Christmas and New Year

About a month late, figured I would post a few pics from our holiday celebration. Again, keep in mind the dominant theme of 2011 Christmas and New Year's Eve was the fact that we were moving, but we still had wonderful friends around who made sure we took time for some fun. At the BEST New Year's Eve party ever, we got to release lanterns just like the ones on Rapunzel. They were mesmerizing. And huge. About as tall as an adult person, swirling colors in the sky until the flame ate up the tissue paper. No photos, but see clip art above. =)
Had Christmas Day dinner with a family from my mission. I LOVE these people. Truly they are eternal friends of mine. This is Mr. Lo having just opened almost the entirety of gifts he got to unwrap this Christmas (yes, he really only had a couple gifts, since we saved most of the toys etc. to dole out little at a time during our cross-country drive in January). Note Lo's face looks bored and dull. Really he was just suffering from excruciating herpes simplex lesions in his throat and mouth, only I thought it was thrush at the time. Oops. Have I mentioned he has a tiny mouth and rarely opens wide, so really can't blame myself for guessing wrong on the illness. The doctor forced his mouth open, and then we could see the blistering more clearly...Anyway, I digress.
Our Christmas tree this year was awesome, but didn't get any proper photos taken. Our neighbor let us borrow this tree. Lo undecorated the bottom half quite a few times.

And here is Mr. Lo in the only photo of him with his Christmas jammies.  Happened to be 2 weeks before Christmas when my brother Justin was visiting.  Note the moving boxes in the background. Ugh. Did I mention this is the second time we moved right at Christmas? 2 years ago, right after Lo was born the company transferred us mid-December. I hope to never move at this time of year again.

I should report that we had a yummy ham dinner Christmas Eve with the same family who hosted our Thanksgiving meal. But we don't have photos from Christmas Eve. It was sort of a less-fun evening only because of Lo's cranky/fussy mood (remember I still hadn't figured out he had the Herpes and in fact on this day we all thought his bad mood and drooling/mouth pain was just due to teething 2 year molars).

We had a great time celebrating Chinese New Year since the move and illness plague had all come to an end. But I'll post more on that holiday once we upload a few photos from it.  

Refreshing

A few days ago our church broadcast a Christmas Devotional. Normally Jerry and I would have watched it online that evening, but since we had been visiting friends that day and got home right at Lo's bedtime we decided to just view the archived devotional later.

Still not having watched the devotional, yesterday I went shopping for Christmas gifts and felt an undeniable pressure and anxiety surrounding me. Then, after returning home, I finally got around to reading the online summary of the Christmas devotional. An instant peace filled my heart and pushed away the holiday stress. If there is anybody else needing to refresh their spirits and remember the true joys of the season, check it out.

The rest of the story: Christmas & New Year's Celebrations

I know the season is past, and gifts are now weeks ago unwrapped...(with much help from that Lo, we are proud to report--he caught on quickly to the joy of tearing paper)... I acknowlege Christmas toys are now played with many times over (here we have the classic picture of Daddy stealing Lo's new toys)...

I admit that decorations have been put up long ago (why yes I did decorate for Christmas before unpacking from our Hong Kong trip)...

Christmas Jammies now worn so many times over the past month they have a hole in the sleeve...

Decorations now put away...

... Boxed up in our lovely new totes (for the record: Target after-Christmas sales have the best prices on these organizational wonders)...

And after all that is said and done, I still have so much to tell from our holiday fun. So thanks for staying tuned, and here are the last few tales of Christmas & New Year's Eve 2010:

We visited our church sites a couple times for their famous Nativities exhibit. That Lo spent more time playing with the water fountain than enjoying the art, but we will forgive him for it since his rosy cheeks and frumpy sweater are just too adorable. (also: he needs a haircut. I know.)

