Merry Christmas!

It seems like every year, December rolls around more quickly.  Before we knew it, it was Dec. 1 and that's when the kids get their advent calendars.  They each get a personal one with a little chocolate each day.  And also, the boys got a Star Wars Lego advent calendar and the girls got a Playmobil advent calendar.

Karina doesn't particularly like chocolate.  So she struck a deal with Gabe and sold him all her chocolate for $1.

The kids also decorated a gingerbread house.  They all did different parts.  It was all we could do to keep them from eating the candy instead of decorating with the candy.

They wanted it to look EXACTLY like the photo on the box that the gingerbread house kit came from.

We also set up the lights.  Daddy had a little helper.

While outside, we also noticed an observer watching us set up the lights.  This little hummingbird is about 3 inches long and seems to winter around our neighborhood.

We took advantage of the lack of rain and drove out to a tree farm to cut down a tree.  Much to our chagrin, once we got to the tree farm, they said they've run out of trees to cut down that were close to the parking area and that only pre-cut trees were available for sale.

This was definitely not as fun for the kids, but they still took a long time to decide on a tree that ALL were happy with.

They like this tree farm because they also give out hot chocolate and candy canes, which Gabe (not bound by culinary traditions) was dipping and eating.

At home, Eliana started decorating.  She single-handedly put up all the garland and most of the lights.

Xiao Yu helped some with the lights and hung up his ornaments.

Each kid has their own box of ornaments that they've been accumulating since they were babies.

And the most choice ornament to put on is the star on top.  This year Karina got the honor.

The kids also set up the rest of the decorations in the living room, including the stockings.

And also the little village, which is set on top of our piano.

Emily collects nativity scenes and this little one was bought while on a trip visiting Brazil.

The girls were taking voice lessons and during this time had a recital.

They sang a song together.

We often visit the Oregon Zoo to visit the zoo lights.  Before heading into the zoo, we stopped at a Sichuan restaurant and ate yummy food.  We had friends with us.

The trees were wrapped in beautiful lights.  It was nice that it was not so cold like previous years.  But it was super duper crowded.

Here are the kids posing in front of the monkeys.

And we also saw the elephants.  Can you tell which kids were cooperating with the picture and which decided to not?

There is also a tunnel of lights that you walk through.  It is very crowded and fun to go through.

Every year since Eliana was little, we have gone to a show called Magical Strings for their Christmas performance.  It's a family that is super talented...the father plays multiple instruments such as harp, guitar, accordion, and flute.  The mother plays the piano and hammer dulcimer.  Various kids play the organ, cello, one of the daughters is even a concert violinist.  And they also have a troupe of Irish dancers that perform.

As per our tradition, the kids get to eat donuts during the intermission.

And that takes us to the weekend before Christmas.  Since the kids' cousins from Colorado were arriving the next day, Mommy and Daddy spent several evenings wrapping presents after the kids were in bed.  And here is the tree in all its glory.

And during the day, the kids sort through the presents...counting how many presents each person has (Elvin had five this year!) and whose is the biggest (because of course bigger=better).  This year, Karina made a big effort to make or buy and then wrap a present for each person in the family.  Eliana did the same thing.

And then the cousins arrived.  And immediately a battle ensued, with the boys using light sabers made out of pool noodles.

Gabe appropriately put on an Army fatigue Halloween costume.

An incredible amount of cookie baking also ensued.  The kids made various things, such as pretzels with Rolos on top.

Also they rolled out cookies to cut into shapes.

And then decorate.  They also made molasses cookies and candied popcorn and peanut butter cookies with Hershey's kisses on top.

Eliana decorated a bunch as well.  And to make sure that none of her cookie's disappeared, she wrote "Eliana's" on a cookie and stuck it in the middle of the plate.  

We also visited a show called the Bubble Man in Portland.

It was a guy who was an expert in making bubbles of all sorts.  He even filled some with helium, which would then float up in the air.  He filled other bubbles with an opaque white gas which created interesting effects.

