New Year's Eve

NYE is pretty mellow for us now that we have our little family.  We do like to spend it at home with our girls.  The grandparents all came over and we just had a simple BBQ.  We got our party hats and blowers out and Makayla was very happy to be celebrating the New Year.  We started early since she's probably not going to make it to midnight but I'm sure she'll try.  My parents went home at around 10pm since they had a far drive home and didn't want to be out with the crazies either.  Plus they never really stay up for it anyways.  Stan & Jennie on the other hand stayed and watch the ball drop with us on TV and then headed home in the thick fog.

All the girls with their party crowns on!  Makayla has two noise makers so she can be extra loud tonight!

My little Mylee was just too cute for her 1st NYE party!  She even participated and was okay with the party crown.

Grandpa Stan is all ready for the celebration but this is probably 3 hours before midnight so we still have a ways to go.

My matching girls!  I love dressing them the same!  So much fun!

Well Happy New Year everyone!  I guess she didn't make it after all!  She fell asleep in our bed tonight watching the count down channel.  Funny that she knew some of the performers like the Jonas Brothers from the Disney Channel and was kind of into watching it.    

Meeting Baby Julianne

We finally got to meet Baby Julianne tonight.  This is Len & Joanne's new baby.  Joanne is  Som's best friend that we've gotten to know pretty well.  Julianne was born in Nov and is such a cute baby.  We all went to eat at Anh Hong's 7 courses of beef and it was yummy!  Haven't had it in a long time.  I stole these pictures off of Som & Alan's blog since I forgot my camera that night.  The Arnold's also joined us for dinner since they love 7 courses so Makayla and Rachee had fun playing with each other too.

Here's little Julianne with her Daddy Len.  Oh, Len's birthday is a day after mine.  No wonder I like him so much! haha

Here's Joanne with our little Mylee.  Thanks for coming all the way out to Westminster to eat with us and let us meet Julianne!

Mylee 7-Months Old

Mylee is now 7-months old.  She's 27" tall and weighs in at 16.5 lbs.  She's growing so fast!  As you can see in this picture with her Mr. Pooh bear that she's just full of smiles and giggles.  I wanted to post a little video clip that I know I took of her just laughing and laughing away but I can't seem to locate it for some reason so I will have to take some more for next time.  She is also really holding onto things and grabbing and pulling.  She's awake a lot more and wants to play all the time.  She's sitting only with some support.  Don't know why she's being so lazy but in due time.  She's a super eater and now seems to eat everything we give her in baby foods.  Loves her squash, sweet potato, green beans and bananas the best.  She didn't care for apple sauce in the beginning but now seem to be okay with it.  We just kept trying.   

Here she is next to Pooh Bear again so you can really see how big she's really getting with something to compare to each month.

Super close up!  It's real hard to get a picture of her new little teethers.  Look close and her bottom two teeth.  The left one started coming in first and then the 2nd on the right started in shortly after at around 2 weeks apart.  She was slightly fussy when the first tooth started poking in but not too bad.  No fevers, just uncomfortable at times.

Now that her neck and back are getting stronger and stronger we've been putting her in this Exersaucer to play.  It's got all kinds of activities all in one for her.  She seems to really have fun in it but her feet barely touch so we don't like her to be in it too long since I'm not sure if her feet start to fall asleep.  This was another great handy me down from Big Sis Makayla. 

My Birthday Crop

It's my birthday crop weekend and I'm so excited to be able to scrapbook every month!  It is absolutely one of my favorite things to do and something I really look forward to.  This was the first time that we tried renting out my Clubhouse to do and it was a good spot.  A few things we'd want to improve on but in due time.  It was a great two days!  Well, the 1st day we thought it'd be fun to have our little girls join us and have their own play area, well not so much.  It was good to have them around but really the moms couldn't get anything done.  So the 2nd day the kiddos stayed home and boy were we productive!  Friday was awesome though, all the girls and my family came to help celebrate!  It was so nice and I felt so special!  Thank you, thank you all!

My parents and their beautiful girls!  They brought us all yummy Vietnamese food!  So good!

This was my awesome birthday cake that Som ordered from the Great Dane Bakery, same place that will be making their wedding cake.  It was so cute and so yummy!  It even had "Scrap Queen Christine" on it.  Someone knew my favorite flavor, white cake with strawberries! AnMmmmmmGood!  Look at all the help I'm getting to blow out my candles.  Little Rachee and little Makayla are such good girls and such good helpers all the time!  They love blowing out candles and birthdays at this age!

My wonderful family!

Another family photo, but I think my eyes are closed.

