Thursday, December 27, 2012

Birthday Celebration

Yesterday was the Hubby's birthday and we went out to a pub with my siblings and a few friends. We had a great time and topped off the night with a delish selection of cheesecakes from The Cheesecake Factory.









The Big Day

Another Christmas has passed and it was as wonderful as could be! We were blessed to share this special day with each other once again. Can't forget to mention the added blessings of great food, presents, and treats! Yay!

Christmas morn:

Alina with her stockings:

Opening their Christmas bags which contain their presents:



Overjoyed with the complete series of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid":

A typical pose:

Daddy's turn to open a present:

My sister's boyfriend:

My other sister's boyfriend:

More presents!

Dad and Mom opening a present:

The little guys ready to partake of the Christmas brunch goodness:

Alina being a grump:


A silly cat joins us:

The girls enjoying one of their presents:



It's Christmas Again!

Went over to the grandparents' place for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner party. Absolutely delish!!

Thanks to a misplaced camera, here are a couple of [out-of-focus] phone pics:


A lovely shot of my parents:

Sisters and Dad:

Siblings and Grandma:

With sisters and Mom:

A lil' piggly-wiggly:


Our usual semi-decent family shot:

Our big girl:




Happy with the candy that a weird Santa gave:

Exchanging gifts:



 

Dad, Rafa, and relatives:

Siblings and uncle:

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Christmas Joys

We finally got around to putting up the Christmas tree on the 9th or so. VERY late, I know. In this case it's definitely "better late than never"! :)

Laurie strikes a silly pose before we read a bedtime story by the tree:

Once the tree was up, Alina moved into the livingroom and has been sleeping under the tree ever since. My sister's little cat has been keeping her company. My mom has several cute pictures of the cat sleeping on top of Alina ... just gotta get my hands on the pics!


One of our Christmas traditions is to go see the lights at the Praça da Liberdade. Last year was the first time in 16 years that I didn't go, sniff. Everything was hurried last year and Christmas just flew by. Maybe it's because it was my first year in college, Alina's first year in a "normal" school and it was kind of hard to adapt to all the extra deadlines, papers to turn in, homework, appointments, etc. etc. on top of my usual workload. Thank God this year we made the time for it and had an enjoyable evening together.






We almost didn't bake Christmas cookies this year due to my lack of cooking skills. My sister kindly made the dough and Laurie helped me with the decorating part, so we ended up having homemade cookies. Yay for us!






Enjoying the cookies: