our group christmas party was held at our house this year…given that it was our first christmas in our new house, we were excited to have everyone over…21 kids and 21 adults! (well 16 kids and 18 adults–we were missing a few) the day started off kind of crazy as mel and i tried to clean as much as we could before everyone arrived…no such luck…hahaha…

it was no surprise that our first guest arrived 30 minutes early…it was jess and the girls! he had arrived early to prepare appetizers before our 3pm start time…he even brought his own toaster oven, obviously anticipating that our oven would already be in use. regina, lonnell and malcolm arrived shortly after as they had another party they needed to go to later that evening. it turned out to be a blessing that these two arrived early as they helped with prepping the appetizers and getting started on the drinks as mel, tobey and i finished getting ready! it wasn’t long before everyone else trickled in…children, gifts and potluck items in tow. we did a quick group prayer and it was time to grub!

this year also marked the first secret santa gift exchange for the kiddos…thanks to chester who organized it. the gift exchange was cute as the kids handed out their gifts. as the kids were handing them out i noticed that all of us had just been standing, hovering over them taking pictures…it kinda cracked me up because we looked like a group of people checking out a fight or something hahaha…shortly after, the kids went back to playing upstairs.

for the adults we usually do a white elephant gift exchange. i ended up with a cool 6-pc serving set and mel ended up with chocolates and some “movies” that the guys wanted “copied and distributed”…i swear, this group is too close…hahaha

the rest of the night was filled with more food, drinks and laughter as we played a few games for both the adults and kids. okay i think i may have gone a little crazy with the prizes as i heard a couple of people say…”ooh, it’s like oprah’s favorite things!” hey, what can i say, i love seeing smiles on people’s faces!

the best part of the night? just hanging out around the table or tv, talking and catching up on life…:) mel, tobey and i had a great time hosting this year’s 9th annual holiday potluck! we are very thankful for this group and hope that this tradition of getting together continues throughout our lifetime!

i’ll post more pics when i can…

christmas day is usually spent with hubby’s side of the family and this year it was held at his parent’s house. every year all the kids and their families attend, this year however, we were missing one. it was definitely different than all other years but we did our best to make it a merry christmas for the kids.

there was also lots of food, fun and gifts! tobey and his cousins had a great time playing with all the goodies that santa brought them in their stockings. also, as usual we were full from all the great food that my father in law made…he’s such an awesome cook! the guys ended up watching tv after lunch while the girls played with the kids until it was time to pass out gifts. with seven children in the house, you can imagine how many gifts were strewn all over the living room floor!

shortly after we opened gifts, we had to pack up the car as i had to work the next day.

every year we get together and celebrate christmas eve with my side of the family. it is usually at my parents house…lots of family, presents and food! we usually have most of my dad’s side and some of my mom’s side over for dinner. this year also included philipp’s family and jonathan, jenn’s brother.

there were also a couple of firsts this year…my nephew, joshua’s, first christmas….and ramel’s first attempt at prime rib/roast beef! it was so nice seeing joshua celebrate this holiday even though i’m sure he had no idea what was going on other than…”cool, lots of lights, paper to rip”…hahaha and ramel’s culinary contribution was a hit with the family! there was so much food that we usually go back for seconds and thirds…hehehe…check out the grub!

we started passing out gifts a little early because philipp and family had another party to go to. every year we gather around the tree, one of us plays santa and all the gifts get passed out. this year we opted to pass out only the gifts that we brought so that everyone had a chance to play santa! after all the gifts were given, AJ said “hey, how come joshua has so many presents?” hahaha we told him that since it was joshie’s first christmas it was to be expected.

our family tradition is to open gifts on christmas eve…so after all the gifts were opened, we hung out for a little bit longer and then headed home.

we went to see a comedy show last night at the SJ IMPROV with edwin, edison, jenn and ray. first and foremost, parking was a b—- and it was sooo cold. downtown was hecka packed because of christmas in the park and there must have been a lot of other things going on too because we drove around a little bit until we were able to get parking. we ended up in this parking space that was so tight i actually asked the guy to our right to repark his car so that we could get the suv in. the funny part was getting in the car after the show. ramel, jenn and edison were laughing at me because i basically had to be a contortionist to get into the driver’s seat from the passenger side…hahaha we had dinner but wouldn’t really call it that because the food was so BLAH and our waiter sucked.

luckily the comedians were funny :)….here are a few of their clips (they performed these same bits during the show last night)

*** CHRIS STORIN - click on the banner to hear how much he loves filipinos — if the link doesn’t work, go to www.rooftopcomedy.com and look up “chris storin” then the filipino clip.

*** JUSTIN MCCLURE - click below for part of his stand up act

*** SHENG WANG - this asian guy was HELLA funny! the first thing that threw me was his voice…here’s my favorite part of his stand up act. click on the banner for his towel machine bit. — if the link doesn’t work, go on www.rooftopcomedy..com and look for “sheng wang” then the paper towel clip.

