Nieces and Nephews: Princess N

Nine-year-old Princess N is big sister to Lady A and Miss E. She is tall for her age (she will be taller than me in a few years) and is active, fun to be around, easy-going, tranquil and practical.

She absolutely loves Star Wars. She got a Star Wars Lego set for Christmas and was very excited about it.

N holding her Star Wars Lego set (see below)

She also likes Webkinz and has a lot of them at home (I can't keep track of what she has). She got a Love Monkey for Christmas too.

I also played Apples To Apples with her (as a group) for a while and she was laughing pretty hard too, just like David did! It was great to be with kids who were enjoying themselves so much!

However, my favorite memory with N was when she was reading to me before she went to bed one night. I had read a few books to the kids. Afterwards, N picked out the Cars book to read. It was a fairly long book and N was already halfway through when I joined her. She read the rest of the book to me and she did a great job!

All Photo Credits: Lady A

Nieces and Nephews: David

David, big brother to Alex and Miguel, has an engineer's mind; he is serious, curious and specific. A perfectionist. He loves baseball and the space. One of the presents he received was a telescope. He had fun watching the moon (there were not many stars) with Papi and Cousin N, even though it was very cold outside.

David also loves video games -

Playing video game with Uncle M

More video game with Aunt S

Did I mention he loves video games? :-)

Right now, he is at the stage where he does not like to be photographed very much so I was not able to get a lot of pictures of him. I tried, and this picture, taken at the zoo, might be the best shot -

With Lady A's help, here is the goofy side of David at our BBQ dinner!

My fondest memory of him over Christmas was when we were playing Apples to Apples. I can't remember whose gift it was, but it was so much fun to see him laugh out loud and could not stop for a few minutes! He does have a lighter side!

Today is also his special day - he turns 9! Happy Birthday, David!

Nieces and Nephews: Alex

Five-year-old Alex is about 8 months older than Lady A. He is Miguel's older brother and is a happy little guy! He is goofy, outspoken, excitable, and loves his Legos. Over Christmas, he got quite a few Lego sets so he was busy building - and playing with - his Lego city.

The funniest memory I had of him over Christmas involved him, Hubby, Miguel and a bunch of Chilean Flemingoes at the zoo we visited.

When we were looking at the Chilean Flemingoes, Hubby joked to Alex that because these were Chilean Flemingoes, they spoke Spanish and he could say "hola" to them. So Alex greeted the birds enthusiastically! He even told Miguel, who was standing next to him, to say "hola" to the Flemingoes which Miguel did. It was so funny!

Other than his Lego city, Alex also played  a little with the sword, another gift he received. One time, when he was playing with it, he put on two hats (one backwards) to make himself look more like Darth Vader/Anakin from Star Wars.

Alex in his gear

The double hats

A funny little guy he is.

Nieces and Nephews: Lady A

Five-year-old A is Miss E's older sister. She is the outgoing and adventurous one. One of my fondest memories of A over Christmas is documented in the following two pictures.

My mother-in-law and my three sisters-in-law were by the dining table right before our Christmas dinner, so I asked the "ladies" to pose for a picture, as follows -

Haivng heard me using the word "ladies," A announced that "I am a lady too!" So there she was, featured in the next photo -

Isn't she adorable? :-) Over Christmas, she also took quite a few pictures with my camera. Below is a collection of pictures from the 5-year-old's perspective. Enjoy!

Anniversary Slurpee

Editor's Note: The mini series on the kiddos will return soon!

Ever since Hubby and I got married, we have been celebrating our anniversary each month (we celebrated our dating anniversary too, when we were dating. :-)

On our anniversary date of each month, we would try to be the first to remember the monthly anniversary and say it to the other person. The rules are to say the actual year and month of the anniversary since the wedding, and it needs to be either on the phone or in person. Voice mail or writing does not count.

Other than our real anniversary (which is next month!), we do not normally have any special celebrations. However, we just had our 7-year-11-month anniversary. To commemorate this particular anniversary, we went to 7-11 for a slurpee. Whose idea? Mine!

It was a nice treat. :)

Nieces and Nephews: Miguel

The next young'un is 3-year-old Miguel. Over the past few months, he seems to have grown a lot, at least to me. He is now more talkative and is showing off his personality which can be goofy at times! He has a contagious smile and is very smart. I played Dominoes with him for the first time over Christmas (it might have been his first time playing the game too) and he did marvelously! We played the game using the colors of the dots instead of the number of dots on the tiles. He had no problem matching the colors. At some point during Christmas too, he rode on my shoulders around the house (I really forgot whose idea that was!), and he loved it! I had great fun too.

It's not easy to take pictures of him facing the camera, but whenever I catch him looking my way, I usually get pretty good pictures, like this one. :-)

He likes his puzzles.

Just finished a game of Dominoes with A and me.

I can't explain what was going on in this picture, but he was having fun with Uncle "Monkey" and Aunt J! (It was Hubby with his tea in the foreground.)

Nieces and Nephews: Miss E

In this blog, I have mentioned my nieces and nephews from time to time. Since we have a lot of pictures from Christmas, but more so because they are such darlings, I thought I would do a "mini blog series" to post more pictures about them. We have three nieces and three nephews, from 4 months to 9 years old. To kick it off, I am going to start with the littlest.

Miss E was born last summer. We got to meet her over Christmas for the first time since she lives far away. She is such a sweet and happy baby! She cried only once or twice, but that was only when it was her bed time at night and she did not want to be left alone. When she was awake, she was almost always smiling. And her big blue eyes are stunning!

I tried to take her as much as I could during Christmas. Various family members were generous enough to let me have her quite a bit, and I took A LOT OF pictures of her. The followings are only a small part of the collection. Enjoy!

All bundled up for the outing to the Zoo.

One of the MANY pictures I took of her.

She likes to put two figures in her mouth.

One of my favorite pictures with E!

Christmas 2009

Happy New Year! As we welcome the new year - and decade, I am recapping some fond - and fresh - Christmas memories. Enjoy!

This year, our home looked nothing like it was a year ago. There was no Christmas tree, no lights, no candles. I never got caught up on the Christmas preparations, since I barely got the Christmas cards and newsletters out in the mail, and Christmas shopping done before Christmas. I was still wrapping Christmas presents after the Christmas Eve Service. On top of this busyness (which seemed more than usual than years past), Hubby was sick.

But all was good. Hubby got better and off we went to my brother- and sister-in-law's for Christmas. We had a great time! It was a special year since my mother-in-law was back in the US  for a visit after almost 2 years of serving overseas, our new niece was born in the summer, and everyone from Hubby's side of family was there. We had a lot of family fun. We enjoyed a lot of food and laughter. Here are some highlights:

• Meeting our four-month-old niece. She is such a happy and quiet baby that she makes everything easy! I took so many pictures of her!
• Playing Dominoes with my 3-year-old nephew. He was really good at it.
• Seeing our 5-year-old niece in the outfits we got her; and putting a ribbon on her hair
• Watching our 5-year-old nephew build his Lego city.
• Staying in the cold (for a few minutes) with my oldest niece and nephews, one 9 years old and the other almost 9, as they tried to watch the moon and stars, and explore the universe with my nephew's telescope.
• Reading to my nieces and nephews.
• Listening to my oldest niece read the Cars story to me.
• Letting my 3-year-old nephew ride on my shoulders.
• Playing card games with the adults.
• Fourteen of us going to the zoo.
• All of us, plus our aunt who was off work that day, going to the best barbeque place for dinner right before we headed back.

It was another great Christmas with family.