And baby makes...

2016 seemed to fly by. Before we knew it it was the holiday season.

We were all ready for the time off. The daily routine has been such a grind and we were ready for some much needed down time.

First on our agenda was taking the girls ice skating. Isabelle Seeto kindly offered to teach the girls since she'd been skating since she was their age. Unfortunately, Naomi came home from preschool with pink eye...in BOTH eyes. 🙈 Thankfully it was before everything started closing for the holidays, so we quickly got into the pedi's office for an exam and eye drop prescription. But this meant she had to stay home while Mama took Ellie ice skating.

Isabelle was so patient and gentle with Ellie. Ellie had a blast as is evident by the huge smiles:

Christmas Candlelight Service on the morning of Dec 24th

Naomi grooving to the music:

We had tickets to Disney on Ice in Anaheim for the afternoon, so we decided to start driving down after service in case there was a lot of traffic. But first, we stopped for brunch at the Fair Oaks Pharmacy in South Pasadena. We drove by it a bunch of times, and have always wanted to try it. It's an old school pharmacy with a soda fountain/ice cream shop attached at the front. The food was classic American diner with large portions. It was decked out for Christmas with at least 5 Christmas trees with ornaments, fake falling snow and knickknacks everywhere.

We arrived at the Honda Center over an hour early, but this allowed us to get a great parking spot! We were ready with snacks and our own Frozen Glow Wands:

I asked a Cast Member to take a picture of us so we can see the ice. He really wasn't a very good photographer... 😒

It was a fruitful Christmas this year...

Santa brought the girls a mound of presents. This was the first year we decided to introduce Nono to the concept of Santa. She heard about it already at preschool, but we never tried to "do Santa" at home for Christmas. It was the first time we had to think about hiding the gifts and not putting them under the tree until Christmas Eve. And getting cute wrapping paper that the girls have never seen before and then hiding that wrapping paper. Then there's the cookies and milk for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer. We have no idea if Nono understood or not.

It was hard for Ellie to not spoil it for Nono. Since she didn't grow up with Santa, she knows the gifts are from us and the grandparents. It was hard for her not to say things that would hint to Nono that the gifts were not from Santa. It will be interesting to see how things go as Nono gets older.

Christmas Day 🎄

We decided on a Christmas tradition of hot chocolate while opening up presents. Next year, we will remember the marshmallows!

After all the presents had been opened it was already past 9am. Ellie had been requesting to eat at IHop because she really wanted a "fancy pancake" (read: a pancake with a face on it made out of fruit and whipped cream). So we thought maybe IHop Christmas morning could be another tradition.

That face! 😂

We all had a food coma after brunch, so everybody napped when we got home. We all could use a little exercise, so we went to the park to ride scooters in the afternoon.

Gong-Gong, Po-Po got Naomi a new scooter.

Thank you Gong-Gong Po-Po!

Her previous scooter was Ellie's old Radio Flyer with 2 wheels in the front. That thing was impossible to steer. It's supposed to turn while tilting, but was so stiff that it was impossible to tilt enough to actually turn. Her new scooter has 2 wheels in the back, so she can turn like a normal scooter. The wheels don't roll as smoothly as Ellie's Razor, so it's not as "slippery", but I think that will help Nono get used to graduating to a 2 wheeled scooter.

After Christmas

We spent a few days here and there at Riverside. One night while having dinner, we looked over and saw Naomi doodling on her placemat:

"Nomi"

Do you see where she wrote her name? This was the first time we had seen her write her name with the letters together in a row, and so clearly recognizable. It's so awesome! 😍

We had a great time celebrating the new year at Ah-Gong, Ah-Ma's house. We even got the girls on the drum set at Aunt Meiya & Uncle Yoav's house:

At the last assembly of Ellie's Kindergarten year, they gave out awards for attendance and reading achievement. Ellie received a certificate of perfect attendance for the school year as well as a medal for reaching "gold" level reading, which means she read over 60 books. She was very proud of herself, as were we all, so much so she wore the medal everywhere the next few weeks, including on our cruise.

Ellie is very proud of her reading medal

This was the end of blueberry picking season and we made one last hurrah out to the blueberry fields in Somis. It was scorching, and most of the blueberry bushes were picked clean, but we were still able to come away with one basket of blueberries. Oddly enough, there were plenty of strawberries this time, whereas the times before yielded minimal strawberries and ridiculous amounts of blueberries.

Selfie!

The last day of school at the YMCA. Nono got in on the action.

DTS Annual Summer Picnic. I went to pick up Nono early so she could come play games and listen to the live band playing.

On the tram going to Disneyland. This Disneyland trip was to meet Charo's family. We had breakfast at the Plaza Inn so the kids could take pictures with the characters. Other than Minnie, Nono was terrified of all the other characters.

Alaska Cruise

Ellie's 6th birthday. We asked her what she wanted to eat for dinner. Guess what her answer was? Souplantation!

We were worried that going to the beach on July 4th weekend would be crazy, but thanks to a tip from Bill Perkins, we went to a nice beach in Ventura that wasn't bad at all. The shore was rather rocky, but because they had breakers every 100 feet or so, the waves weren't very big. Unfortunately our feet got scratched up because the waves were breaking the pebbles over our feet. But the kids had a blast building sand castles and digging for rocks.