Merry Christmas Eve!

A little pre-Christmas fun...

Carols at the consulate and a special visit from Santa:

Swinging in the backyard followed by a family BBQ by Oscar. I missed the photo op with Oscar at the grill, but this was a monumental event - after all of the BBQs we've had at our houses over the years, this was the FIRST time he's actually done the cooking!

Making cookies for Santa:

They each got 2 cookies - one to decorate for themselves and one to decorate for Santa. Livi used all of her frosting up for her cookie, while oscar focused on the presentation (look closely and you can see the gold stripes on the candy cane)

Our Christmas Eve tradition of opening one present. Yes, they each chose the biggest one under the tree...


selection quickly made, patiently waiting for Oscar to make his

so many choices!!

He really wanted this picture

 Coming in for thank you hugs:

Merry Christmas everyone!!! We miss you all and we'll see you next summer...in New Orleans!!!

A winter wonderland

I really miss the cold and snow this time of year. I did my best to channel my inner Budddy-the-elf last weekend. The size of our house minimized the impact of my 20ish snowflakes, but I'll give myself an 'A' for effort. Oscar got into the spirit too and we'll hang his up this weekend!














We also had a "see you soon" barbeque planned for some friends heading home for a few months to have a baby. As life happens, 2 families came down with something contagious and our gathering was a little smaller than expected. We made the most of it though and the kids had a second chance to decorate some gingerbread houses. This time around they were a bit more child-sized and I raided our sprinkle selection for decorations. We'll just have to have a welcome back barbeque when they return!

Too busy decorating (and sampling) to look up for the camera

proud of his finished project

 

Oscar's turn

This week Oscar had his turn for his Christmas concert! He was so excited and he wouldn't tell us what he was going to be singing since he wanted it to stay a surprise. He looks so serious on stage, and when I asked him he said that was his stage face. My camera batteries died, but I did manage to snap a few pics. The songs? Up on the House Top and Light the Mennorah.

hanging out before the performance

patiently waiting for Oscar to appear

getting ready

 

Jingle Bells, Grajales Style

Oscar:
http://youtu.be/AIsLjy826Fg

and Livi:
http://youtu.be/c868XVc4VW4

Dear Santa

These have been made far to late to make the cut (even for me) but were really fun to make and discuss.

Livi got into it for all of 5 seconds, and settled on 2 dolls and a pink jumprope (which Santa can handle) before she went in to decoration mode. She added a "toy soft monster" at the end which I'm not sure about. Something tells me she'll be happy with the other things Santa is planning....

Oscar was a bit easier to pin down and I managed to get a few things that I know he's getting on the list (legos, red power ranger, and Sorry).

 

His imagination took off for the flip side though and he added popular items like the "Transformer Santa," "rainbow star," and "toy bomb." He seemed concerned if Santa would know that he meant a toy bomb and not a real bomb. I assured him he would, and also casually worked into the conversation that his list was quite extensive, and you don't always get everything on your list...

 

 

More holiday fun

Last weekend was also action packed and full of fun outings. We started off with a cookie decorating party on Saturday afternoon (which is always serious business) followed by a birthday party in the afternoon. The bouncy castle helped burn off the sugar from the cookie party and miraculously no one cried! I did get a mysterious bug bite that swelled to grapefruit size but it's thankfully going away now. (It turns out the ants here have a nasty bite and many people have had similar reactions to them.)

 

Sunday we spent the afternoon at AISC for a softball game with the Rotary club of Chennai. I was on kid duty, but Oscar played and had a great time. The kids had a ball running all over their campus and soaking up the playgrounds. It made us wonder why we never made a weekend visit before!!!

Oscar's posse

visiting daddy on the field

Oscar's mug shot

While I can't say I agree with the style choice of this photo, you can't beat the smile!

 

Dancing Queen

Livi has always loved dancing, but she took it to a new level this past week with her performance in her school's Annual Day Production! I'm waiting on the video and photos from the school since we didn't get very close seats, but here's a few of Livi I managed to snap during the Gummy Bear song. They don't really do it justice, since she really wasn't happy with the costume for this number (I'm still not sure whey they went with the full body suit). She still kept up with the moves though! She was much more excited about her other song "Tarzan and Jane" which I'm hoping comes out well on video! I was having too much fun watching her to even snap a pic. She's taken to choreography, and has started creating her own dances to songs at home. Her current favs are Moves Like Jaggar and Gangham Style.

 

The Christmas Spirit

Last weekend we went to the Marriott for gingerbread house decoration with brunch to follow. It finally felt a little bit like Christmas around here!

the setup

busy at work

checking out the competition

a little help from Ankush

being silly

doughnuts and decorating

spider-oscar

ready for brunch!