Merry Christmas!

How many days till Christmas?  That was a common question in our household during December.  So Karina made up a calendar and crossed out the days as we approached Christmas.  Yes, she does write her twos and threes backwards.  Hopefully they'll get straightened out some time in the future.

We had a row of sunny days and so it was time to take advantage of that to hang up our lights.  Gabriel "helped."

And here is our house all lit up!

As we do some years, we visited the Oregon Zoo to see their impressive display of lights.

Here is a light tunnel, which is a popular place to take pictures and selfies.  It was pretty chilly that night but not as chilly as other years we've gone.  Also--it wasn't raining, yay!

Also every year, the girls have gone to a performance in Portland called Magical Strings.  It's put on by a very musically talented family led by a patriarch who is a master harpist and also build harps for sale.

It has also been a tradition that the kids get to eat a donut from the donut shop across the street from the theater.  This is Gabe's first year going and he seems to have no problem adjusting to this tradition.

During the intermission, audience members are encouraged to put on some costumes and dance around.  Karina was invited on stage where one of the performers did a juggling act involving the kids.

A couple days later, we decided to go sledding.  It had snowed slightly where we were and so knew it must've snowed lots in the hills behind us, which are at a couple thousand feet of elevation.  As you can see, it was a winter wonderland there.

The snow was really fresh but still OK for sledding.

And then things devolved into a snowball fight.  We brokered a temporary truce in order to take a group picture.

And here is a selfie with just Mommy and Daddy.

On Christmas Eve, it snowed a little bit more and so the kids got to play in the snow in our neighborhood.  Gabe loves his scooter and likes to ride it everywhere, through sleet, rain or snow.

We again had a snowball fight and it got pretty heated, if you couldn't tell from the fearsome expression on Eliana's face.  They used a sled as a shield, pretty effectively.

And it was a nice change of pace that the kids decided that THEY wanted to pull Daddy on the sled.  Mush mush mush!

And when it snows, the kids always collect snow ("Scrape only the clean snow NOT touching the ground!" we always yell) to eat later with raspberry syrup.  

And that evening, we went to the Christmas Eve Candlelight service.  It wasn't very crowded as the snowy conditions kept many people at home.

That night, we let the kids open one present.  But first--an obligatory picture in front of the Christmas tree.  And then they got to open presents.

Elvin got a shovel because the little trusty one that he's had for a long time disappeared this past year.

And then it was time for the kids to go to bed, but not before they set out milk and cookies for Santa. This year, they also thought of Santa's reindeer and included carrot sticks and a bowl of water.  (But how is a reindeer going to fit through our chimney and get into our house???)  

And then the next morning...the stockings were filled with presents!

Xiao Yu is happy about the loot he got.

Gabe got more Legos.

Karina got a set of Elmer's glue bottles which you can also use (if you add baking soda and other ingredients) to make slime.  She looooves slime.

And then after breakfast it was time to open presents. Karina got a new American Girl doll--Kaya--which also came with a horse and a teepee.  I think the thing that is currently on her head is actually a basket to carry berries in, not a hat! 

Eliana asked for and got a pair of rainboots.  She is getting harder and harder to buy presents for!

Elvin got a HUGE bar of Toblerone chocolate.  It weighs more than a pound and is so big, you can't really stuff one end into your mouth.

Karina got a Lego set which she proceeded to start building.  It took a few days...

If you remember that Karina got those Elmer's glue bottles.  Here are the contents getting mixed to turn into slime.

There was a break in the snowy weather and so Emily's sister's family was able to drive down from Seattle to join us for Christmas dinner.  Xiao Yu, of course, was elated that his favorite cousin could come.  

Anders had some app on his phone which took your face and superimposed silly things on it, like a dog face.  The kids obviously thought it was the best thing.

And then we dug in...roast chicken and smoked ham. 

And we ate and ate...  And that was our Christmas!

The next day, we drove up to the hills north of our neighborhood to go sledding.  The snow had turned into jagged ice, which wasn't the best for sledding, but the kids still managed to have fun.

Karina also went exploring a little bit.

And Gabe collected huge chunks of frozen snow and wanted to bring it home.  What for?  Not sure...

And with Christmas over, it was time to take down our tree.  The kids were sad...but we couldn't leave it up as we were heading off to California the next day!

Two days after Christmas, we headed to the airport in the morning.  The kids love riding the shuttle that takes us from the park-n-ride to the airport because they don't have to wear seatbelt.  

Yes, we use electronic devices to 'sedate' our kids on the airplane.  

Once we arrived in California, we hung out and had a relaxing afternoon.  The kids discovered the fig tree in the backyard, which turned out to be a perfect climbing tree.

