This year's hottest gifts

Ok, so I'm on blogger-overload right now. My wine is gone and I have to get to bed but I had to post some pictures of a few of the hot gifts the kids got this year. Here's to fun Christmas memories and to ringing in the New Year tomorrow night! William and his Handy Manny fix it truck complete with tools and all from Grandmacita and Papa. Oh and the remote control Thomas the Train from Auntie Soosa and Russel. So cute and fun.

Maddie got a "dress up box" from Grandmacita and Papa and she loves it. Unfortunately (or fortunately?)... William loves it too! Again... I know he's going to hate me for posting this one day but it's too cute to resist. And believe me, I have more pictures where this came from.

This is one of Maddie's favorite presents. Norma (our babysitter) got this for her and she was so excited. I think it's one of her favorite gifts. She scoots around the house and figured out a way to give William a ride on it too.

Mike's Aunt Norma (I know, another Norma in the family) and Les got William this remote control dinosaur. She was worried that he might be afraid of it but not Wil. He loved it. It was the hit of Christmas Eve. The dinosaur is loud and obnoxious and he figured out which buttons to push right away to make it ROAR!

And last but not least, my little performer got a gaint microphone from Aunt Soosa and Russel. Grandma Jeanne sent her a cool one too with a stand and everything but she didn't get that 'til Christmas morning. With all of these new toys, I'm STILL trying to find new spots to put everything. I'm sure I'll get everything organized by 2009!

Ho-Ho-Ho...Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning was so fun this year. We travel back to Minnesota for Christmas every other year so we're still in the process of defining our family traditions for when we are home but it mostly consists of waking up and heading downstairs to see what Santa brought. I guess it's not too complicated. Maddie is afraid of Santa. She's never wanted to sit on his lap and she even expressed sincere concern about him coming when putting her to bed the night before. She said she wanted to tell Santa to leave the presents outside the door. It didn't seem to bother her Christmas morning though when she ran downstairs to see her stocking full of goodies. Santa brought her a slinky!

And he brought her the Wow, Wow Wubbzy movie she'd been wanting so badly! How did he know? That's "cookedy"!

After checking out our stocking goodies, we sorted out the presents under the tree and got to the unwrapping. Of course, William couldn't get started until he finished his morning "baba". I know, I know... I've got to start weening him from his bottle...but he only has 2 a day. He's still my baby!

Maddie had a blast. Even the pets did some shopping this year. Check out the Barbie pretend makeup kit Jackson bought her. She loved it and she wasn't camara shy Christmas morning. She loved posing with all of her new presents in her new Princess jammies!

William totally got into the unwrapping this year too. He wanted to open up every new toy he got immediately and play with it. Maddie had to end up helping him finish opening his gifts. Ahhh... this is what Christmas is all about. What pure and utter joy.

Christmas Eve Best!

On Christmas Eve, we all got dressed in our best and headed to the family service at church at 5:00. When the service was over, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas Eve dinner. I took Maddie and Wil to get their haircuts that morning. I didn't work that day and they were due for trims so I figured it would be perfect. They'd look great in their new Christmas outfits and their hair would be perfect for all the cute pictures I'd be taking.How wrong could I be! No one seemed to be cooperating with me in front of the camara that night.

I swear, all I wanted was ONE nice, family shot with everyone looking at the camara. Is that too much to ask for? Maddie was having a complete meltdown. It was obviously getting to be too late for a family picture.

I think William is starting to pick up on some of his sister's bad habits. Look at him blatently denying the camara when we asked him to say "cheese"!

Maddie knows exactly what she is doing. She thought it was pretty funny that she was refusing to look up from the new Leapster game Grandma Jeanne had sent her. Merry Christmas! I won't give up. I'm going to get my framable family portrait with everyone looking and smiling at the camara... even if I don't get it on Christmas!

My Christmas Sheep

I'm a little behind on my blogging so I have to back up a couple of weeks to before Christmas. Maddie had her Christmas Program on Wednesday morning, December 17th...my birthday. I told Maddie she gave me the best birthday present ever. Her class "dressed' as sheep and they were adorable. Here's my little Christmas sheep proudly wearing her ears and of course, the cutest plaid jumper that I practically had to beg her to wear that morning.

Mike was able to make the Christmas program...thank goodness. He had to be late to a meeting out in La Quinta and he paid for it a bit on that end but there was NO WAY he was going to miss the program. Unfortunately he couldn't make the Thanksgiving program due to work and Maddie did not let him forget it. As we were talking the Christmas program up beforehand, Maddie says straight out, "Dad didn't come to the Turkey Program". I swear she's going to be 17 and reminding her Dad that he missed her first Thanksgiving program. She is too funny.

Maddie thought it was pretty silly to put her sheep ears on her dad and I. I figured I'd post the shot of Mike sporting the ears. It was a fun, fun morning and the sound of the children's voices singing Christmas carols was music to our ears and a perfect way to get us all in the Christmas spirit!

Holiday Parade

Despite the cold temperatures that rolled into Southern California, Sunday night we bundled up and headed over to the Villa Park Holiday Parade. It's a hodge-podge of different floats decorated for the Christmas season. Many people tow their boats all decorated for Christmas. Our friends decorated their fancy go-carts and golf cart and drove in the parade.

Wait...is that rudolph?

After the parade drives through Villa Park (which we skipped), the floats end up in the Ralphs shopping center parking lot and everyone can walk around and look at the decorations.

