Christmas

We started of our Christmas celebrations with a Christmas Eve dim sum with some families from our small group who were still in town. Dim Sum is always a festive occasion...and yummy!

Then we let the kids run around the mall to burn off energy before nap time.

In the evening, we headed to church with my grandparents. Emeline really loved the music, and danced and clapped with a wild "Yay!!!" at the end of ever song. Even the quite contemplative ones when no one else clapped. We love how much she loves music.

Then we headed back to Uncle John and Aunt Pilar's place for some pictures and presents.

Emeline really got into opening presents this year.

She loved her books from Aunt Tracey!

Then we headed home, got Emeline to bed, and set up the presents she'd get on Christmas morning. I realized this felt like the first year we were putting on Christmas for her. It was fun. Emeline got lots of physically big presents this year from her family. So we couldn't wrap much, so I put big bows on her play things in the living room. This is what she would awake to in the morning.

The next morning, when she got up, I waited to take pictures of her reaction coming into the family room. Here she is. At first just wondering what is going on.

Then getting excited!

Then diving in to enjoying the new toys!

She even wanted to sit in her wagon to open up more presents.

We got Emeline a play kitchen, and Grandma Chris furnished all the play cookware and food. Emeline unwrapped it and said all the names of the food she knew, and put each one in her mouth. It was super cute. I got a great video, but my phone crashed and didn't save it. But here's a photo of her tasting the veggies.

And cooking away.

Then we went over to Aunt Diane and Uncle Miles' for Christmas brunch. We got her all dressed in the cute outfit from Grandma Chris, but as soon as she saw the camera, Emeline threw a tantrum cause we wouldn't let her see the pictures. So I didn't get a good one of her in the outfit, but I did get this.

And a nice picture of the two of us.

More presents at Aunt Diane's, and Emeline loved it.

We are so grateful for our generous family and friends and for the birth Jesus to celebrate this year.

Decorating for Christmas

Our house doesn't look too much like Christmas this year because we are still in boxes from the move and trying to get organized, but we did manage to put up our little fake tree, and I even bought us a wreath to help the house smell nice. Last year, Emeline had a great time playing with ornaments while we put up the tree. This year, we tried to get her a bit more involved, but instead of putting ornaments on the tree, she just pulled off as we put them on. So most of our decorating efforts happened after she went to bed. But here are some photos as we put up our tree.

Dancing with Papa

Bethlehem

This year, our friend Elizabeth invited us to visit Bethlehem. Every year, a church in Santa Clara builds up a replica of Bethlehem and puts on a live demonstration of the Christmas story starting with of Joseph and Mary signing the census, searching for a room at the inn, and ending in the birth of Jesus. It's really neat to walk around the city, see the guards, vendors in time specific garb, and even watch a parade of belly dancers and animals, including a camel!, with the three wise men come in to Bethlehem to greet the baby Jesus.

We all had a rough week, including all of us having the flu, and ending with a fever and head cold for Emeline, but we still wanted to get out and experience the joy of Christmas despite our difficult circumstances. So we bundled up Emeline in the stroller and off we went!

My pictures don't do it justice, night time photos are the hardest, especially in a crowd. But here are a few to give you an idea, but it's really something neat to see in person.

Outside the city walls...

An inn inside the city.

The roman guard telling us to line up and take the census.

Up close with a guard.

The angel proclaiming the birth of Jesus.

Mary singing to Jesus.

All our busyness, moving, and sickness has made it hard to get into the Christmas spirit, but we're hoping to be healthy for the next few weeks and enjoy celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Thanksgiving

Since we had moved less than a week prior, we were very glad to have an invitation to Thanksgiving with my Aunt Diane and Uncle Miles and family. We were in no state at our new house to cook. Diane and Miles always put on a very delicious and traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It has been a few years since we were able to attend, so we enjoyed ourselves that much more.

Emeline enjoyed the food too, and she had fun playing with both her cousins, but I only got a picture of her with Nicole.

She also really loves Uncle Miles and Aunt Diane, but again, only got one photo. Emeline is distracted, but I love this picture because of Miles' smile. Emeline used to be afraid of him, but now she goes up to him for help playing with all sorts of things.

Emeline also has a love/fear relationship with dogs, and Jesse and Nicole's dog Sam was no exception. She really enjoyed him when he was on the other side of the glass.

We tried to get some outdoor photos of Emeline in her cute outfit, but she was too distracted to sit still for long.

And it was equally difficult to get a family photo, but here are our best shots.

Children's Museum

To help us out during our move, Grandma Chris came down from Oregon for a week. It was such a blessing to have her here to help with Emeline while we got lots of stuff done. One day we needed to be out of the house for some work to get done, so we took the opportunity to go to the Children's Museum. I'd heard there were some good things for kids Emeline's age, but we hadn't gone yet. Here are some highlights:

Emeline like climbing on and inside all the large vehicles they had. Firetruck...

I think this was an ambulance. This older boy was nice and played with her.

She was a little wary of the water play area at first. She didn't like having to wear the cover up, and we there weren't enough of the toddler ones, so she had a big kids one on.

But after a while she did have fun playing in the different portions of the exhibit.

Emeline's absolute FAVORITE part of the museum was the dance room. They had a large room with disco lights and loud music, all different kinds from salsa to rock, for kids to just run around and dance. Emeline just busted a move in there. Here are a couple of photos, but you've got to watch the videos at the bottom. It's really dark and hard to see, but if you watch closely you can see her little silhouette shaking her booty!

New House: A Teaser

It's been a busy and tiring month here at Team Zuber, hence the long blogging hiatus. One of the main reasons for our busyness is that we moved into our new house! We said goodbye to our nice little duplex in Cupertino, and we moved about 15 min east in Silicon Valley into the city of Santa Clara. We bought a major fixer upper in a nice neighborhood near a nice elementary school and close to some friends. The house is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, with an extra family room (to soon become a playroom) and a nice, modest backyard with plenty of room to play. The move has cut down Wes' commute a bit, and Elaine and Emeline have been slowly getting to know the neighborhood.

I know many people have been wanting to see photos of the new place, but this is going to be a bit of a teaser. We have lots of before photos, but it's going to be a while for all the work to be done to be ready to showcase the after photos, and the some of the before photos are pretty awful, so we want to show the whole transition :) So far we ripped out all the floors, and by we I mean Wes and friends, new floors were installed, and the inside of the house was painted. Now there is lots of finishing work to do like baseboards, fixtures, wall sockets, curtains, you name it, not to mention a much needed kitchen remodel...not sure when that will be.

So, I'll try to give updates as rooms are done, but it is going to be a long slow process. But without further ado, I give you....the hallway! I hope it's enough of a teaser to keep you looking forward to seeing the rest of the house :)

Here's the before photo. Notice the wall paper on the living room wall before going into the hallway. Notice the 60s green tile leading from the entry door into the hall and turning right into the bathroom. Notice the warped wood floors throughout the hallway. This was probably the worst condition of the floors in the house, but other areas were also quite damaged.

Next, we see Wes using his awesome Gutster to rip up the floors. This is his new favorite tool.

Floors all ripped out.

Painters are done, but floors to come.

Now here is our after picture. Paint is all done, doors and trim work is done, floors are installed, new hall light, and new door hardware is on. Still missing are a couple door knobs for the closets, the baseboards, and the light switch plates. Like I said...slowly.

So that's your teaser. :) Hopefully soon we'll get to see Emeline's room, which is getting close to done, and maybe the living or family rooms. And now that our computer is set up again, I can continue on with other recent happenings of Team Zuber!