And then cousin Elliott came over to play.  They all played Life.

They also played with a basketball game.  Elliott is awesome at basketball, whether its in a little game or on the court.

And in the evening, more family members arrived (Elvin's cousin and aunt & uncle) and it was time for a post-Christmas Christmas celebration.  There was no Christmas tree, but the decorative plant in the living room was ordained as an honorary Christmas tree and wrapped in lights.  To the kids...as long as there were presents there, they were satisfied.  We had a huge feast of food.

 And then it was time to open presents!  Xiao Yu got a remote controlled Paw Patrol car.

Gabe got more Switch-And-Go dinosaurs.

And then we wanted to capture the moment with all these kiddos together.  Here they are lined up according to age.  Gabe thinks he's being funny or original by making that kooky face.

Here is a behind-the-scenes look of the the paparazzi taking pictures of the kids.

And here is the entire group together!  It's been several years since Elvin had seen his cousin's family, who had until fairly recently been living in Brazil!

The night ended relatively late for the kids and they fell asleep real quick!

The next day, we went to the local amusement park for little kids called Happy Hollow.  The kids enjoyed riding on the merry go round.

Of course, we rode Danny the Dragon.

They had fun racing on these vehicles that you pedal together.  Eliana was being nice and let her little brother snatch the lead.

Gabe and Karina were pretty evenly matched.

There was a funny mirror in the Crooked House.

Xiao Yu liked riding the cars, especially since you get to clang the bell with a string.

One of his favorite rides, however, along with Karina, is the jumping frog ride which throws you high up in the air.  You can hear his crazy laughter during the entire ride.

Later that day we ate yummy ramen.

And then we hung out some more.  The kids wanted to play Monopoly that their cousin brought over...

Gabe got pretty good at controlling the remote control car, which is not easy to drive actually.  We had him go outside to do that because they kept running the car into furniture as well as people's heels--which did not feel good.

Later on, after we had dinner, we gathered around for some dessert.  Cream puffs were offered and Gabe fell in love with them.  He also is very creative in the culinary realm and decided that if he bit them open, and then put fruit inside, they would taste even better!  He ate about half a dozen until we told him to stop.

The next day, we ate at a hot pot restaurant.  Gabe especially enjoyed the various meats available.  Elvin did too.

The kids enjoyed getting to drop food into the vat of boiling water.

And sometimes it literally was dropping food.

Afterwards, we headed over to cousin Elliott's house to play.  Aunt Sue effortlessly whipped up a batch of sugar cookies to decorate, with assistance from Eliana.

The kids got to cut out different shapes.

And in no time, they were baked and they decorated.

They also played some ping pong.  Elliott it turns out, is an excellent ping pong player.

That evening, the girls and Elvin, plus Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai headed over to downtown San Jose to watch a performance of Shen Yun.  This was a Christmas gift the girls got--to watch performers perform traditional Chinese dance.

It was a large auditorium with lots of people.

And afterwards, they got Shen Yun calendars to take home.  They really enjoyed the performance.

The next day, we spent the morning packing our bags and then headed off to eat some dim sum with Elvin's uncle and aunt.

Xiao Yu loooooves chicken feet (Elvin does too) and ate several.  (We de-boned them for him, though.)

Then we visited the house that Emily grew up in.  Unfortunately, it has been torn down and the house in it's place looks nothing like the old one.  But the orange tree that Emily's dad planted decades ago is still there, producing lots of oranges still.  We picked a few to take to Vancouver and delivered them to Grandpa.

Before heading off to the airport, we headed to the park so that the kids could get of their 'wiggles' out.

For some reason, Gabe is in a 'no pictures' phase of life.

And that evening we flew back home.  

And the kids "helped" getting the bags off of the baggage claim conveyor belt.

So that was our Christmas--eventful, filled with presents, and family.  We hope that you also had a meaningful Christmas season as well!

Earrings!

Karina has a sheet of fake sticker earrings—the kind made out of shiny plastic that you peel of and glue into your ear lobe. 

Using her power of persuasion, she convinced her two younger brothers to wear a set too!  Gabe was coaxed  into wearing them because it has green in them (his favorite color). And she gave Xiao Yu a pair that has yellow—a color he likes. 

Here it is!

Christmas preparations

Before we knew it...it was December already.  And December 1 was a day Gabe has been waiting for for a long time...because that was the day the kids got their advent calendars.

Gabe was the first kid to wake up, and examines the loot laying on the table...

In addition to an Advent calendar that gives you a daily chocolate, each kid also got another Advent calendar.  The boys got a Lego Advent calendar and each day, you get a little toy to put together.