The photo above is the room of crystal, porcelain, and all other substances we hoped to keep out of Lo's reach. Again, no complaints about him spending time out by the water fountain, because at least it meant he wasn't terrorizing the breakable parts of the exhibit. =) I love how in this photo Jerry caught the sparkling blue Christmas lights outside the window as well as all the white lights from the Nativity display.

This room was my favorite, because they had soothing Christmas hymns playing over the speakers, and I felt peaceful with the predominate color scheme centering around the snowy white figurines.

Each time we visited the Natitivies, we brought friends. Here we are with Anne, a sweet lady I met at the grocery store. She has started learning from the missionaries, and went to church a couple times. She is so humble and prepared to grow in her relationship with God.

Luckily amongst all the non-touchable parts of the exhibit, they have included a children's room. Here there are dress-ups to enact the manger scene, plenty of stuffed sheep to love on, and...

A baby Jesus to hug. Ok, bad photography skills, but sweet picture once it becomes evident that is a baby doll snuggling up on that Lo's shoulder. =)

And here we are touching Nativities--wait! is it allowed?? Oh, yes, this is the children's room--

And we love that Lo in his charming Christmas sweater.

Here are some other friends we took to the Nativities on a different day. I like how this photo shows the birth of Christ (the carved olive wood statues) and the resurrection of Christ (the painting at the upper corner of the photo). So it comes full circle...birth and resurrection.

Our Christmas this year really was a joy as we focused on the life of our Savior Jesus Christ.

And now for a change of tone, we have our rowdy New Year's Celebration report. A few other young couples from our church came together for the evening and we had a fun time eating, playing games, and reminiscing on 2010. We made a time capsule, discussing what life is like currently and predicting ahead to what it might be like five years from now. During a memory sharing game, I was pleased to note my favorite "unexpected joy" from 2010 had been getting to take my little brother Brandon with us to Hong Kong. We also did a "2 truths and 1 lie" game to get to know each other better, and overall it was a great party.

As part of our plan to do different types of "countdowns" throughout the evening, we said "Happy New Year" in French, Spanish, Chinese, and English. Afterward, Jerry and I thought about how it would be a good idea in future years to count down with each hour once the first country on earth starts to celebrate the New Year. If that makes sense. In other words, starting at noon on our New Year's Eve, we could have said Happy New Year in Chinese, and so forth until 6pm we said it in French (because that is the time Paris would have been ringing in the New Year)...and at 7pm say it in English (for London's New Year) etc.

And while the grownups socialized among themselves, that Lo practiced his budding social skills with his friend Claire. They are at such a similar age of development that sometimes it helps them get along, but other times produces competition, like in the photo above where I'm pretty sure that Lo was about to pull Claire down so he could have his turn on the horsey's back. Since Lo was ready for bed from even about dinner time, Jerry and I left the party early, but at midnight we rang in the New Year as we watched (on the internet) the Times' Square celebration. I have to say it held no appeal to me watching the crowds party together, as my pj's were comfy and the quiet of our home a welcome relief from the busy-ness of the holidays.

May our January be the calm recovery time we need after so much fun and activities the past couple months.

Christmas Bears

Stuffed animals have a way of amassing until they eventually take over the toy shelf/room/home. So I am a fan of hiding stuffed animals away and rotating them. This is especially easy to do with any stuffed animals that are remotely holiday themed, for example, hiding the stuffed bunnies or ducks and then only bringing them out to play when you dig out the Easter decorations. Or hiding the stuffed turkey puppet until Thanksgiving time (yes, we are the proud owners of the most awesome turkey puppet). Ahem, I digress. Back to bears: Pictured here are some of our stuffed bears. My Great Aunt Sher collected bears, and when she passed away last year, we all got to pick a bear from her collection. Jerry and I both chose Christmas bears, so they get boxed away until the holiday comes around. On the couch there in the above photo is brownie bear, whom I chose from Aunt Sher's collection. Pictured below is polar bear, whom Jerry chose. Lo Lo especially likes to wrestle with the polar bear. =) And yes, that is a smile in the photo below, but he was scrunching up his face anticipating the camera flash.