Cousin Jace volunteered to go on stage and got bubbles put on his head!  The two long white things off of his head are columns of bubbles.

There was also quite a bit of wrestling with Uncle Darin.

We paid a visit to Grandpa to wish him an early Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday as well.

In the evening we went to church for the Christmas Eve service.  The highlight for the kids was getting to wear their pj's to church and holding a candle at the end of the service.

Since it was Christmas Eve, we let the kids open up one present.

Gabe got Star Wars toys.

Papai got a hand-stitched glasses holder that Karina made for him.  It was monogramed with a "P" for Papai and a little red heart!

And then it was time for bed...

And then it was time for Santa to get in action.   Soon all the stockings were stuffed in preparation for the next day.

And the next morning couldn't have come faster--from the kids' point of view.  They literally tore into their stockings.

One of the things Eliana got in her stocking was a set of fine tip permanent markers because she has started drawing and sketching more.

Gabe got a Rubik's cube in his stocking, which he had been asking for and he plays with a ton.

Karina got a sewing kit, with spools of thread with tons of different colors, and needles, and a thimble and pin cushion and everything you would need to sew.

Karina also got a loom where you can weave your own cloth.  Do you notice a theme?  And you many notice that hanging around her neck is a little Swiss Army knife.  She said this was one of her favorite gifts and she plans to whittle wood with it.

Eliana got an apron and a cookbook for young chefs.

Gabe got an X-wing Lego set.

Later on that afternoon, we went to the hotel pool to go swimming.  This is the hotel some of the cousins were staying at.

Gabe didn't want to get in, but played with his cube and his new travel chess set.

And he started to build his X-wing and it started taking shape in no time.

That night, we had Christmas dinner.  Bucking tradition, we did not have turkey or ham.  Instead we had roast chicken on a bed of potatoes and butternut squash, along with steak and sautéed onions.

After dinner, folks hung out and kids played with their new toys.

The cousins made a multi-layered cousin sandwich.

Little cousin Julia decided to put on an Iron Man (woman?) costume.

And Gabe kept plugging away at his X-wing.

And that was our Christmas this year!

The next day, the kids did some more swimming before it was time for the cousins to travel back to their home. 

It was time for us to un-decorate the tree.  Here it is, all bare again.  Eliana gets attached to each tree we have and she is giving this one a hug before Elvin dragged it outside.

And Gabe finished his X-wing fighter.  He is very fast!

Here is Karina whittling away.  We told her to practice on pencils first.  And she looped the handles of a plastic bag around her wrists so that the bag would catch the shavings.

Because we hadn't done so before, we drove around to look at houses decorated with Christmas lights.  Most houses still had them up and lit.  Look at this house!!!

So that was how our Christmas went...our first Christmas that is.  On the following day, we were headed off to sunny California to celebrate Christmas number two with Elvin's family.

Reunion in Sunriver!

This past summer, Emily's family decided to visit Sunriver, which is a resort town in central Oregon.  We rented two houses there and several of Emily's siblings come together to hang out.

The houses were part of a resort community with a wide assortment of activities.

Gabe loves playing games and this resort had many of them.  He enjoyed playing this game, ladder ball, with Uncle Rob.

He also wanted to try his hand at tennis.  This was his first time playing tennis and did not too badly.

And he also wanted to play soccer.  There was a patch of dirt behind the house and while playing soccer with daddy, kicked up a lot of dust.  And because he gets so sweaty the dust stuck to him and so he quickly became very sooty.  He looked like a coalminer by the time he was done.

We went into town to see what there was to do.  The kids found a shave ice place and enjoyed that.  It was very hot there.

We joined the rest of the family in an ice cream shop (where there was air conditioning!)

The resort has an artificial lake stocked with trout.  Gabe wanted to go fishing and so did his cousin Jace, who is absolutely obsessed about fishing.

The resort area also had a really nice pool.

The pool was a short 1/4 mile walk away.

The kids enjoyed spending time there to cool off.

This was Karina's first summer not wearing a life jacket in the pool since she can now reliably hold her breath and paddle in the water.

