One Laptop Per Child

The kids' big Christmas gift was a laptop from One Laptop Per Child which is a really cool organization. They had a deal where you could buy two laptops--one for a child in your life and one would be donated to a child in one of the participating Third World countries.

I was especially excited about it because Nigeria (where I grew up) was one of the trial countries and we saw a few news programs about the laptop in schools in Nigeria.

Here's Andy and Asia checking out the kids' new laptop while Ezra entertained himself on his new (much cheaper!) Darth Vader laptop.

Downtown

Grampa and Gramma are here! We went out to our little downtown and enjoyed the lights at the Japanese gardens. It was pretty cold for these Southern Cali folks :)














The fam














We had dinner at a new favorite joint--a local Greek restaurant with belly dancers. Asia was fascinated and the belly dancer gave her a little lesson and even gave her two CDs of the music she dances to!

Ezra? Not so much. He said "Don't let me get anywhere near that woman!!" Give him a few years and he'll be more interested...

Bonsai Adventures

Who knew that picking out a bonsai could be such an experience?!

Andy decided that he wanted a bonsai for his Christmas gift from his parents so he looked online and found a place not too far from our house. We had no idea this place existed or that it would be so huge! There are over 17,000 bonsai in the greenhouse and this place ships all over the country (world?).

We walked in and the owner, Robert (surely he's got a Chinese name and just told us his American name), immediately began teaching us about the importance of taking care of a bonsai tree, he compared it to taking care of children: For example, you can't decide to ignore them because they'll let you know when they need to be fed. Trust me, it was all really deep.














Robert walked us through the proper process for picking out The One from the 17,000 choices. He said to pick seven and then to look at them carefully and take away one at a time that you didn't love. Here's Andy with the selection down to three...














They had a holiday special going on: buy one, get one 50% off so we decided to get one for his office and one for home. Here are Andy and Robert with the two keepers. They are really beautiful.



















Robert told us the most important thing to remember is: Find what you love, love what you find. Wonderful advice! Here's the one that Andy took to his office.

Merry Christmas!!

Poor Asia, a few days ago she discovered that there isn't really a Santa. She took it very personally and said she couldn't believe her parents would lie to her like that and that she felt stupid she'd fallen for it all these years. Drama.

I tried to help her feel like it was cool to be a big kid by letting her help me fill Ezra's stocking on Christmas Eve after Ez was in bed. She reluctantly agreed and had this really sad face the whole time she was doing it. She said she doesn't really want to be part of the lie for Ezra...


















...But look! The sparkle was back in her eyes on Christmas morning! I guess the Christmas magic is still around afterall. Phew.

























































Who knew that so much Star Wars stuff existed?! Here are the guys showing just a few of the SW related things. Books, playing cards, daily calendars, etc. etc.

Isn't it funny that Ezra looks more like he should be Kevin's son than Andy's? Someone called Kevin a Giant Ezra the other day :) It's the blonde hair.














Good times were had by all! It was a special treat having Kevin and Theresa here with us.

Christmas Eve service

Asia was Joseph and Ezra was one of the "Wise Dudes" in our impromptu little Christmas pageant at the Christmas Eve service.













Mark and Eric (my pastor and also Brett's--our brother-in-law--brother) playing some beautiful music at the candle light service.

Uncle Kevin & Auntie Theresa

We had such a great time with Uncle Kevin and Auntie Theresa here!

















The girls were way serious about their sudoku














There was also some serious Scrabble playing going on.

















Uncle Kevin loves playing the Wii! Nothing brings out the competitive side of a person more than when they keep getting beat at tennis by a 6 year old...

Annual Fondue Party

The cutest little drooler you ever did see!
















Ever since we moved to Seattle in 2000 we've had an annual Holiday Fondue Party with Sara and Darren.

















Alice and daddy checking out the cool glasses that make the Christmas tree lights look like snowflakes, snowmen and other shapes. Rad!






Awww :)

Combo Family day

Theresa's sister, Natalie, came up from Portland with her boys (husband Erik, son Sebastian and foster son Isaac) to hang with all of us for the day. The whole gang went to a family version (aka: shorter) of The Messiah, it was lovely.













We got there early so we got front row seats!













Back at home they decorated a gingerbread house.













At the end of the evening everyone wanted a piece of that house!

Happy 6th birthday!!

The party room is ready to go--all red, yellow, green and blue balloons and cupcakes to go with the Lego theme.




























But before the party room we all had a blast in the bouncy house area!













Go Oma!!













Taylor is in the house!













Uncle Kevin and Auntie Theresa flew in from California just in time for the party.

















Sha Sha came too






Wheee!!!





















Eva wasn't too sure at first but then she ended up having lots of fun with the other kids.













Time to chill out in the party room.
Ezra wanted a little bit of cupcake with his candy...






























I wore my R2D2 shirt--Lego + Star Wars = Ezra's personal heaven.













Santa (Opa) came!! Cool.


















Although not everyone thought Santa was cool! Day was so not happy...
Oh well, the big kids loved the surprise visit!

Party Preparations

(I've got a lot of catching up to do! I'll try to do a few days at a time... Keep checking back)


















I might possibly have gone just a tad overboard with the party preparations... I made little Lego chocolates (yes, those are little chocolates, not soap!) for everyone coming to Ezra's Lego-themed party. I made batch after batch after...

The loot bags were kicked up a notch with stuff from the Lego Mothership. One of my best friends works at the Lego HQ in Denmark and she hooked us up with stuff from the employee store there. How cool is that?!

Birthday treats...

The birthday boy getting serenaded by his class. It was the last day of school so I brought in treats for his upcoming birthday.













Opa and Oma came to town for Ezra's birthday. Opa led Ezra's class in singing "Happy Birthday" in Dutch. Then he, like, oh my gosh, totally embarassed Asia by singing in Dutch to her class too! The rest of the class loved it :)

Teachers' gifts

I made a little box "card" for each of the teachers (three in all since Ezra has sisters who job-share).













I was really happy with how they turned out! You can click on the image to see it bigger.

Holiday Sing-along

We're always glad that the Fire Marshal doesn't make surprise visits during assemblies!













Each grade sang a song. Here are the Kindergarteners singing "Jingle, Jingle, Jingle."

More serious Wii-ing

Love the expressions!!