Both Maddie and William loved sitting in the little cars. It was a fun little outing- another event to get us a little bit more in the Christmas spirit! It's been so fun this year to see the kids get excited for Christmas. They are enjoying everything about this special time of year which makes it so fun for us. I'm almost a little too laid back....I have a lot to do before next Thursday. I better get wrapping!

Tamale Party Fun!

What a fun weekend we had! Saturday night was our Ciriza family annual Tamale Party. This is a party that we look forward to every year at Christmas time. Our good friends Erin and Simon and their sweet little girl Lucy came to spend the night at our house too which was great. Maddie was so excited for Lucy to come. She started asking me at 10:00 in the morning when Lucy was going to be here. She loves the little ones. She really dotes on them and does all the talking for them.

Maddie and I shopped for a little Christmas present for Lucy after dance class Saturday morning and we picked out this adorable tea set. We figured Lucy probably didn't have a tea set yet. And if she did...well, we've found that you can never have enough cups and saucers in the house!

William wasn't as impressed with Lucy. Maybe he was intimidated? She is a cutie!!

And while the little ones were taken care of at our house, the adults got to enjoy the Tamale Party over at Mike and Lynda's house! We hired a professional karaoke guy this year and it was a blast.

Thanks to Erin's nudging and karaoke expertise, we were quite the singing duo! We had such a fun time. The Tamale Party is always a great way to kick off the holidays! It was so, so nice to spend time with my dear friend Erin too! Can't wait til next year.

Tamales!

This is the first year Maddie has been able to help with the Ciriza family tradition of making tamales. We have our annual Tamale Party this Saturday and tonight was the night to get the tamales made. I'm not sure how much help we actually were but Maddie loved it!

And William loved it too! He was hilarious. He had masa everywhere...

...which is why our tamale making contribution lasted about 20 minutes. I think Grandma was actually happy to see us go so she and Russell could get busy with getting the tamales made. It is definitely a laborsome process. I think each year we will be a little more help... so fun. I love that this is an annual, family tradition.

Frosty and Christmas Cookies

So this is Frosty. He's this funny, little snowman that sings an annoying song and jumps up and down. We've had him forever. I don't even remember where we got him but Maddie and William love him. Mikos and I didn't mind him either until the 100th time of hearing the song! We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house tonight. Dad is out of town in Chicago for work. We brought over a delicious casserole for dinner (Minnesota style!) and picked up these yummy frosted cookies at the grocery store for dessert. Hmmm... they sure were good...

...but messy!

"Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree..."

Monday night we headed over to Target to pick out our Christmas tree! We spotted a great tree right away and after a few quick snapshots, off we went to pick up some dinner and head home to decorate the tree.

Now it truly feels like Christmas! The decorations have been hung and we have a gorgeous, fresh smelling tree aglow in our home! Maddie can't wait for Christmas and I think Wil is excited too. He points to the tree and says "Ho-Ho". Maddie says she will sit on Santa's lap this year for a picture... we'll see. Every year so far she's flipped out and won't cooperate. I don't have even one of those cute Santa's lap shots yet! I think I might try on Thursday. We'll see....

Vegas Baby!

Mike and I took a quick trip to Vegas this past weekend. It was literally a 24 hour trip for me. I left on a 10:30 am flight Saturday and flew back on a 10:30 am flight Sunday. It was totally worth all the planning that was involved for the kids to be taken care of. etc. We went to the De La Hoya / Pacquiao fight! It was AWESOME! I've never been to a live boxing event before and it was such a thrill to be there. The energy in the arena was amazing!
Mike bet on Pacquiao which made it all the more exciting to watch because he won! We were so thankful to Sonja and Russell for coming to stay overnight on Saturday night with the kids after they worked all day. We had such fun in Vegas and were so happy to be able to go! I loooooooooove Vegas and can't wait for our next trip...

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas...

Friday we spent the whole day pulling out Christmas decorations and getting the house all decorated for Christmas. Maddie was a big help this year. She loved helping me inside... ...but I think she liked helping her dad hang the lights outside even better!

Mike worked literally ALL day hanging lights outside. He did a great job and the kids absolutely LOVE the finished product. It was all so worth it! They get so excited when we drive up at night and the house is all lit up.

This is Shorty (the penguin) and Osito (the polar bear). I guess this is the sort of thing we have to get into here in California where we don't get snow. Instead, we decorate our yards with light up animals. The kids both really love these little friends of ours.

While Mike was working outside in the yard, William played in the car. He loves doing this and it helps to keep him confined for a short time so we can actually get something done. Don't worry. The windows were cracked and the emergency brake was on.

Even Jackson enjoyed the Friday decorating festivities. We're getting excited for Christmas! Next weekend, we're getting the tree...

Turkey Day!

We love Thanksgiving in this house. We spent the day over at Grandma and Grandpa's as usual and enjoyed Grandpa's delicious cooking! We decided to eat Thanksgiving dinner while William took his nap. I felt a little bad about him missing the meal but in reality, he's not that into eating lately and mealtime has become a bit of a nightmare. It all worked out great and he nibbled on a few bites when he woke up. William absolutely LOVES his Uncle Russel. Can you tell?

Grandma and Grandpa got Maddie and Wil their very own little table just like we have at our house. Grandma had it all set so cute with new little silverware and turkey plates. Maddie loved that.

Cheers!

I just love this shirt.

This is William's faaaaavorite car at Grandma and Grandpa's. Grandpa bought it especially for him after Wil broke the little porsche car that was similar. Wil loves to stuff little people into this car and lately, crayons too. It's so funny. The little person barely fits in there and he whines for help til someone can jam the little toy man through the door.