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...