A group of folks decided to go white water rafting.  They really enjoyed it.

Gabe didn't want to go and stayed behind to ... of course... play more games.

In the evenings we would go fishing.  A gentleman with a fly fishing rod was there and hooked on to a fish.  He let Karina reel it in.

And here is her catch.  A big trout!

At night, we roasted marshmallows.

There was also canoeing available.

And also stand-up paddle boarding which the girls tried and were able to do successfully.  It actually was easier for them because they are so light, they couldn't tip over the boards even if they tried.

Gabe tried his hand at pool.

And also shuffleboard.

And he played checkers.

And Uno.

Xiao Yu was really happy because he got to spend time with his favorite cousin, Anders.

Millie is an expert hair braider and did Karina's hair.

In the end, the kids had lots of fun and were EXHAUSTED.  Gabe even took a nap, which he hasn't done in years.

The family decided that we will probably be back next year!

Lion King!

The two girls love theater and this fall, they tried out for the musical Lion King Jr. with the local community youth theater group.  They both got parts--Eliana was an antelope and Karina was a wildebeest.  You have to be eight to try out and Karina just turned eight.  This was her first show ever.

They rehearsed, memorized their songs, and learned their dances every weekend for 6 weeks.  You can see Karina in the background of this picture.  They also had to learn how to put on their make-up because they need to do it themselves before each show.

The week before the show started, they got to watch their musical-mates perform.

And here they are backstage just before a show.  Karina has the huge white horns and brown costume in the front of the picture.

There were 7 shows over two weekends.  The whole family went to watch, even Yeh-Yeh and Nai-Nai who flew in from California.

It was a wonderful show, with impressive costumes, wonderful singing, and neat choreography.  The actors were encouraged to mimic the moves of the animals they were representing.

 Karina was part of a herd of wildebeests.

 Eliana, on the far right, was part of a grasslands ensemble.

If you are familiar with the story, you'll know that the wildebeests stampede and trample Mufasa.  Karina, in the front, left, was helping to do the stampeding.

In the intermission, Gabe ate a snack and when he saw the sign below, decided to become a rebel and  put a handful of granola bar beyond that point.

And then the show came to an end in the second act.  Both girls were on stage for the final scene where Simba and Nala introduce the new baby lion to the world.

Lots of friends and relatives came to see the show.  Afterwards, the actors come out from backstage so that you can say 'hi'.  Mommy was there because she was a volunteer parent in charge of the green room.  She attended every single show!!!

All the actors got to take staged pictures at one point in time.  Here is the "herd" of antelopes.  Eliana is in the bottom right hand corner.

 Here is the herd of wildebeests.  Karina is second from the right side, on the bottom.

And here is the entire cast and crew--all 90 of them!  It was quite a large production and they pulled it off very well without actually that much time to rehearse!

And there's a tradition with this theater group that the high schoolers will sometimes go out at night and leave a bunch of plates and plastic forks in the front yard of other actors.  It's called getting "forked" and it's considered an honor to get forked.  Our house got forked one night; the only hiccup was that Elvin heard noises in the front yard and when he saw teenagers fooling around, he didn't know about this forking tradition and considered calling the police!  They ran away when they saw him peering out the window.

We are very proud of our girls and all the hard work they put into the show!

Soccer Mania

As you may know, Gabe is crazy about soccer.  At home, anything remotely round is turned into a soccer ball by him.  He is constantly dribbling inside the house anything from a tiny bouncy ball to a basketball.  Needless to say, it makes Emily crazy and she banishes him from the kitchen.

With fall soccer done, he wanted to sign up for another round of soccer, which started a couple of weeks ago.  And he still loves it.  (And thankfully, it's indoors!)

This past Saturday was the first game.  Here he is chasing down a ball...

Here he is getting ready to shoot.  And in this play, he actually scores!

The quarters are ten minutes long and afterwards, he got pretty winded!

He rotated into being a goalie.

Unlike last time when he was a goalie and let in numerous goals, this time he was on top of it and made a couple of saves.

Here he is getting his treat bag.