Christmas

I am starting to get complaints that I haven't written in awhile.  I realize I am not as good at multi tasking as I thought.  We have had a nice past, couple of weeks, but with my parents visiting and Mario and the kids off from school, I haven't taken the time to blog.

My parents flew in Christmas day around noon.  The kids got their presents from Santa first thing Christmas morning.  Then I asked them to wait until my mom and dad got here to open their other gifts.   What a great new tradition!  We loved it.  My dad begged us not to make the kids wait but the kids seemed fine (for the most part) with waiting.   So we got up early and checked out Santa gifts.  Then we ate a big breakfast, played a new wii game, made gingerbread houses, and had lunch.  Then it was time to go to the airport.  Usually at our home, Christmas is over by 7 am.  This waiting to open other gifts really dragged out Christmas over the entire day.    We all loved it.  So that is our new family tradition along with our Nativity puppet show and big breakfast dinner on Christmas Eve.  

We had a great visit with Grandma and Papa.  Last year when my parents were in Monterey, we took them for a short, easy hike through the redwoods.  My dad was so mad at me because he struggled with the hike.  He told me that he would never hike with us again.   

Fortunately, my dad has lost over 100 pounds this past year!  So this time, he was able to do lots of biking and hiking.    We are all so proud of him.  He has done it strictly through diet, no surgery.  Now that he is feeling so much better, he is able to start exercising.    

Unexpected Christmas Guests

There was a little bit of excitement at the Perez home today.  During Christmas dinner our carbon monoxide detector went off.  Mario kept pushing the silencer button so we could finish our dinner, but it kept going off.  So finally Mario sent us all out of the house and the fire department was called.  

My poor dad has been dreading coming to Monterey because it is so chilly here.  We assured him we would keep the house nice and toasty warm.  Within a few hours, we had all the windows open and we had to vacate.  He was so cold.   Good thing we are moving to a warmer climate soon. 

Our house was fine.  We don't know if it was a false alarm or a problem with our oven.  But the firemen came and were gracious enough to pose for pictures with Erin and then let her climb into their truck.

Early Christmas Present

We normally sit towards the back of the chapel.  With four young children, we don't want to disturb anyone.  Today, I got a phone call from Mario who was already at church.  He asked if I would mind sitting in the 2nd row today because President Henry B. Eyring would be in Sacrament meeting today.  He was in town visiting his cousin who is a member of our ward. Wow, a prophet attending the Monterey Ward.  I was so excited.  I quickly explained to our young twins the importance of being extra reverent today during church.

President Eyring was our concluding speaker.  He bore strong testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  The Spirit was very strong.  Then when the meeting was over, I was disappointed to have to go to Primary.  I figured that President Eyring would either leave or stay behind and talk to the adults.  But a few minutes later, President Eyring came to our Primary and again bore strong testimony of our Savior.   I have never seen a more reverent Primary.  Those children obviously knew the importance of this man's calling.   

What a great early Christmas gift, a visit from a prophet.   

Sweet notes

Here are a couple notes that my boys wrote. The first one is from Zachary to Nathan. For those who have trouble reading it, it says, "Dear Nate, Sorry to bother you but I love you Nate."

The second one says, "to Mom from nate, Happy Christmas. I love you."

Nathan told me this morning that Happy must have two "e's" at the end because the first one is silent. So you need two. I guess its time for me to teach him the "y" spelling rule. They are so cute with their writings.

Mario and I decided that we wanted the twins to be together in kindergarten. So after Christmas, Nathan will move into Zachary's classroom with Mrs. Shugars. Normally the school would not let us make requests like that, but the kindergarten teachers should not have more than 20 students each. Nathan's teacher was over 1 and Zach's teacher under 1 student. Since I volunteer a lot at the school and have a pretty good relationship with the principal we decided to ask for the change. He was fine with switching Nathan. Hopefully the switch will go well. It will make my life a lot easier since I will only have 1 kindergarten class to volunteer in now.

Kids and Santa

Our ward Christmas party was last weekend.  Fortunately my friend Lisa brought her camera with her to take these shots of our kids.  Santa was very generous and gave the kids Lula's Chocolate.   

Wanna Trade?

I have been making homemade bread for the past few years.  I don't make it all the time, but as often as I can because I was amazed after seeing the list of ingredients on the average loaf of bread.  High Fructose Corn Syrup, etc.   At first Eric was mortified that I would pack his sandwich for school with homemade bread.  It was bad enough that he had to always have wheat bread, but now homemade wheat bread!   He was so embarrassed.  I felt a little sorry for him, but also a little unappreciated.  

Yesterday he came home from school and he said that his friend saw his sandwich.  He asked Eric what kind of bread was on his sandwich.  Eric responded that it was his mom's homemade bread. The friend said, "Wow, that looks good.  Do you want to trade?"  Eric quickly glanced at his friend's sandwich and saw white bread.  He asked what kind of meat he had.  The kid responded that he had bologna.  Eric quickly answered, "No."  

 I have never given my kids bologna. To be honest, I didn't even know it still existed.  What is bologna anyway?  

Hopefully now Eric will be a little more appreciative of my homemade bread. 

WOW!

We finally made the switch.   I have needed a new computer for a couple years now.  In fact, I bought a Vista a couple years ago and loved it.  The problem was it crashed whenever I tried to use video editing on it.   The program I was attempting to use was even pre installed on the computer and it still crashed.  So, I returned the computer and kept using my 5 year old PC.  That PC has been running poorly for a while now.  But we weren't ready to fork over money for a new one.

We move in May and Mario always depends on me to do all the research on housing and schools.   Of course, I need  a good working computer for this task.   I was getting so frustrated with my old computer.    We finally broke down and bought what everyone has been recommending for years now, an Apple imac.   WOW!  WOW! WOW!  I can see why everyone raves about them.  First of all, there is no bulky CPU.  The entire computer is contained it its monitor.  The screen is large and very bright.   I no longer need to run anti virus software.  We have never had an easier setup.  It was literally attach the plug, the keyboard and the mouse, and the dsl line into the back and we were online immediately.  

I have only had this new computer for a few hours, but I don't see our family buying another Microsoft Windows computer ever again!