Happy 2008!

Another year is behind us and I want to wish all our family, friends and blog readers a happy and healthy 2008. I hope this coming year brings joy and happiness into your lives. May all your wishes come true!

Much love,

The Quilao Family

For the record

I really do try and feed my husband home cooked meals. Granted, it isn't every night but I do my best. The funny thing is that most of the time he will choose to eat Top Ramen noodles. Or when he is really looking for fun on a Saturday night, he'll throw in a Hungry Man dinner with a Mrs. Smith's frozen apple pie for dessert.

And just for the record, there was homemade chicken pot pie in the fridge that he passed up for the high sodium, processed food delights pictured below!

Now the other food issue looming in the air for my husband is his annual "what am I going to give up eating for the year" debate. It isn't really a resolution because he just challenges himself for fun. In the past he has given up caffeine and fast food. Don't fool yourself if you think he was doing it to get healthier. I think he gave up fast food and then starting chewing tobacco in the same year, so healthy isn't the reasoning. Last year he gave up hot dogs! So this year, he is trying to decide if he is going to give up red meat, cheese or pizza. If he gave up cheese, that would automatically rule out pizza. These are the kinds of conversations we have. Aren't we fun. And intellectual.

It's looking like he is going to give up red meat. We had hamburgers for dinner tonight and he has steaks in the refrigerator for dinner tomorrow. He is also planning on going to the store in the morning to buy an extra steak so he can have steak and eggs for breakfast. Nothing like making youself sick on red meat before giving it up.

His last red meat dinner for a year?!?!

Now that the dust has settled..

I can share about the fun we had over the holiday. In between bouts of whiny, fussy, clingy girls. I'm convinced there was just too much going on for too many days in a row and it threw them totally out of whack.

So out of whack, that Makena had a temper tantrum on Sunday morning the 23rd and split her chin open after throwing herself onto the tile floor in the kitchen. All because she didn't want me to hold Alyssa. I guess chipping her tooth and making a trip to the dentist on Friday wasn't exciting enough for her. Fun times!

Luckily, the cut didn't look too horrible so we fixed her up with a butterfly bandage until my friend Ly (who is a nurse) brought us some Dermabond in the afternoon so that we could close up the cut a little better.

Makena sporting her bandaid.

We celebrated with Steve's family on Saturday the 22nd. The girls love to see their Lolo and Lola (Steve's parents) and were thoroughly spoiled with presents.

Auntie Stephanie tried to get one good picture with the girls. Sorry about the nose-picking!

On Sunday we celebrated with BF Jess, my friend Ly, and all of our rugrats (a.k.a "The Village").

A picture of our seven kids all aged 3 and under. This picture could also double as an ad for an emergency room poster. Makena with her banged up chin, Alyssa wearing a sympathy bandaid for Makena and Ly's son Aiden, who lost a fight with the footboard on a bed.

Christmas Eve found us at home getting ready for the Christmas Day festivities. After the girls went to bed, Steve put together their new play house. He enjoyed a glass of Scotch while he worked and then hammed it up for the camera.

Christmas morning started bright and early with Makena waking up at 5 a.m. Steve and I tried to get her to fall back to sleep for the next 3 hours with no luck. She must have sensed that something was up. We decided to wake up Alyssa and Riley at 8:00, which didn't go over too well. They obviously take after me in the sleep department. Lesson learned for next year...DO NOT wake up the kids early.

Lissy showing off their new house!

Makena playing with the new shopping cart.

Lissy trying out her new drill.

We spent Christmas afternoon at my brother's house which is always a guarantee for good food and good company. Each year will just get better as the girls get older and run around after their cousins.

Riley showing some Christmas cheer!

My step-sister Kristen with our neice Sophie. At least I managed to take a couple good pictures of the day.

Now for the goofy pictures....

Casey, Jodi, Katie, Kristen and Sophie acting like the dorks that we are.

There was one gag gift this year and my brother was the lucky recipient. He is a bit follicly challenged, so Steve found a golf visor that had a built in hair-piece. I have a feeling that this gift will provide much laughter in years to come!

My dad was a good sport and tried the visor on for fun!

Big thanks to all our friends and family who celebrated the holidays with us. The girls loved all of their gifts and we are so thankful for the love and thoughtfulness you all bring into our lives.

The girls first overnight trip

Our Christmas holiday started last Thursday night when the girls made their first trip to San Francisco and stayed the night in a hotel (with mommy, daddy and nanny Mariya). Steve and I couldn't have survived the trip without Mariya's help. It still amazes me how much work it is to travel outside our house with the girls!

