Feliz Navidad, 2008!!

This is our Christmas post. A little late. But Merry Christmas!! We have been very blessed this year, and we're grateful for the opportunity to reflect more on our Savior's birth and life. Our biggest blessings, our TWO-year-olds (!!! ...will I ever get used to that?? yeah, probably.), sure enjoyed the celebrations. We didn't really take a lot of pictures. I know, shocker! But it's sometimes hard to be involved when you're the photographer, and neither of us planned on missing the excitement. So, sorry that there aren't a lotta great pics. You already know how cute Nuala and Bran are, and if not, just look back a couple of posts to refresh yourself... ;)

Christmas Eve was sooo fun for Zachariah and me (that is grammatically correct, even if it doesn't sound like it... ;) Despite the fact that we didn't get to bed until....um...2:30. That's right. 2:30. But we made tamales that night, and then a bunch of cookies and some food for dinner the next day at our friends' place. My family has always had tamales for Christmas Eve, that's a Mexican tradition. And though we aren't Mexican (I know...you thought we were...) we are TEXAN, even the Irish part of us, and there's a whole lotta Mexican influence there, especially in the Valley, where the non-Irish part comes from. That made total sense, I know it. Anyway, we didn't have corn husks to wrap them in, so we used foil, which actually worked pretty well. The tamales just don't end up with those fun stripes. A special thanks to Zac's co-worker/friend, Lisa, who told us how to make these at the last minute!

Spreading the masa...

Ready to be steamed. That's me. Just to give a human face to the process...

Yeah, we need to get some grown-up kitchen supplies. Like an actual steamer thing. Until then, a plate balanced on an upside-down bowl with some water in the bottom of the pot works fine.

And the finished product! They were actually pretty delicious, for our first time. Next time we'll spread the masa thinner, I think, but other than that...yummm! Even the kiddos like them.

After all that cookin', we wrapped presents while watching Scrooged and put together the cutest little kitchen. Okay, Z put it together. I held a door or two for him to screw on. But it took a freakish amount of time. That's okay, we were up with the fireworks anyway! Uruguayans love their fireworks. As well they should! None of those annoying restrictions on them. You can buy any and all kinds, and shoot them off wherever the heck you want. So what that fireworks-related injuries are super high during the holidays? If you were up on our roof Christmas Eve, you would realize that none of that matters...only how loud and spectacular they are! we were literally surrounded by fireworks...they were coming from the roofs of other houses in our neighborhood, from the yards, from the streets...all over the city. They start about midnight-ish, and go on for a while. It was amazing, being smack in the middle of it all! And I was glad our house is mostly cement. It really felt like we were in a war zone, even though we have no real idea what that would be like, thankfully. So, since everyone has extra time to watch super scaled down fireworks, we are including a 3 min long video. There are some extra cool parts at 1:18 and at 2:30...it was great.

Los Fuegos Artificiales...FIREWORKS!!!

The tykes actually didn't get us up till 8:30!! Well, 7. But Z persuaded them to hang out and read and play in their room till 8:30. Amazing. This video is one Zachariah put together of them coming down, etc. Nuala is looking off opposite of the Christmas tree because she was checking out the bookcase, where we had presents that family and friends had sent stacked up on top. It's so fun when you get to see little kids put stuff together in their minds...

They really liked the little kitchen...Bran couldn't tear himself away, even to...well, you know. Doesn't make the food he prepares seem all that appetizing, huh?

And just so we have a picture of Nuala...a nice big Christmas grin!! Bran's main present was a GeoTrax train, which he LOVES, and Nuala got a set of things for her baby dolls. We'd been "encouraging" them to ask Papa Noel for a train and baby doll stuff, so when Bran ripped open his GeoTrax and she saw that he did actually get his "coo-coo train" she was sooo excited and started yelling, "Noona! Baby! Noona! Baby!" The gears were a-turning. Santa did come through..

We had a great little Christmas. So fun with Bran and Nuala. We enjoyed feeling the Christmas spirit, we talked to our families, and sang Christmas songs, and read the Christmas story, and played and ate...and now have to wait a whole YEAR to do it all again! Well, not the Christmas spirit part, hopefully we can keep that with us all year round. So, Merry Christmas!! ¡Y feliz año nuevo!!