Christmas 2011

Our 2011 Christmas tree! It is has all homemade ornaments on it. This year Zane added a few that he made.
Zane is totally into 'Baby Jesus'. He shouts it out whenever we see one. "BABY JESUS!!!!!". This is pretty common since we live close to a Virgin Mary statue that is holding the baby Jesus.
He was really excited when I put up my Willow Tree Nativity set. However, within 2 hours a sheep's leg was broken. So I decided we should make one Zane could play with. I found this toilet paper roll nativity set on Pinterest! Easy and Fun. It is missing the 3 kings because we put those out on Jan. 6 for 3 kings day. We used this set at Children's church too!

Christmas Eve started early for us. We went to our friend's home to deliver some presents around 8pm. See the whole story on our blog Being Part of a Christmas blessing.

Then around 10:30pm we arrived at the PARTY! Our neighbors from our old neighborhood, Gabby, Sergio, and Agustin, invited us to their family Christmas. It was such a blessing to be with a whole family: Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles, cousins, brothers, and sisters. We totaled about 40 people. Here Zane & Balti are going crazy with excitement, because in EVERY direction there are fireworks going off. Almost every family sets off their own personal fireworks for 20-30 minutes around midnight. Some families or should I say teenagers set off fireworks ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT & EARLY MORNING!!!!

At midnight, families always toast in Christmas and give greetings and blessings to everyone.

Now the kiddos get their own Snaps to throw and make noise;)

After the toasting and fireworks, the children run to the Christmas tree where 'Papa Noel' AKA Santa has left presents for each child. Here Zane opened up a Ben 10 action figure. He has never watched the show but he sure knows who he is. Every kids raves about Ben 10.

Zane and Agustin are showing Agustin's dad their Ben 10 action figures. Such excitement!!!!
We had a great time celebrating Christmas with the Rengel family. They are such a blessing in our lives. We always feel welcomed and loved.

We arrived home around 4am and slept til noon. Not the average North American Christmas where the parents are woken up at 5 or 6am to open gifts with overly excited kiddos.

However, we did open a few gifts on Christmas afternoon. Here Zane is opening up a Mickey Mouse Sorry Game. He said, "THIS IS MY FAVORITE. I LOVE IT!"

He also opened up a few gifts via skype with our family.

And then more gifts as the later packages arrived. He really had about 3 Christmases all spread out over 3 weeks! :)
These are some pictures from Christmas eve day.... As you can see NO SNOW! Quite the opposite in fact. Just doesn't really FEEL like Christmas in the heat.
Hot or Cold, we had a great 2011 Christmas.

Thank you Heavenly Father for sending your son to live among us and giving us the grace we so desperately need to save us.