The purpose for the trip was to attend a breakfast with Santa on Friday morning that is hosted by Steve's company. All of the employees are encouraged to bring their kids in to eat and receive a gift from Santa. It was a really nice morning.

But, let me back it up to Thursday night. One of the main reasons that we have never taken the girls on an overnight trip is the sleeping arrangements. Let's face it, I need my sleep (even if it's only 6-7 hours a night) and I know that a hotel cannot provide the same comforts of home for my 3 little ones to ENSURE that we all get our sleep.

I was right.

We had the hotel bring up 3 pack-n-plays that we were going to try to get the girls to sleep in. It was our best option, but also the least likely to happen. Their regular bedtime is 8:00 p.m. At 10:30, everyone was still awake and the girls were fighting sleep and exhausted.

We ended up splitting up the girls between the 3 adults and each sleeping with one of the girls. They fell asleep by 11:00 p.m. and they were all up by 6:00 a.m. That's 4 to 5 hours less sleep than what they normally get in a night.

Lissy figured out quickly that the first thing you do in a hotel is find the things that aren't nailed down and stuff 'em in your suitcase.

The girl's first taste of room service!

Mariya with the girls.

Here is Lissy stuffing her face at the buffet breakfast. The girls gobbled up some serious food at this event. Everyone was commenting about how well they sat and ate. Little do they know there are daily food fights in our house with more food thrown than eaten.

Lissy all of a sudden loved Santa. She has been so scared of him every time we have gone out this year, but she stood in front of him all by herself and waited patiently until he called her name to collect her present.

Here are the girls ignoring unwrapping their presents.

The girls were more interested in playing with the rocks inside the atrium of the office than their presents. Which leads me to the next part of the story.

What trip away from home isn't complete without an injury. Soon after the above picture was taken, we decided it was time to get the girls out of the rocks before they gave the bosses kid a black eye from throwing rocks at him. I grabbed Makena and was trying to walk her out of the patio when she trips and falls and chips her front tooth. Her good front tooth. (Insert mommy's gasp of horror). I posted about her first accident here.

Makena's top front teeth now match. They look like she has two little crescent moons chipped out of the bottom of her top teeth. And they are sharp. God help the sister who gets bitten by her because those babies are surely drawing blood.

I must say that the girls were AWESOME in the car on the way there and back. If it wasn't for the portable DVD player that we used to keep them occupied it would have been ugly. I was impressed with how well they did.

The girls were all asleep within a half hour of heading home on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, they only slept for an hour in the car so we kept them entertained for the rest of the ride with more Elmo DVD's and food.

Makena's afternoon did not end on a high note. I decided that I needed to take her into the dentist to get her tooth checked when we got home. As she was snacking on some cookies in the car, she started crying and we noticed blood in her mouth. Her gums above the tooth that she chipped were bleeding and I was afraid she damaged her tooth worse than I originally thought. It was hurting her when she bit down into food.

Needless to say, she was NOT happy when we got home from out 3 hour car ride and I had to put her back into the car to go to the dentist. She was pissed and cried almost the whole way there. I felt so horrible for her. This is 2 year old who was working on 5 hours less sleep than usual with about half of the nap she normally gets. I knew I was asking alot from her to put up with me and the impromptu trip to the dentist. But because it was a Friday and we were going into the weekend before Christmas I didn't want to NOT take her in and have her tooth hurting her all weekend.

Makena did great at the dentist. She played in the waiting room for about 30 minutes while we waited. Poor baby had to have an x-ray taken and then the exam by the dentist. I had to hold her down while they checked her out. The news from the dentist was that the tooth was not mobile, which is good. We just have to watch it to make sure it doesn't turn gray, which would indicate nerve damage to the tooth. We go back for a check-up in a few weeks.

Makena was in bed by 5:45 p.m. and slept until 8:00 a.m. the next morning. We were all exhausted!

We survived our first overnight trip, but both Steve and I aren't making plans any time soon to do it again.

Exhausted

Lissy got the phone call confirming that Christmas is finally over.

Thank God. Because my kids have been absolute whiny, cranky, fuss-buckets for the last 3 days.

I was ready to wrap them up and give them away as presents today. But I kept them. And I'm hoping for a good night's sleep with a fresh start tomorrow.

Please Santa...just one Christmas wish for mommy!