Other favorite gifts were lego sets, (of course) art supplies, and books.

Gabe LOVES to color with markers!!!

The kayaks got a whole lot more exciting when we took them to the pool.  The water was bitterly cold, but it was fine as long as you stayed on top of the water and not in it!

Mini Kayaks:  LOVE THEM!!!  Small, light, perfect!!!

Maxing weight capacity and hoping I don't sink into the icy water.  Brrrr!!!

Over all, it was a really fun and relaxing day!!!  Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve with Friends

We had a great Christmas Eve.  As usual, we celebrated with a Mexican Fiesta.  This year we were joined by our awesome friends the W's.  Ruth and Scott are in our ward and have 5 kids close in age to our kids.  We used to carpool before I switched my kids to the charter school.  After a yummy dinner, the kids did the nativity.  Our neighbors Lisa and Dan came over for the performance and it was chaotic and adorable as usual.

After Tres Leches for dessert, everyone went home and we opened our Christmas Jammies.  Doug and Max found me baby blue Garfield footie jammies.  (I was a huge Garfield fan as a kid and recently found a set of vintage Garfield flannel sheets in a box my dad has been storing for 15+ years--they're currently on Sammy's bed.)
The jammies were awesome,  but a little too small so I settled for my Target ones--orange with white polka dots.

Cookies for Santa

Then it was off to bed for the boys while Mom and Dad stayed up for the next 4 hours assembling things!

To be continued...!

Christmas Day

Everyone goes down together, youngest to oldest.

Strange how our lack of money affects Santa too!

Don't feel bad, they had presents under the tree too...!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve - Congregating at Moonlight Beach headed for...

Super low tide at Swami's.

Gabey and best-buddy David...

Searching the tide pools...

...and stomping on nature...

with family and friends. 

Finding a "Brittle Star"

and sharing it.

Happy as long as he's getting dirty.  In a hole.

Then home for dinner.

Cousins waiting patiently.

Traditional Mexican feast including enchiladas, tamales, Mexican hot chocolate, and guac.

The after dinner entertainment begins.

Poor Mary...heavy with child...

...and what a child!!!

Angel Gabriel watches over all.

4 beautiful girls and 4 handsome boys...all cousins...

in their new jammies...

ready for Christmas.

Christmas Day Re-cap

Remember how last year was the best Christmas morning in the history of Christmas mornings?  Because Max and Sam both got exactly what they wanted from Santa and couldn't have been happier???

 We had high hopes that this year would be just as awesome.

 Foolish mortals!

Sure, he looks happy now...

Not so much.  I believe the quote we got from Sam was:  "I didn't get ANYTHING I wanted this year!"  (Said as he played with the Buzz Lightyear Lego ship he specifically requested in his letter to Santa.) But hey, you win some, you lose some.  (And by "you" I mean YOU SANTA!  Ya loser!)

Sam=what it looks like to be underwhelmed. At least Gabe is excited by his "Ting fwum da BX wif da two Piewats!"

"Eh, it doesn't suck!"

Max likes his yukata

Gray-Bear eating his "G"

Of course, Santa is not totally to blame, see--Sam decided to change his wish list three days before Christmas after a kid in his class told him about all the different video game systems he'd be getting for Christmas.  Leaving Sam with delusions of electronic gadget grandeur dancing in his head.  (Thanks a lot spoiled tech-saavy first grader!)

A few other problems included: me being completely exhausted and having a really really really hard time staying awake.  Seriously.  Christmas morning.  Normal for me most mornings, but never on CHRISTMAS morning!  Also, some gifts (many books) ordered from Amazon didn't arrive.  Also, I didn't make the breakfast dishes I usually make.  (Sticky buns!  Breakfast casserole!) And did I mention I was just really tired?  I don't really actually remember most of the unwrapping though I've been told my eyes were open and I was in fact in the room.

BUT after a mid morning nap for me, things started to look up.  We had our great friends The F's over for the (also traditional) Ham-Feast-with-the-F's-on-Christmas-Day dinner.  And it was yum-my.  Erin makes the best crescent rolls in the entire world.  The.BEST!

Are you starting to be suspicious that I pick friends based on their cooking skills?  Well, I do.  All my friends are excellent cooks.

I bring my incredible good looks and hot chocolate making skills to the table.
That's how we roll around here.  (Also, my knowledge of hip hop high-school-speak.)

So yep.  We had some great food holidays around here.  Good food, great friends, good times.

Oh, last thing:

My FAVORITE gift received this year?  Glass!  Some "reclaimed" glass floats from Doug and colorful Romanian friendship balls from my sister Jenny!  Beautiful!!!  {Picture forthcoming}

(:  Also, the yummy treat an anonymous friend left on our front porch Christmas Eve!  :)

The end.

Christmas Eve

Following tradition, we had to have Mexican food for Christmas Eve.  To go with the theme, we invited our Mexican friends, The P's, for the third year in a row.  Actually, only Roxanna is Mexican and a fake Mexican at that.  (This has been declared--by me--based on the fact that I know more about Mexican Christmas traditions than she does.  Plus, she thinks there's no such thing as Mexican Oatmeal Cake although clearly there is--we make it every time we go camping.  I mean, it has cinnamon in it for crying-out-fuerte!  Oh, and I suppose the kids are "half" if you want to split Mexicans hairs, but whatever.)

Anyway, the job of the P's was to make the homemade Tamales.  Yuuummmm...homemade tamales.  Mind you that is not the only reason we invited them.  I repeat, we are NOT using the P's for their tamale making skills!  (Though they are really, really good.)  No no, the tamales are just an added bonus.  And I suppose that means Roxie (she loves to be called Roxie) may have a little Mexican in her after all because she can make one mean tamale.  (And by "mean" I mean "nice".)

Our other guests were our Thai friend Jeena and her beautiful toddler Jane, (no relation to the theme, but we like them none-the-less) and Shannon-a friend from the dental clinic-and her adorable baby Anthony.  It was a fabulous group and I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures before the little ones headed home!!!  (I'm going to have to try to get some photo's from them and add them later.)

Anyway, lets get to the important stuff:  The Menu!

I made two 9x13's of enchiladas, one vegetarian and one chicken, veggies, no salad, (forgot) Mexican Rice (thank you Goya) and Tres Leches for dessert.  Nothing too exciting, but edible at least.

Jeena brought some homemade spring rolls that were absolutely divine, and Roxanna brought the Tamales. Unfortunately, she misread the recipe.  She thought they needed to steam for one hour, but really they needed to steam for three hours.  Sooo--they were more like "Second Dinner".  Or maybe, Post-Dessert.  Or something.  Either way, they were absolutely DE-LI-CIOUS when we ate them around 9p.m.!  So yeah, dinner pretty much rocked.

After dinner and dessert (but before second dinner/post dessert,) we did our traditional Nativity program.  

Mark read the Christmas story from the scriptures while the kids (with direction from Doug) acted it out.

Gray was the very confused (and inappropriately dressed in baseball sweats) Baby Jesus. 

 (Still cute and sweet though...!)

 Little Q was the adorable angel:  "Glory to God!"

After the Nativity re-enactment,  Jeena and Shannon had to take their little ones home, and then it was time for jammies.  And tamales.  Ummmm.....tamales....yummmmmmmmy.


Gray would rather have paper any day though...so he did.

 Janelle and Baby Gray both got footie jammies and loved them.

We've decided that next year we're going to coordinate and get ALL the kids matching jammies.  Different continents and countries not withstanding.

Aren't they all adorable?

We love our friends and we love Christmas!

(and we love tamales.)