Ready for more bears? Last Christmas that Lo was just a little guy. Here he is in his "first Christmas" outfit, and it has a wittow bear on the front. Can it get any cuter? Well, yes. Keep reading. =) We took photos of him last year next to his "Baby's First Christmas" teddy, and it was almost as big as him. This Christmas, I brought out the same old bear and could not even get our big boy to pose with it. He was having too much fun wrestling the stuffed animal. I had a "my baby is all grown up" moment. *sniffle*

I think it will become a new Christmas tradition to take photos of Lo next to his first Christmas bear and track his growth that way. Fun!

Christmas 2010

We had such the happiest Christmas this year, despite having no family around us. I think there were plenty of "warm fuzzy" feelings because we truly made a special effort to focus on giving. I promise we aren't trying to toot our own horn here by listing these service opportunities, but we are just happy to share ideas (leave some of your own in the comment box if you wish) and illustrate how easy it is to give a lot during this season. Giving service is the perfect way to commemorate the birth of God's ultimate gift, the Savior Jesus Christ.

We did a sneaky Secret Santa gift to a person we know who lives alone, as well as some monetary donations that felt generous for our budget, and the aforementioned treat plates delivered to a bunch of lucky people. We also brought dinner to a sweet widow on Christmas Eve. But my favorite gifts were several that we gave at the last minute--unplanned and non-obligatory. One of these types of gifts we gave was to a family who already qualified for Salvation Army assistance. When we dropped off our humble offering to them, they turned around and gave us three times what we had given them! They handed us several bags of fun which I think they had just received from the Salvation Army: chocolates, Christmas decorations, toys, etc. which brightened our holiday immeasurably. It seemed like a gift to them that we allowed them to give back, if that makes sense. Not that all those material things make a Christmas special, but the fact that they were given out of such love and simple circumstances touched us. We also felt grateful for the way our church friends reached out to us. Since we could not be near family this Christmas, two other families in our congregation invited us to join their big, jolly holiday dinners.
We went to one dinner on Christmas Eve where that Lo enjoyed playing with other kids. That meal had an international feel to it, with French Dip sandwiches (*which are not really that French, we learned), wontons (made by yours truly), Mexican bean dip (okay, more American than Mexican, but play along with me here), and the classic raspberry sherbet punch as well as a whole table full of delectable desserts.

Dinner on Christmas Day was a more dignified affair: the classic roasted turkey consumed in company of missionaries and our former bishop/his family. We brought a cobbler and some sugar cookies to this meal. The cobbler was a great creation in which I used some of the pancake mix that has been a recent addition to our food storage. =) The week leading up to Christmas, we had lots of holiday fun of course. Here is Lo with Santa at the children's Christmas party put on by our apartment complex. Doesn't this Santa have the twinkliest eyes? He is actually one of our maintenance workers for his day job, and we smiled when his tatooed arm stuck out of his red suit for a minute. I was interested to see how that Lo would do on Santa's lap. Our Lo wasn't overly comfortable, as evidenced by his posture in the photo, but he wasn't distraught either. Just ready to get back down on the floor to run around. He had a great time pilfering the helium balloons that were supposed to be decorating the room. I'm pretty sure he even learned how to say "balloon" that night. Though he also calls them the same word he uses for "ball."

Here he is a couple weeks earlier, sitting on Santa's lap for the first time. Again, the uncomfortable face but still no tears. We figure a couple weeks in Hong Kong gave that Lo practice having contact with strangers so it helped him be more calm with Santa. Jerry is wearing a reindeer balloon hat. We waited in line for more than an hour to get that hat.

This post is feeling longish, so I'll just continue talking about our Christmas another day. Stay tuned. =)

What is it about Christmas and Trains?

