Christmas 2006

Another busy weekend for us. But for good reason. Christmas with kids simply makes things so much more different. Joshua has really begun to understand more what's going on. He's got a ways to go, but it's fun to watch him get excited. We taught him that Christmas means "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus" and so anywhere we go, we have Joshua tell people what Christmas means. And he is just so cute when he says it because he's still learning how to talk. Abigail definitely has no clue what's going on except that she can now play with more toys regardless of whether they are Joshua's or hers.

A week before, we tried to get Christmas pictures with Santa at the Disneyland hotels. Unfortunately, Santa wasn't going to be there during the times we had planned. So, we still went and tried to get some cute pictures of them. That didn't work as well as we'd hoped mostly because the kids weren't really cooperating. Abigail had a runny nose (which comes out on most pictures). Joshua would rather ride the elevators and run around exploring. But we got a few good ones out of it.

Last Friday before Christmas, we went to the Santa Ana Zoo which had a Holiday Lights event in the evening. We have really enjoyed our memberships to the zoo this year. They've done a lot of cool stuff that all of us have enjoyed. We look forward to seeing how Abigail will begin enjoying the zoo as well. Anyway, they also had a Santa there to take pictures with which made us happy given what happened last week.

Saturday, my brother Brian and his wife Sharon and son Jefferson came over in the late afternoon for dinner and gift exchange. That was a good time, especially for Joshua to play with his cousin.

Sunday, Christmas Eve, in the morning, we went to see Danielle's brother Troy and his wife Carmen. Several of Carmen's relatives were here from Mexico City as well which was nice because we hadn't seen most of them since we were down in Mexico years ago. It was fun watching Troy interact with Joshua and Abigail. They seem to really like Troy a lot. After naps, we went to the Christmas Eve service at our church (at 5pm). It was a really good service and it made it even better that there was childcare :-).

That evening, we finished wrapping all the gifts, prepared breakfast for the next morning and finally got to bed by 11:30 or midnight. There's a phenomenon that occurs once in a while where you get the feeling - "I've become my parents!" Sometimes it happens when you react to something in such a way that is exactly the way your Mom or Dad might react in the same situation. Or you find yourself saying something that your Mom or Dad always said to you when you were young. Well...I never thought I'd be up late the night before Christmas preparing a meal, wrapping gifts and stuffing stockings. Actually, I guess Danielle really prepared the meal and stuffed stockings. But I was up with her finishing the wrapping as well. Nonetheless, the point is...growing up, my Mom was always up late wrapping gifts and stuffing the stockings. And I can owe it all to having kids.

Christmas morning, we brought the kids into our bedroom to snuggle for a bit while we woke up. I also went down earlier to start baking the meals that were prepared the night before. After coming down, it was fun to see Joshua's reaction to seeing all the gifts stacked up in the corner. Danielle's parents came over to have breakfast and exchange gifts. I think Abigail enjoyed Joshua's gifts more than her own. But both of them got a lot of really cool gifts. One of Joshua's favorite gifts came from a next door neighbor who got him a set of The Incredibles figurines. It's been fun trying to pretend with him using these figures, such as re-enacting a scene in the movie or something. Joshua also got a fire engine, a dump truck and a big wheel. But I will often see Abigail walking with the big wheel (since she can't walk on her own yet), pushing the fire engine or playing with the remote for the dump truck. She also likes to come over to wherever Joshua is and see what he's doing and/or play with him. Unfortunately, Joshua doesn't always want her there. But he's learning. We then brought out the "birthday cake" we got to celebrate Jesus' birthday. It was sort of a precursor to when Abigail has her 1 year birthday party and she gets to eat cake there. It was a lot of fun.

There are several pictures posted at our photo site, so check them out when you have the time.

All in all, it was a good weekend. But despite all that we try to do, let us not forget the true meaning of Christmas and that is to celebrate the day when our savior came to Earth to live what we live and see what we see. Merry Christmas.