*** ANJELAH JOHNSON - she headlined at the improv…here’s part of her stand up act

last friday was tobey’s school christmas program. all the classes had been preparing for the christmas performance…they sang “jingle bells” and “santa claus is coming to town”….omg too cute! after that each class performed a dance routine to “all i want for christmas”. tobey had been singing the song for the past couple of weeks but we thought he was just suppose to learn the song…the dance was a complete surprise! now call me a little biased but our little guy was so focused that he totally stood out from the rest of the group as far as knowing the steps! i will post the video once hubby gets it uploaded.

afterwards, they passed out gifts as the kids all had secret santas. tobey got tanay, who is one of his best friends. on the flip side, tobey’s secret santa was dylan. he received a transformer toy and was SO EXCITED he couldn’t even wait to start playing with it! it was also a potluck event, mostly consisting of finger foods because it was indoors instead of the usual outdoors. it was freezing outside so thank goodness! it was kind of funny seeing everyone sitting on the floor with their kids!

pics: (a) classmates; (b) with tanay; (c) with dylan; (d) with joy and sarah; (e) the staff

taken at edison and jenn’s baby shower earlier this year, the object of the game was to see who could juggle a baby and chores at the same time not to mention the fastest as well. all the guys happened to play this game and edwin caught jess and ramel’s turn…hahahaha! you have to watch it til the end…it was hecka funny!

this was taken by my brother, edwin, last christmas. tobey was totally into drums and this was one of two sets he received as a gift. this one contained various other instruments as you can see. ramel happened to start playing a tune with the kazoo and next thing you know everyone had picked up an instrument and started playing along!

how can you not love this clip? i remember this evening like it was yesterday. tobey and i were waiting for ramel to come home from work and i put on “the best man” dvd. as i was putting the dvd in the player, tobey climbed on top of the coffee table and just stood there. when i started the movie, this is what i got…

you have to turn up your volume hecka loud on this if you want to hear the music he’s dancing to…ain’t he cute?

we hung out tonight with an old friend from middle school (yes, middle school). chester called us earlier this week to let us know that rick was going to be in town and that they would be in the area and wanted to bring him by so we could catch up. they swung by around 5pm after their golf game. mel and i had been working on a “remodeling” project for my parents house earlier that day so we were a little flustered about getting home on time and making sure we weren’t too tired to entertain this evening.

talk about losing track of time…we started at 5pm and ended a little after 2am! it was great seeing rick, chester, mel and fred together again. it cracks me up that no matter how much time has passed between these junior high friends, they always manage to be on the same page when it comes to conversation topics. let’s just say there was lots of reminiscing as rick brought their junior high yearbook! stories going back and forth, catching up on the past few years and of course always going back to has any of them really changed throughout the years. the answer…nope…still the same except that now they’re all D-O-M’s…hahaha

given that it was planned so quickly, cathy offered to provide pork with veggies for dinner. when i realized we had more people coming, i was intending on making salmon and instead tried a new chicken recipe! we grubbed on those yummy entries along with rice and caesar salad…and for dessert…duh…something chocolate…brownies and strawberries/chocolate.

jess was part of their foursome and joined us for dinner along with olga who had attended her company christmas dinner earlier that night. the kids..oh my goodness…the kids….were SO HYPER! they did everything from watching tv to setting up their own indoor “picnic” complete with “grilling” their food. by this i mean they used the drumsticks from tobey’s drum set to “grill” their food…hahaha…isn’t that cute! well, maybe we shouldn’t have fed them brownies because they were still up when everyone left at 2:00 am!

although it was a tiring day…it was great that we hung out. mel and i have been needing a break from work so this was definitely a nice weekend reward to just hang out and laugh. on that note, it’s now 3:15am so i better log off…another crazy day tomorrow!

2007 christmas dinner with my PP girls was at regina’s house this year. it’s always hard to pinpoint a date in december so this year we ended up picking a friday night deciding on a 6:30pm start time…yeah right..hahahaha…given the traffic we all ran late! i arrived around 7:15pm, rona around 7:30pm and anna who was putting in some OT at work arrived around 845pm.

when i got to G’s, rona arrived shortly after and since we were hecka starving we started grubbing on some appetizers. since our PP time is girls only, mike, who drove up with rona, opted to hang out at a local bar and lonnell was already out with some friends. as soon as anna arrived we literally grubbed and sat at the dinner table for hours just talking and laughing about the usual… and then there’s dessert….dessert ALWAYS has something chocolate so we had mini brownies and peppermint mochas…totally fitting for a cozy evening indoors! after a quick gift exchange, we took a bunch of pics in front of the christmas tree then headed home.

i always look forward to time with my PP girls as it’s usually our only time to catch up on what’s going on in our lives. there’s almost always something new going on and every now and then even jaw-dropping stuff…hehehe…but most of the time it’s just the four of us being silly and laughing over the silliest things/people.

what’s a PP girl?…that will have to be on another post as it is almost 2am and i need to go to sleep!