Karina's 2nd Advent calendar is a Playmobil one.  And Eliana got an Advent calendar that everyday gives you a new charm you can add to a charm bracelet and charm necklace.  We actually got the charm and Playmobil Advent calendars for both girls to share, but Eliana likes jewelry more and Karina likes toys more and so they decided to each have one.

Last weekend was the only weekend before Christmas we were free, so despite the rain and soggy weather, we headed out to the tree farm to get our tree.  Despite appearances, the kids really are excited about it!

As you can see, the pickings were a little slim this year.  Xiao Yu doesn't seem to mind though!

The struggle is that the kids want to pick the tree.  And they all have different ideas about which tree they want.  And they don't really care about whether the tree is symmetrical, shaped well, or any such nonsense like that...  You can see Gabe gesticulating that he wants a YUUUUUGE tree.

Knowing that whatever tree is selected is a compromise between everyone's opinions, Eliana decided that she wanted her own tree.  At which point all the other kids said they wanted their own tree too.  That idea, needless to say, didn't go anywhere.

Finally, three out of the four settled on a certain tree.

After much huffing and puffing, Elvin finally fells the tree.

Elvin's jeans were soaked from having to kneel in the mud to cut it down.  It also turns out that for some reason, while at the station where they shake and then bale the tree, there was a mix-up and someone else walked away with our tree.  And so we brought home the next one that they baled and it was one that we didn't select.  It turned out to be the perfect size (we were afraid that the one the kids chose was too tall) and very nicely shaped!  We feel sorry for whoever took home our tree thinking it was theirs.  (Also, we have not told the kids about this turn of events and the only way they will find out is by reading this blog!  Hopefully that doesn't happen until after Christmas!)

And then came time to decorate the tree.  First went on the lights.

Then the tinsel.  Karina wrapped herself in tinsel.

And then it was Eliana's turn.  The pink and orange things in her hair are curlers.  She has them on because her hair needs to be curled for the musical theater show that she is in.

Once the lights were on, then it was time for the ornaments.  Each kid has their own shoebox full of "their" ornaments that they've been accumulating since they were babies.  When one of the boys complained that they didn't have as many as the girls, Karina, our matter-of-fact person in our family, answered back: "Well you haven't been alive as long as us."

Here is Xiao Yu re-acquainting himself with his ornaments.

Eliana dangled her ornaments on her fingers.

And now it's finally looking like a real Christmas tree!

And the final touch--the star on top.  The kids fight over this privilege every year.  

And also the Christmas village got set up on top of the piano.

And the stockings were hung.  Santa, we're ready for you to pay our house a visit!

Eliana on stage...

If you remember, last year Eliana participated in a musical with the local youth theater group.  This year, she wanted to do that again.  She tried out a couple of months ago and got a part in the musical called Elf, Jr., which is based on the movie, Elf, starring Will Ferrell.

So she went to rehearsals regularly to learn her parts--she was an elf in Santa's workshop in the North Pole.  And also she was a "New Yorker"--the movie takes place in New York and she is a person in the general crowd in New York.

Being an elf required that Eliana's hair be curly, for some reason.  And since she has really thick and straight hair, we had to buy these plastic curlers which go on wet hair and need to stay on till dry.  This meant that she sometimes went to bed with them on, which meant that she often had a hard time getting a good night's sleep.

Here she is with the curlers...you can see that she looks a little tired!

And when they came off, Eliana had curls!

Karina, of course, was watching the whole time and decided the SHE wanted curly hair too.  So on went the curlers...

And she got curls too!

A couple of weeks ago, the dress rehearsals started in earnest.  All the kids had to put on their costumes and so here is Eliana in her elf costume, which she really likes.  The people on the costume committee are all volunteers and very talented!

And then came the big night!  Elvin went on opening night and had a great time.

He was sitting in the fourth row and got to see everything up close.

Emily and the kids went the following week.  Here is Eliana on stage again, in her New Yorker garb.

And lots of friends from church also went to see the show.  

Eliana did a great job on stage and had a great time with the show!

Lost tooth!

For the past few weeks, Karina has had two teeth that are increasingly getting more wiggly.

And then just the other day, it came out at school!

So at night, she did NOT tuck the tooth under her bed.  She was paranoid about losing it (Daddy once flushed one of her teeth down the toilet--long story.)  So she made Elvin write a note to the tooth fairy  (which in our house is a tooth tiger fairy--another long story.)  The dictated note said: I don't want to lose my tooth so it's not under my pillow, but please leave the money anyways.

Pretty audacious but it worked!

The tooth tiger did come by, and dropped off a one dollar bill along with a note.

So here she is with a little gap now!