I was just wondering how trains got to be part of the Christmas tradition. Is it because of books like the Polar Express? Or did a model trainset used to be the most wished-for toy of children everywhere? Anyway, at Jerry's work Christmas party recently there was a cute train for the kids to ride. The operator seriously was insisting Lo Lo ride all by himself--um, he would climb out the window in about 2 seconds. Finally she consented to let me ride, but seemed pretty concerned about my weight. heh.

Lo Lo is wearing the Santa hat given him by his Hong Kong Grandma. And also note the ball in his hands, which he kept stealing from friend Claire. The kids all got to pick toys, and Lo Lo really wanted to pick a ball, but we forced him to choose something different because we already have 10 balls at home. I kind of felt guilty about it after seeing how much he wanted Claire's ball!

And here I am sneaking in some more Hong Kong trip photos--bwa ha ha--and you thought I was done! Ocean Park has a train ride for the kids. While we stood in line for it, Lo got pretty excited. He tried to climb through the fence to go jump on board the train before it was our turn.

When we finally got to ride it, he seemed to enjoy himself. Thanks Henry for having the awesome camera that could take these photos--it was actually totally dark and after sundown, but somehow the lights from the ride and other park street lamps were sufficient for the camera to pick up some great color!

When we made him get out of the train, that Lo was pretty sad and threw a mini tantrum wanting to ride again. If the line wasn't so long we might have tried it...but it will be good to leave something to look forward to for the next trip.

Holiday Treats

As we are still in the early stages of married life, Jerry and I keep musing over what traditions to create for our family. We have a goal that our children will see Christmas as a time of GIVING rather than receiving, so one way to teach that is through giving often during this season. We hope to have goodies to deliver to myriad friends, neighbors, and acquaintences each year. To kick off the tradition, this year we brought treats to 14 friends/neighbors. Some of the treats were plates of mostly candy (as shown above), which it makes sense to do for when giving to people we don't know as well. Sometimes people get nervous eating baked goods unless they know the people who made the treat. Or am I the only one who thinks that way.

Other lucky recipients got to experience my first attempts at creating Christmas candies. Shown above is a peppermint truffle. They turned out great and will likely become a staple for years to come.

But my favorite thing to bake was the sugar cookies. I feel so entertained decorating them with sprinkles, licorice, M&M's, sugar crystals, etc. Jerry wasn't too keen on it at first when I told him we were decorating cookies for our Family Home Evening activity. "Can I just go to bed?" he suggested. To which I replied/commanded: "Just decorate ONE cookie!" Two batches of cookies later, Jerry was begging me to keep baking more so that he could decorate all the ideas in his head.

And it was so much fun, I found myself decorating a plate to take to a Twilight Party thrown by my friend Kristen. I realize their artistic merit leaves something to be desired, but hey--I had fun. And even though I'm not the biggest fan of the Twilight books, our girl's night watching Eclipse was so good for me! I felt like I was back in my freshman year of college again, lounging around with a bunch of buddies, talking and laughing, so carefree. Thanks to my sweet husband for being willing to stay home all alone (er, I guess Lo was with him, but slept the whole time).

Hope it's not too late

The stores all have Valentine decor up...Is it too far into 2010 to feature one last smattering of Christmas 2009? Sorry some of the pics are in random order. We visited Historic Kirtland's nativities.

Mei Tai!

The aforementioned tree my VT donated.

The Kirtland Nativities included a Children's room that had some cute ones.

Elfy socks.

Christmas day dinner with our Bishop and his family.

Santa baby

We graduated from the little white elfish hat of the previous post: Christmas festivities have now (finally) begun with the donning of an actual santa hat.

A neighbor family (my visiting teacher) gave us their tree this week when they went out of town for the holidays. Yay! It was prestrung with lights even. We gave the Little time under the tree. He seemed very alarmed.

But by this afternoon when we tried a second round of tree time his alarm had turned into wonder. Christmas is better with kids.