{Christmas Break 2011}

We had initially planned on going out of town for our Christmas break but there were some delays on Gigi's house being ready and decided to stay in town.

Our sweet neighbor works for Macys and dropped off some Pink Pig tickets for our family. Love this Atlanta tradition and we make sure to go every year. The R family met us at Lenox one chilly morning to ride the pig.
Samantha checking out the decorations. She loved all the pink inside the tent.

I wish this picture was clearer. William was super excited for this ride and cheering "Yay, Pink Pig".

Thanks to my friend Karen, Samantha was outfitted cutely and adorably for this outing.

More fun at the mall.

PBK was having their story time and we decided to listen in.

CFA lunch for post mall activities.We also took the kids to Hippo Hop NYE morning to burn off some energy. This is one of my preffered bouncy place coz I feel like it's cleaner than most jumpy places.

There were plenty of video game play time for William and Daddy. He LOVES the new Skylander game his grandparents got him. He is also a big fan of his new Leappad. Samantha of course just wants to be around big brother:)

We've had a couple of sunny days as well and the kids rode their bike and cozy coupe.

William is really getting good at riding his big boy bike.

Lil sister adores big brother and wants to do whatever he does. I found her putting on William's helmet and armband one afternoon. Impressed that she was able to do it all on her own.

What a fun Christmas break for us!

{Merry Christmas}

From our family to yours, wishing you a blessed Christmas!

{Christmas 2011}

We are really lucky to have the ability to spend Christmas eve and day with both of our families and still have Christmas morning at our house. I cherish spending the holiday season with our families but I also love spending Christmas mornings with my family of four. It's kinda neat to have the time to just focus on our kids enjoying their presents from Santa and us.
We put presents on our stockings this year and the kids thought it was really fun.
Then it was time for the opening presents marathon.
William was so happy to get all (but the bike, more on that later) the presents he asked from Santa!
Samantha really enjoyed all the baby dolls she got this Christmas.She absolutely loved all her Dora, princesses and Abbey.
Ed and I don't really buy each other big presents on Christmas. We pretty much just get whatever we want throughout the year :) But we always manage to pick up some sweet and thoughtful lil gifts.

This year he gave me an apron. Can you believe I've never owned one and had to borrow the kids from time to time? My sweet hubby also gave me a D&G light blue cologne. I am loving it!
I picked up some handkerchief for Ed. He's been wanting some to carry around so he can wipe the kids snot and mess with it :) I also picked up some running tights for him since he's been running a lot outside in this cold winter temps.
All that activities made us hungry and we had our Christmas breakfast.
Christmas dinner was at my in laws with the cousins and family. My mother and father in law absolutely love Christmas and gives the best presents. They are too sweet and generous. The kids pretty much got all the must have Christmas items this season

The boys were granddaddy's helper on distributing the grown up presents.
Samantha's bigger cousins got Nooks from their parents and they were too sweet and shared it with her.
Cousins relaxing and playing some Chute n ladders.
After dinner the kids were invited to the basement. It appears that Santa had left some presents for the kids at Grandmommy and Granddaddy's house.

Samantha has always loved the cozy coupe and it was kinda hard for her to leave.
The kids were so happy to all get big kids bikes from Santa.
We are absolutely blessed and thankful to be surrounded by our wonderful family!

{Noche Buena 2011}

What a blessing it is to have a great family tradition for the kids to experience. Christmas eve was celebrated at our house with a traditional Filipino Noche buena menu with my side of the family. I must admit that there were some emotional moments for me earlier that morning. I missed my Dad dearly. He absolutely love Noche Buena!

Our family of four at Christmas Eve
We attended the Christmas Eve mass service at our church. It was kind of crowded and it made it difficult to listen in to the sermon.
Samantha looked so adorable in this dress.
Sweet lil princess and Mommy.
My handsome boy. My, he has grown so much!
Few more pictures with our family.
Lil sister and big brother having fun!

My sister had worked the night before and was running late for dinner. We went ahead and gave the kids their bathes and put on their jammies while waiting for her.

Santa William was so excited that dinner is ready! Yummy Noche Buena menu---lechon, pansit, shrimps, etc.

In addition to the Filipino fruit salad, we served cake as well to celebrate my brother's birthday.

William and Samantha have been waiting and was so happy that it was time to open presents.My mom got William some MoonDough and he absolutely loved it! He's been wanting one and we tried our best to avoid them for all the mess it makes :) I guess Lola can do no wrong.

Samantha was so excited to open this big present from Tita Susan. Big brother was a great help!

She was so excited to find out that it was a dollhouse!

What a busy Christmas eve! We said goodbye to our elf Timmy and left Santa some cookies.

And we can't forget about Santa's reindeers, so we made sure to leave 9 carrots right next to Santa's plate.

{Gingerbread House 2011}

One of my favorite Christmas tradition is decorating our gingerbread house. This past Sunday, we opened the box kit we got from the store and went to town at building and decorating our gingerbread house. It was a lil bit chaotic at first but we let the kids have at it and boy did they had fun sampling all the candy. It's a ratio of one for the house to one bite for sample.

May I present to you our 2011 gingerbread house!
Two lil hands have been very much enjoying it. Everyday you can tell that gumdrops and icings are slowly missing.