Twas the night before Christmas......

Before we headed out for the Christmas Eve service we had a light dinner and Sarah took some great pictures of the Gingerbread house we made a few nights before.

Sarah's stocking!!




The moment Natalie had been waiting for...... time to open some gifts!!





Clothes... :( More specifically pajamas. The tradition at our house is that everyone opens two gifts on Christmas eve. One is always pajamas and the other is something else. One would think that with everyone opening pajamas that this wouldn't be a surprise to receive a pair of pajama's. But I guess that's our glass half full girl. Maybe she will just get toys!!!!!



Lily doesn't care about clothes or toys when there's boxes!!!

What could it be?!!??!?!?! Drum roll please................................

PAJAMAS!!!! Surprise!!!

Lily still is happy!! The best hooded towel in the WORLD!!
Scott and I had a joint second gift from Natalie. Something that she'd worked very hard on in school.

AWWWWwwww!! How cute! The look of devastation when you've just been given the chance to open two gifts there were no toys to be found.

Pajama and Stocking Time!!!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.....

The cookies, carrots, milk, and spoons were put out for Papa and the reindeer.

The girls were quickly off to bed and Sarah assumed the position on the laptop never to been seen or heard from till morning. ( :

It's the... Day before...The night before Christmas.....

.... and Sarah looks sleepy.

Lily looks ready!
Natalie looks ready too!
In the evening we decorated the cookies. The cookie closest to Natalie's finger is the Mother Mary cookie. The white Spree in the center is "baby Jesus still in her tummy."
When Sarah returned from shopping all of the cookies had been decorated. So she decided to decorate a spoon for Santa. I don't know... Must be a Korean thing. ( :

candy....Candy.....CANDY!!!!

While waiting in the carpool line I gave Lily a sucker. I thought it was just a regular sucker, minimal mess, some stickies.... Well it wasn't until the teacher that was helping Natalie into the car busted out laughing and couldn't stop staring at Lily. I thought maybe I should look and this is what I found........ A very happy Lily!

San Antonio: Alamo and City Walk/ Schitty Wok

We drove down to San Antonio with our friends and a bunch of the exchange students to see the Alamo and do the City Walk. We all had a great time. The weather was beautiful but chilly.

The Alamo is really small and for non-history type people it's very boring. So for a bunch of teenagers and two small children they were very pleased with it's small size. ( ;


Love is patient.....

I'm wishing..... and I'm dreaming of....

Peace out!



The Students: Left to Right. Ye Eun - Korea, Felicia - Germany, Ursula - Germany, Julia - Italy. Not pictured: Andrew - Hungary

At last.... The City Walk! The teens promptly ditched us to do some shopping. We agreed to meet up for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe later on in the evening. So we shopped a little and stopped for a hot drink from Starbucks and sat out in the freezing weather to watch the Gondola's go by... Sorry I guess we didn't get a picture of one of those... but boy were they neat!




How old are you now Natalie????

Name this movie...... "I can't put my arms down!!!"
Tower of the America's
This is just about when the City Walk (Paseo Del Rio) became the Shitty Walk (Paseo Del Caca). We walked along the winding canal to the Hard Rock. Along the way we walked under several bridges where many bats lived. Dusk was fast approaching and they were all clamoring or pooping on their way out. We walked as fast as we could through this area covering our head and begging not to get pooped on.

*Sigh* Natalie and her beloved peers. They were very sweet to ask if Natalie could join them at the teen table. It was probably right up there with Disney Land.

On our walk back the bats had all made it out and all was quiet. The only thing that remained was there little poo's that were still on the sidewalk. Whew!


This is a close up of Lily's peace sign. It's thumb and first finger over eye. ( : So cute!

Felicia and Lily. They were fast friends. Which is good as Felicia was only here on a five month program so this was the weekend before she left. We will miss you Felicia!!!

Lily's 2nd Annual Whatchacallit Day!!

We haven't quite settled on a name for Lily's annual homecoming party. Half the time we call it homecoming, and the other half we call it "Gotcha Day." This day is to celebrate the day that we were able to bring Lily home forever. ( : On this day Lily receives a gift and we usually have a Korean meal. If it wasn't for my wonderful friend Hyein teaching me all of these recipes this would also be the day that we go out to a Korean resturant. ( :


Hold on before those fingers get yucky lets open the gift!!!


It's a Little Tykes airplane!! Very appropriate as that was our mode of transportation for returning home w/ our Lily. It also has little Hawaiian looking tourists which will be great to practice for our upcoming vacation!!!
Sarah helped a lot with the dinner this year. She even helped us add a couple of new items to our menu. It was kind of fun too as it was her first time cooking a lot of these things since her mom does the cooking at home. Okay I think the best way to do is as a clock....
12:00 Bulgogi - Grilled marinated beef
1:00 Mandu - Steamed Dumpling stuffed w/ vegitables and pork
3:00 Mulchi - Sauteed sweetened dried fish
4:00 Jap Chae - Sweet potatoe noodles with sauteed vegitables and beef
7:00 Bap - Steamed short grain rice
8:00 Kim chee - Fermented cabbage with pepper paste and green onions
9:00 Dong Chee Me - Fermented Dikon radish
10:00 Jokbal - Seasoned roasted pig feet
Not pictured: Chop Sal Duk - Rice and red bean cake, Boong al Pang - Sweet pancake stuffed with red beans.


A note from Lily: "Party's fun. Happy birthday Gotcha Days! Where's Sarah?? I need to go poo poo. Ta da!! Here I am!! I wanna push a button I think. Please please please!! I wanna bolley ball! Where's my bolley ball???"