Merry Christmas!

December was a busy month in our household, with all the preparations and anticipation for Christmas!

Karina right now is really into arts and crafts and took it upon herself to create lots of snowflake and star decorations for the house.  She cut them out herself and insisted on glueing glitter on them.  Most of her artwork right now has glitter (or glitter glue) as a finishing touch.

The snowflakes and stars became decoration for our house.

On December 1, the kids each got their advent calendar.  Each little window had a little chocolate behind it.

Gabriel needed help flipping up the paper window, but needed no help in making the chocolate disappear.

At the Oregon Zoo in Portland, every year they decorate the entire zoo with what seems like billions of Christmas lights.  We went with some friends in early December to take a look...

Gabriel was fairly impressed with the display.  He likes running his hands through the lights...

Near the lion exhibit, there are bronze statues of lions.  This is always a hit with the kids, who like to climb on the lions and ride on them.

Here is one of the few times when our kids decide to cooperate for a posed picture.

We rode a little train in the zoo where you can see more lights.

The only thing that Gabriel didn't like was the loud "chop chop" that the train made!

The following weekend, we decided to put up our Christmas lights.  The kids were very excited about this, especially Karina who wanted our house to look like a rainbow; she is very into rainbows right now.

Karina 'supervised' Elvin almost the entire time that he was setting up lights...

We also went out to buy a Christmas tree.  The girls were allowed to choose ours this year.

We got one from the lot run by the local Boy Scout troop.  Eliana watches as two Boy Scouts shake off the excess needles.

The tree gets tied onto our car... the funny thing is that it takes them about 10 minutes and in the end, the knots aren't all that tight.  Isn't tying knots one of their specialties?

Ready for the car ride home!

At home, the tree is finally up and everyone pitches in to decorate.

Putting up the lights is especially fun.

And the lights are up...tah dah!

Then goes on the garland...

And now the ornaments.  Each kids has a box of ornaments that were given to them as a baby or that they made themselves.

This ornament Emily bought at a recent conference for adoptive moms.  It is an outline of China and is Xiao Yu's first ornament.

And lastly, on goes the star tree topper...

Since Karina got to do this last year, this year was Gabey's turn.

The tree was finally decorated!  

We were pretty diligent and wrapped gifts pretty early on.  Soon, the gifts below the tree started accumulating.

The kids got very excited and everyday would inspect the presents.  Eliana is holding a present here that perplexes her.  It is sort of heavy (for it's size) and sounds it is full of sand.  It turns out that it was a tape dispenser (since she is always 'borrowing' Emily's) with sand for weight.

The weekend before Christmas, Elvin's family flew up from California to spend Christmas in Vancouver.  Elvin's parents arrived first.

They brought gifts from a recent trip to Brazil.  One that turned out to be a hit was a puzzle for 4 year olds.  Karina and Gabriel kept putting it together over and over, with Yeh-yeh's help.

Here, Karina is showing Elvin's dad her armful of tattoos.  At one point, she had 4 Hello Kitty tattoos on one arm and five on the other. 

Later than night, we went to eat at Gustav's, a local German restaurant, because the girls like their cheese fondue.  Elvin ordered roasted pig knuckles in bier sauce, which is half eaten shown in the photo.

The next day, we went to an art studio/store where they have all these art supplies for kids--paints of all colors, glitter (Karina was happy), glue, etc.  For a fee, the kids could work on anything to take home, and best of all, the worker cleans up after you!  The girls each worked on art projects...

Gabriel, who is currently really into playing guitars, is painting a paper cut out of a guitar.

That evening, we went out to a Chinese restaurant that opened up recently in Vancouver.  To our surprise, it was actually pretty good to we took Elvin's parents there.  By that time, Elvin's brother's family had also arrived...

Karina enjoyed (trying) to learn how to use chopsticks.  Good preparation for our upcoming trip to China!

The next morning, it was time to open presents!  The kids had been asking and begging about this for days.  

At our house, the youngest get to open a present first.  Gabriel got a toy microwave, which was right up his alley.  When you press the buttons, it beeps, and when you turn it on, the food inside rotates and a light comes on just like a real microwave.  He loves playing with it.

Karina is into Lego Friends right now, which is a Lego set with a theme...in this case it's a camping set with a car, camper, and two friends.

Gabriel got a toy guitar, which he looooves.  It's actually a ukulele but don't tell him.  You can actually tune it and it plays decently well for its $30 price.

Eliana got a sewing set.  She is into sewing, knitting, and other things...

Here is Karina playing with another new toy, a Playmobil fairy set.  She is great at imaginative play and will spend hours having the little figures carry on conversations with one another.

That afternoon, the kids went to Dizzy Castle, which is a large indoor play structure.  The girls went down the slides about a hundred times!

Amongst other things, their cousin Elliott shot hoops using the little foam balls.  He has phenomenal shooting skills and was making a lot of shots into the 'basket'.

That weekend, we also spent time outside having fun.  Eliana rode on her bike (sans training wheels of course.)