The "Scrap Queens"!   Thank you again everyone for making another birthday so much fun!  And thanks for all the gifts from everyone since I will not have time to do thank you cards.  I know you all understand.  Luv ya all!

Christmas Morning

It's the big morning!  Makayla came downstairs to see that Santa left her and Mylee some goodies.  She was so excited!  She doesn't miss a thing though.  She noticed that he at some of the cookies and left some half eaten.  She also checked his milk mug too.  She said Santa was hungry and thirsty.  We had her wait a bit before opening them to have breakfast and wait for the Grandparents and Auntie Som & Uncle Alan to show up.  Last year it was just us but this year we all pitched in for a big gift so they all wanted to see Makayla's face when she opened it.  You'll see the big surprise down below.

Santa really knows Makayla.  Her gifts were all wrapped in Disney Princess paper.  She's one happy little girl!  So wonderful to see her glowing like this.

Auntie Som is becoming a pro at making Ebelskivers.  I try to make a special breakfast Christmas morning, last year was crepes with strawberries and nutella and this year it's these little pancakes filled with bananas, jam, pineapple or whatever your heart desires!  We picked up the pan from Solvang and first knew about these Ebelskivers from my brother.  Almost every time we stay in San Diego at their place he makes this for us for breakfast.  They are yummy!  Everyone enjoyed them!

Makayla was already opening up a few gifts with Daddy and Uncle while the girls were making breakfast.  She got her camera from Santa.  She's so excited about it.  It's a neat one.  It takes photos, videos, has photo shop & games.  Pretty nifty.  He even got her a pretty pink case to protect it.  This was the perfect gift for her since she's a pro at using my camera.  Now she's got her own.

This was one of Mylee's gift from Santa.  Clothes just like she requested.  She needed some more long jammies for this cold weather we've been having.

Had to get this picture in from Auntie Som & Uncle Alan.  They got Mylee a pretty, pretty dress to wear to their wedding April.  Som is so good.  The dress color matches my dress that she made for me in Thailand.  I love that she's dressed us all for her wedding!   She's made my life easy peezie!  I do have to find shoes though.

Princess gets some her favorite Princess Aurora doll, a tiara & wand from Auntie Amy & Auntie Helen from Hawaii!  She's one special girl!

An aerial view of the mess.  I still can't get over how many presents my girls got!  It seriously was all for them since Ry & I didn't exchange gifts this year.  There wasn't anything we needed or wanted and it's just about the girls and kids now!

Oh the big gift from all of us was finally revealed!  Her very own kitchen!  These were her exact words when she opened it, "I've been waiting for this for so long now".  Can you believe my soon to be 3-year old said that?  Amazing!  Anyhoo, she is just thrilled with this gift.  She put on her apron and chef hat and was ready to go, but too bad Daddy & Uncle Alan still have to put it all together.

She's been wanting her very own umbrella since it's been rainy so I got her one.  Isn't it bad luck to open an umbrella in the house?

Well she took it outside and put her rain boots on and new Disney Princess sweater on from her friend Julianne over her jammies.   She's singing in the rain!

Yay, the finished kitchen!  Daddy & Uncle Alan worked hard on this one.  It took them almost 2 hours to put it all together.  It's beautiful!  She started cooking for us right away with all her plastic foods that she's had.  This is going to be a lot of fun for her and keep her quite busy.

Prepping for Santa

After everyone left and the party was finally over, Makayla had to get the goodies ready for Santa.  She really understood the whole magical concept this year.  She got her cookies that she baked for him and set them on the special Santa plate that I got on clearance last year.  It's cute, has a little note to Santa, but Makayla wrote him one too that you'll see below.  She even got my Santa mug that I use for coffee and hot chocolate and wanted milk in it for Santa.  She said he'll be real hungry and thirsty too.  So cute her words.

Her table for Santa is all ready to go!  Time for bed now so that Santa will come while she's sleeping.  She was zonked anyways from playing with all her cousins tonight.

She wrote a letter to Santa, well her Daddy helped her.  She even included a list for Mylee too.  She wanted a camera and books and clothes for Mylee.  I'm sure there was other stuff but I can't remember right now.  

Christmas Eve.

For Christmas Eve. the whole family is gathered together at our house to celebrate with a yummy dinner.  We make it pretty easy.  We cooked up a 14lb. rib eye roast on the BBQ.  It's marinated with just some olive oil, salt, pepper and whole garlic cloves inserted into the meat. Super yummy!  There's plenty of pictures for this big family event.......

