Welcome 2010!

Welcome to January 1, 2010! My friend, Mary, asked me what we usually eat for New Year. My mom really out does herself! She dances until after midnight on New Years Eve, stays to help clean up after the dance, then she gets up early to cook all this GREAT food! Here's a sampling:

Sushi... all homemade of course!

Nishime... It's a Japanese stew. Very SPECIAL and very YUMMY!!!

Namasu... I guess you could call this a salad. It's one of my favorites!

Add TWO types of chicken, baked salmon, macaroni salad, clam chowder, and an assortment of fresh fruit and vegetables; and there you have our New Year's Day dinner. Whew! Were we stuffed!!!

Now to work off all that GREAT food! Here's Grandma and Papa competing in Dance-Dance-Revolution...

... And here is the family Rock Band! My SIL is on the drums, Cheryl is on base...

Hana is playing guitar, and Chris has the microphone... singing!

Oh yeah! Don't forget Jacob on the DS... lol!

Happy New Year! It's time for new goals... I'll share our goals with you all tomorrow...

HAPPY 2010!!!

Happy New Year Everyone! I'm going to make this a quick post. We're expected at my mom and dad's house for New Year's Day dinner and Cheryl's birthday in about an hour.

We spent New Year's Eve at a dinner dance at the Norwalk Japanese Culural Center. Here we are decked out in "little black dress."

Here's Chris decked out in totally Chris fashion...

It IS a dance... Here's my dad trying to teach me a few stumbling steps of Fox Trot. I'd love to learn to dance. I'm trying to convince Cheryl to take a class with me.

Cheryl's doing much better than me... the first couple you see in this video is my mom. Then you'll see Papa and Cheryl doing the swing.



We had a FUN time!!! I hope you all had a safe, fun, and very happy New Year's Celebration!

Holiday Hangover

I copied the title of this post from my friend Mara. It's a perfect title for a post-holiday post, after I dragged myself out of bed and into work this morning. We sure had a fun, Fun, FUN Christmas! Here is the family Christmas ornament for this year... cubes make perfect ornaments for our family because there are six kids.

We started the holiday with Christmas Eve at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Hacienda Heights. The whole family gets together for great food, games, dancing....

... and a visit from the BIG GUY!

The next morning... LOOK! Santa came to our house too!

We spent the morning opening presents at home.

Then came the fun playing with presents, Jim cussing out the new Tivo, and eating our traditional Christmas morning cinnamon rolls... the secret are the crushed red hots!

After a nice relaxing celebration at home, we head over to my mom and dad's for a big family opening! It's fun seeing my brother's kids get all excited over the presents, they are just at the perfect age to really get into it! {sigh} When did my kids get so old?

Merry Christmas, ALL!

AND to all a good night!

Happy December Birthday!

Last week was such a busy week that I didn't get a chance to mention my nephew's birthday. We have another teenager in the family!... BIG 13!

How do you like the birthday tower! With all those candles, it's lit up like a Christmas tree!

Here's what a Christmas birthday looks like. What a festive group!

Look at these cuties enjoying some birthday "cake"!

At a Christmas Birthday, we must have karaoke Christmas Caroling!

And we have the appreciative spectators...

Happy Birthday, Noah!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone!
Here are the Christmas cards I sent out this year... It's different than the ones I've sent out in the past. I got the cute button stamp set and Christmas paper from PTI.


This adorable stamp made us LOL when my friend Mary sent it to us on a card last year. Mary stamped me a few images to sent to our dog loving neighbors this year!

For the envelopes, I used the PTI button stamp set again. I punched a button shape out of Fun Foam and used it to stamp the envelopes... a nice non-bulky alternative to buttons.

Merry Christmas again to ALL!!!

Happy Winter!

I looked at the calendar and today is the first day of Winter! Here's what winter looked like at my house today... what is it like where you live?

Designing Friday-5

Christmas shopping is done. I have my Christmas cards written and addressed. The tree and lights are up. I was going to do a Christmas post, but I didn't take any photos of our Christmas prep... I'm such a bad scrapbooker!

So instead I'll share Chris's new passion... Graphics design... He taught himself how to use Photoshop CS3 and has been experimenting. He thinks he might want to go to college and study to be a graphics designer. Let me show you 5 of his favorite designs.

What do you think? Does the boy have a knack for this?

Most Outstanding Offensive Player!!!

Cheryl came home from her college soccer banquet and announced, "I was voted most offensive!" And of course we responded, "You should remember to wash your uniform between games!" LOL!

Seriously, We are so proud of Cheryl! She is Saddleback College's most outstanding offensive player for 2009. Which is quite a surprise since she played offense only in the last five games (Up to then, she was a defender). She scored three goals in those five games which made her Saddleback's highest scoring player.

Congratulations Cheryl! What a way to end your college season!

Festive Friday 5

What's Christmas without a little JibJab FUN?! LOL! I have a few family photos I'd like to share this festive Friday!

The first photo is of Grandma baking cookies...
Bake them cookies, Grandma!

Look! Here's Papa hanging up his Christmas lights! For real this time, LOL!

Me and Jim (Santa in training) hehehe...

Cheryl and Chris having some sister and brother fun!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!

Elf Yourself!!!

These are so funny! How can I resist?!!!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Friday 5 - Welcome December!!!

It's December already! The company insisted that everyone take all their 2009 vacation days and 1/2 of their saved vacation from previous years. Well I took 5 of my 7 days for a week off during the summer, and I'm adding one day to Christmas weekend and one day to New Years weekend. Since I have no carry-over days, that's it for me. A majority of my department is off for most of December. That makes it extra busy for those of us that are there. The holiday season will be a little hectic... thank goodness for online shopping!

Speaking of Christmas... LOOK! My dad hung up his Christmas lights!

Now imagine my kids seeing this picture... They smile, they laugh, they shake their heads, and say, "Paaaaapaaaa...." LOL!

We had a great time at the Jeff Dunham show last weekend. Jeff Dunham was so funny... It started with Guitar Guy opening the show, then they took a 20 minute intermission. Then Jeff Dunham came out and did a 2 hour show! We didn't get home until almost midnight. We laughed and laughed! The next morning, Cheryl got up and said that her cheeks were sore from laughing so much the night before.

As promised here is my report on the turkey trot. Chris and I ran the 10K at 8am... it was a lot colder there than it was at home.
I was wearing a tank top and ended up pulling on a t-shirt over it for the race. It was the biggest 10K ever with over 3500 people running!

Here is me running in my humongo t-shirt. I was hoping to finish in the 53 minute range, and ended up finishing in 51:06! YAHOO for me! Since I ran in the 50-55 year group this year, I thought I'd place really well... NOT! I came in 10th out of 134 in my group. I think that ladies over 50, who are racing, are more dedicated to running than the younger groups. There tend to be fewer walkers.

Here's Chris in this typical orange shirt. He said when he talks to others when he's running, they call him the orange-shirt-guy. He ran in the 16-19 year age group made up of mostly high school cross country runners. He finished in 43:14, 14th out of 66 in his age group. He said he was going at cruising speed, not race-pace. WOW!

Today, Cheryl wants to take me to see New Moon, and I think we'll try and get some Christmas shopping done.
Have great weekend everyone!