Elliot played basketball while Gabriel did a bunch of random things, such as try to open the front door.

In the evening on Sunday before Christmas, we all visited the Grotto in Portland.  It is a Catholic retreat site nestled in a grove of trees, within Portland city.  There is a beautiful little cathedral with performances.  We sat in the upper balcony and looked down as we listened to the children's choir.

The kids also enjoyed the petting zoo, although the goats were a little aggressive.

At this point, we had to say goodbye to Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai who were hopping onto an airplane back to California.  We also said bye to Elvin's brother's family who were heading back the next day.

We walked around some more to enjoy the lights.

The girls cooperated and posed for a picture (Gabriel did not.)

The kids finally all did pose for a picture in front of a huge christmas tree.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a good picture before Gabriel ran off!

Did we mention that Gabriel loves his new guitar?  Just before going to bed, we sometimes give him a snack and let him watch a video.  He is watching the video and eating while holding the guitar on his lap.

On Christmas Eve, Elvin came home from work early and we headed off to church for the Christmas Eve service.  Our pastor gathered the kids around him to tell them the story about Christmas.

Gabriel was too shy to sit up there, so stayed on Daddy's lap.  We think this might be the first time in his life wearing a button-up shirt.  He resisted putting it on, as he does not like wearing things that are unfamiliar.

After the service, we took a picture together as a family.

That night, Eliana and Gabriel set up a put of cookies and milk for Santa.  She wrote a note saying: "For Sant".

Then after the kids were in bed, Santa (a.k.a. Mommy") swooped in to do last minute wrapping of more presents and stuff the stockings.

Here are everyone's stockings filled to the brim.

It was Christmas morning and the kids woke up early!  However, they know the drill and know that we can't open presents until Grandpa and Grandma arrive.  They are allowed, however, to look at the new books placed under each stocking that are put there for the purpose of giving the kids something to do during the interminable waiting.

When it was finally time to open the presents in the stocking, the kids were thrilled!  Gabriel dumped out all the contents of his on the floor.

Karina got a new toothbrush, which she was happy about.  The handle lights up, showing you how long you should brush your teeth for.

Eliana got, among other things, knitting needles and yarn, as well as stuffed rats, since she is born in the Year of the Rat...

She also got new watercolor paint, band-aids, and a chocolate "E".

Then it was time to eat our traditional Christmas breakfast of bacon and cinnamon rolls.  Eliana helps out arranging the rolls.

Both girls get involved in the icing.

And we dug in!  Elvin ate so much bacon that he felt sick afterwards.

FINALLY, it was time to open presents (again).  Gabriel, much to his delight, got a set of three pots and pans from Ikea.  They are full sized pots that cost $9.99 for the set.  He really likes them because they look like the ones that Daddy uses, unlike the little toy ones that he has started to scorn.

Here is Gabey cooking a toy fish inside his new pot.

Karina made an ornament at preschool and that was her present to Daddy and Mommy.

The girls each got a jewelry box that plays music when you open the lid.  Karina's has a dancing ballerina and Eliana's has a dancing unicorn.  

Grandma and Grandpa got a calendar printed from Costco with all their kids' (and in-laws) and grandkids' and great-grandkids' pictures--all 36 of them!

Christmas Day is also Grandpa's birthday.  So Grandma is making 7-minute icing on the stove while Karina looks on.

Karina then helps to put icing on the cake and is allowed to do an early taste test.

Both girls help with the decorations.

During all this time, Gabriel had gone down for a nap and just now is getting up, and coming downstairs, looking a little rough around the edges.

Once Gabriel was fully awake, dinner preparations were beginning, and he HAD to help out.  Here, he is mincing garlic with Elvin (using his special nylon knives that cut food, but not fingers!)

Then, he helped Emily set the biscuits in the pan.

And, after a bit of work, dinner was ready!  Emily's sister Gretchen, plus her husband and two kids drove down from Seattle and joined us for dinner.

Lining up to get some food...Gabriel is trying to see what his choices are!

All seated at the table...with fairy wings for Karina, who was wanting wings to go with the wings her Playmobil fairies have.

Emily's sister's family has a little dog, named Asia, that they brought with them.  They were going to drop her off at their parents house, but our girls begged for Asia to come over, too.  She is a great little dog, nice and calm.

All three of our kids love the dog; she is nice and small and is great with the kids.   This is especially good for the girls who are a little bit afraid of dogs in general.

Opening birthday presents for Grandpa now...

Eliana drew Grandpa an impromptu Happy Birthday card.  However, if you notice, it really only says "Happy Birth".

88 years old!  But, only 16 candles on the cake (8 and 8)... because there isn't really room for 88 candles!

Dessert time -- pumpkin pie, birthday cake, ice cream...

And everyone is digging in!

Gabriel enjoyed some cake with frosting and whipped cream...of which he ate the frosting and whipped cream, and then declared he doesn't actually like cake!

We hope that you had a safe, memorable, and meaningful Christmas!