We hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Christmas holiday.  Well, today is the last day of the year so I thought I would write another family update one last time for the year of 2007.

All is well with us.  We had a very pleasant holiday.  We went to Irene's house the Sunday before Christmas and the kids got a lot of presents.  They also got to spend some time with their little cousins.  Jeremy and Brendan are growing up really fast.   Brendan actually weighs more than Mackenzie.  I took Mackenzie into the doctor's office this past Thursday and she was at 18 lbs. and 6 oz.

Christmas, on my side, was at our house this year and on Christmas Eve.  My parents and older sister had a wedding reception to attend on Christmas Day so we had to have the dinner earlier.  You probably asking, "Who in the world would have a wedding reception on Christmas Day?"   Here's the reasoning behind it.  People think that most Chinese people in our community do not celebrate Christmas (because most of them believe in Buddhism) and they have the day off so people will show up for the wedding reception.  My parents use to think that way to when we were much younger because we didn't celebrate American holidays.  Of course, things have changed as we have all grown up.

Okay, back to Christmas Eve.  I worked half day and went home to start cooking after work.  I decided to keep it simple this year and cooked a spiral ham.  We had dinner around 6 PM and after dinner, it was present time.  Every year, Michael gets a pretty big Christmas tree (one that almost touches the ceiling in the living room).  This year was no exception.  The tree we got was almost 8 feet tall.   It was so beautiful when all those presents surrounded the tree.  It looked like something you would see in your dreams when you were a kid.  Presents all over and they were all yours.  (I'm sure we all had such a dream before!)  Before we started passing out the presents, the kids said that they had something for us.  A bunch of them spent some time writing us a thank you note and things that they were thankful for.  Boy, did that warm up the hearts.  And lastly, they said thank you to us for hosting Christmas this year.  It's amazing how quickly these kids have grown.  They're capable of writing thank you notes when I can still remember them in diapers.

A few of the adults played Santa and started passing out the presents to the kids.  All the kids were so happy to get their presents and did not hesitate to open them.  By the end of it, wrapping paper was all over the living room and each kid was guarding their present like their own little gold mine.  It was really a wonderful sight.  That's one of the things I like about Christmas.  You get to see so many happy faces and every is laughing and smiling at each other. 

After presents, everyone went and did their own little thing.  The kids went to play.  Some of them (Nicholas and Zachary) decided to play with their presents that they just got.  Some of the adults went to play a friendly game of cards.  Others decided to take it easy and have a few more glasses of wine.  By 10 or 11, some of them left while others stayed behind to continue their friendly game of cards.  Let's just say, I didn't so well with the friendly game of cards.

By 11:45 PM, I made sure the boys were asleep while Michael took over my bad hand of cards.  After the kids were asleep, "Santa" appears with their presents and ate the cookies that they left for him.  Michael eventually went to bed, I would say sometimes around 1AMish or so.  As for mom, I didn't go to bed until 4 PM.  The card game ended around 3 PM and I took my mother home.  At 6:30ish, I got up to take my younger sister and her daughter to the airport for their trip back to Oregon.  Needless to say, I was tired, but when I got home, Mackenzie was awake so I took care of her.  You see, Michael had a few too many glasses of wine the night before so he wasn't really fit to take care of the little one. 

We didn't do much on Christmas Day.    Just relaxed and then went to my parents' house for a little bit. 

The most memorable moment of the whole event was when I was trying to ask Zachary to eat more of his dinner.  I was working on a salad and Zachary was goofing off so I immediately said, "Salad, finish your food!"  And boy, did everyone started cracking up.  My brother was drinking a soda and almost spit it back out at us.  I didn't realized what I said until everyone else was laughing non-stop.   The other moment was when Michael was playing the card game and my mother cut in front of him for the winning card.  I was not there, but according to all the witnesses, he screamed really loudly.  You see, he had an all black hand which would have had his pointed counted as double what the hand was, but because my mother cut in front of him, he didn't win.  All I know is that everyone was laughing about it and his reaction for 10 - 15 minutes after wards and my mother was still talking about it the next day. 

The kids, they are all doing well.  Mackenzie has the cold again and I took her in last week to have it checked out.  She has an ear infection on both ears and is currently taking antibiotics for them.  She really doesn't like the antibiotics that she's taking right now.  Last time she had an ear infection, they gave her amoxicillin.  She ended up with diarrhea because of it so this time, I asked the doctor for something else.  We've had to force it down her while with the other one, she took it willingly.  She doing much better now and seems to be recovering from this round of cold. 

What are we doing for New Years?  Nothing!  Aren't we boring people?  It's too cold to take the boys out to old Sacramento to watch the fireworks and Zachary will get scared because of the loud sound.  Mackenzie is also too young and she's most likely going to freak.  She doesn't like loud noises. 

New Year resolutions?  Get up earlier (good luck with this one), get more exercise (keeping those fingers crossed), and win the lottery!!!!  How about you?

We hope everyone has a safe and wonderful New Year!!!  Happy 2008!!!!