Our Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year, and hope that all of you did as well. We spent Christmas Eve with Nae's family here in Nashville, Christmas morning was just us at our house, and then on to Virginia to spend the rest of the evening and the following week with my family. I know this post is really long but I had a hard time choosing which pictures to put on. Scroll down to see our Christmas in pictures.

After going to our church Christmas Eve service, we met Nae's family at the Chinese restaurant for a belated birthday celebration for Mathu. Gabe had very big issues with the fish/seafood smell in the place, but you wouldn't know it from this picture. He is all smiles!
We were so glad to get to visit with Nae's brother Bing and his wife Lisa who were in from Minnesota. The kids warmed up to them right away even though we hadn't seen them in a year and a half.
Christmas morning Gabe actually slept in until 7 (yes, that's late for him) but we ended up waking Mya up. She was a good sport, though and we all had a good time opening presents.
Mya posing with Daddy and her new baby.
Gabe got some really big blocks - here's his first try at building a castle.
Out of all the presents, Mya probably played with her new electric toothbrush that she got in her stocking the most. That figures of course.
Carrie (my sister) and her husband Robbie fixed us a wonderful dinner on Christmas night after a long afternoon of riding in the car. Here is Mya, Gabriel and RuthAnne (their little girl.)
Gabe was talking about it snowing in VA days before our trip and while they did get a very small dusting of snow, we were pleasently suprised at how warm the weather was all week. Here's Mya enjoying some outside time with Chrisa.
And, here is Gabriel helping Daddy wash the van. He brought his boots for snow, but they did come in handy for this little job.
Mya got these very cut pjs from Chrisa and Emma. I just laugh everytime I see her in them because they show off that fat little belly so perfectly.
One more picture of Gabe with his big blocks. He's peeking around the side of this very big fort.

Christmas Eve

I wanted to post these pictures to show off the kids new haircuts. Uncle Bing (Nae's brother) and his wife Lisa came down from Minnesota for Christmas. Lisa is a hair stylist so we'd been waiting a while for this. I wish we'd taken before and after pictures because Gabe's especially had gotten really long and was so thick on top. Here's his new do, though. And, here is Mya's. She trimmed her's up and also cut a few bangs so hopefully we won't have to do the hairbow thing all the time now. She just loves to pull her bows out, and I've lost so many of them.

Here we all are dressed up to go to church this morning. I thought this was a pretty good picture considering we just set our camera's timer. Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas tomorrow!

Sporting our winter gear

Nae was outside in the garage frying eggrolls on Friday afternoon, and of course Gabriel and Mya wanted to be in on the action. I thought they looked so funny with their big poofy winter coats and hats on, but it was cold! Don't worry, Nae was standing by Gabe while he was "cooking" - he only moved for the picture.


Mya was playing by the table, and fell backwards into her toy basket. As you can see, she didn't think it was very funny but it was - she was stuck in there and couldn't get out. We did pick her up, right after we took the picture.

Just some cute pics

I thought this sweater that Mya has on was just so cute that I needed to take a picture. As you can see, however, she did not feel the same way. She was upset because I wouldn't get her juice out of the fridge. This reminded me of the Judy Rogers song, "Isabell is a pig" - what she wears can't make what she does look good! Okay, one of the rules on my list of things I would never do to my children (ie have a DVD player in the car) was I would never make my little girl where those huge frilly hairbows that are bigger than their head. So, I'm sure this very cute whirlygig hairbow does not count. Besides, look at her face - she loves it!

Gabriel likes to make "decorations" in the morning while I am in the shower. He's made so many I don't know where we are going to hang them all. Here he is showing off one that he made this morning. Now how could you not smile if that sweet face was waking you up, even if it was 6 am. Check out that bed hair!

Taking a ride

Saturday was , I believe, Mya's first time riding in the hummer. She has been sitting in it a lot in the garage but hadn't actually gone anywhere. She and Gabe took it for a little spin except that the battery was dead so they had to use Nae power to get up the hill - it would roll down. As you can see, Mya is sitting on the driver side but I don't think she ever steered at all. She was much more interested in talking on the phone. I took these pictures so sorry that on the last two the camera strap got in the way :(