Here are most of us girls in the kitchen.  From left to right, Janai, Patty, Som and me.  We all worked together to get everything ready.  This included rolling the Pillsbury Crescent rolls that we seriously had some issues figuring out.  Some appetizers that Jennie made which was so yummy and a tossed green salad.  My mom made her famous pink potato salad that everyone always looks forward to having. And some steamed baby asparagus and string green beans.

Mylee is just so happy today!  Yay!  I think this is one of my favorite photos of her!  Think I gotta blow it up and put up in the house and my office at work.  Too cute!

Our family photo in front of the tree, but it's so small this year we totally covered it.  Mylee wasn't cooperating for this one so this was the best we could do.  Oh vell.

Ngoai's celebrating Mylee's 1st Christmas Eve. with her. 

Mylee actually really happy with Uncle Binh, she doesn't see him often and Mylee has not been too keen of strangers but she's actually doing pretty well.

The Grandpa's and Mylee.  She's been so good for all the photos tonight so we're taking full advantage of it since our blog seems to be mostly of big sis Makayla.  Mylee says it's her turn in the spotlight.

All the cousins together outside testing out the new heat lamps that Ngoai's got us since we entertain all the time.  They are awesome but it was a little bit of a rainy night.

Some of the Sassone kids.  Ryan's cousins came to help us celebrate too.  It's always so good to see them since we don't get to all the time.  Chelsea has gone away to college in Hawaii this year so at least we got to see her for the holidays.  Their family is just too cute!

Here's our tree still overflowing with presents even though we did secret Santa with the family.  It was  a great idea but I think having two girls really piles up the gifts from all our friends and family.  We are just too loved!

We let the girls open up a few presents since they had so many for Christmas morning and Santa didn't even come yet.  This is Mylee's 1st present.  It was from Auntie 9 and a super cute giant pink puppy dog.

This was the girls favorite gift from Grandma Jennie.  I don't think they're going to love the vacuum cleaner when they're older but they sure are having a ball with it tonight.

My brother Binh was Ryan's secret Santa and got him this really funny shirt.  You can't tell from the photo but it's got floral design on it and we think it's suppose to be the new in look but it was so not Ryan.  Everyone kept on making fun of him and saying he looked like a Philopino singer since they like to wear shirts like this.  Too funny!

Everyone gathered to sing Christmas carols.  Makayla was really into it this year and her favorite from school was Away in a Manger.  She also loved the classics, Jingle Bells, Frosty, Rudolph and Santa Claus is coming to town.  They all had so much fun singing. Theodore was hands down the most vocal!  What a fun night with all the fam!  So blessed to all be able to be together!

Cookies

I haven't baked sugar cookies and decorated them since I was a little girl.  I forgot how much I loved it!  We also made some really yummy gingerbread men cookies too.  This year is extra special since Makayla is now old enough and is making cookies for Santa.  She said he's going to be hungry when he visits our house on Christmas.  She invited her cousins over to help out too.  The girls all had so much fun with the whole new tradition we've started together this year.  The holidays are just getting more and more special and so much fun!

Our little elf getting the dough ready.  We have flour everywhere!  It's even on her cheeks in this picture if you can't tell.  While we were mixing in the flour into the mixer it poofed all over us because it was going a tad too fast.

Alyssa rolled out the dough and now Auntie Patty is helping Makayla cut her cookies to put  on the cookie sheet for baking.  

Our 3 little bakers!

Alexis & Makayla unsupervised!  Looks like it's going to be a bigger mess then it already is!

It's decorating time!  Lots of fun stuff they're using.  All different sorts of sprinkles and colored icing. to decorate with.

Oh, Mylee's even participating.  Well, how 'bout still supervising as usual.  Taking it all in, before you know she'll be helping Big Sis and her cousins.

Right out of the oven, so pure and plain looking.

The 1st decorated batch by everyone.  All looks so good!

There was so many we had to have a few plates of finished goods.  We all had so much fun and Santa is going to not be hungry after visiting us!

Our Gingerbread House

We finally got around to decorating our gingerbread house  just a few days before Christmas.  We always have so much fun doing it.  Makayla was so much more helpful this year.  She was really good at decorating and actually did a lot of it.  I was in charge of frosting and she put the candies on.  Mylee and Daddy just watched and supervised.    We're getting more and more into the spirit of Christmas!  Yay!

She so happy putting the gumdrops on the roof.

Lil' Sis wanted to see the finished product and taking lots of good lessons from Big Sis.  

Showing off her awesome gingerbread house!  She even made the heart out of candy canes just like her gingerbread house she made at school.