Happy New Year from Thailand

Well, the Blogger gods must have heard me lamenting (cussing, although I really don't cuss) the fact that I haven't been able to get pictures to post for the past 2 weeks, & did some magic on my computer. Because tonight, out of the clear blue, everything was seeming to work just fine. We shall see, when I actually go try to publish it. So, all's well that ends well, and I'm finally getting back to posting about New Years. Nice, now that it was a month ago. (Maybe Mr. Houtz, my freshman early morning jazz band conductor, was right when he warned me that I was going to be late to my own funeral. I think he jinxed me with his ominous prediction.)

And now, finally on to New Years.

So, what do farongs (foreigners) with small children do in Thailand on New Year's Eve?

First they go to the newest, closest shopping mall they can find & get some good eats. In our case, this happened to be Kentucky Fried Chicken in the brand new Central Department Store shopping complex which takes a little longer to drive to, but that we can get home from in a total of 7 minutes. That is fun when we aren't in the mood to sit in downtown Bangkok traffic. When are we ever in the mood for that? Devin & I would have chosen something different for lunch, but it's all about making the kids happy right?! And what kid wouldn't want potatoes & gravy with greasy chicken nuggets & red Fanta?




Then they would go see a really fun show in a really comfy theatre. So, we went to the brand new cinema in the same shopping center & saw Madagascar 2. The show was great! We laughed so hard! The worst thing about going to see movies in Thailand is the typical LOUD volume that Thai shows are so famous for. Note Rhees & Ambrian plugging their ears. The best thing about going to movies in Thailand is that you get really comfy seats, cheap treats, & tickets for an entire family of 6 (we don't have to pay for Kalen yet) that cost only slightly more than a single ticket does in the States.



Then they would walk, or skip if they were Kambren, & catch all the eyes of the natives who were visiting the same mall that day. Which we did.





After the movie, they would surely be hungry for ice cream, so they would stop at a creamery & indulge in some yummy ice cream cones, or brownies ala mode - minus the ala mode - if you were Rhees. So we went to Bud's Old Fashioned Ice Cream & got all sticky & drippy with dessert.



I guess Rhees hadn't gotten his brownies yet.




Once back at home, a farong family in Thailand on New Year's Eve would want to go swimming. And since there is no snow in Thailand on New Year's Eve, it is possible to do just that.
So we did. Even though the weather in January is cooler & the water felt freezing the kids loved playing in the pool. And we took silly pictures from under the water just to see what they would look like. (Maybe this is how film makers get their ideas for imaginary creatures that they invent for the movies.?)






Rhees. On your mark, get set......




Jump!

And Rhees, once in the water, doing his Aladdin sinking to the bottom of the sea impression.

Pretty little Aybrielle.




Kambren & Floppy Ears. We miss you Flops.





Darling little sisters & best friends! Ambrian & Aybrielle.




Rhees & Kambren.









Aybrielle pretending to be a frog.




Once inside & bathed & in jammies, children in a farang family living in Thailand, would want to play games before ringing in the new year. Fortunately Santa left a few new games for Christmas, so we could do that. If you haven't ever played Freddy the Fish, well, you're missing out. Freddie blows fish continuously through an imaginary stream of water out of his mouth, & the idea is to try to catch as many as you can in your net before the fish are all gone. This game is alot of fun, until you get tired of hearing the song "Swim said the Mommy Fishie" played over & over.





Then they would don party hats & continue the games until the big countdown.









Then, the farong children would definitely want to get out the noisemakers & confetti they had been waiting to use since before Christmas & make a lot of noise & lots of mess while cheering for the new year to arrive. Except that if you live at our house & you are under the age of 12, you would ring in the new year with Australia, several hours early for Thailand.




We had alot of fun on New Year's Eve & we hope you did too!!!

We love you!!!

This - Is - Siwious! (Get it? From The WonderPets)

This really is serious, & it is starting to bug me. I have been trying to do a new post several different times & it is not working. Every time I try to download pictures something fails & my pictures either say they cannot post to the blog because of an internal error, or if the pictures do post, they end up looking like they were over exposed. You can't even see the outline of the object(s) in the picture, only a mirage of colors. I have tried shutting down my computer & restarting. I have logged out of Blogger & logged back in. I have tried different events of pictures to see if it was just the group that I was trying to blog about or if it happens with all the pictures. It happens every time. This is really beginning to get frustrating & is feeling like I'm just wasting time. If anyone who reads this is a Blogger Pro, please let me know what is going on so that I can fix it & begin blogging again.

Thanks tons!!

And HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!! Year of the Ox!!

Just after Santa left

Don't you just love Christmas?

I do!

Christmas Day 2008

And now for the post you've all been waiting for. But I'm telling you what, I could have spent another 5 hours just deciding on pictures. I'm so crazy when it comes to pictures. Everything is a Kodak Moment for me. Needless to say you're in for a long one. But, when it comes to pictures of Christmas, there can't ever be too many. Enjoy our fun morning!


Waiting at the top of the stairs to make sure the Santa had finished &
flown back up the chimney. Oh wait, we don't have a chimney.....
P.S. Don't you just love my towels hanging all over the railing? The beauty of having a pool right next door.



Finally, the long awaited, much anticipated morning has arrived! The kids did feel like it took forever for Christmas to come this year. And then having to wait another year in their rooms or at the top of the stairs before they got to go down & see the surprises.








The bunnies were definately a favorite! Rhees thought it was fun to put Snowball in the pocket of his jammies. Ambrian & Kalen thought it was cute too.



Kalen is wondering why they have to stay put in a cage.




Ambrian's favorite, our miniature Lop ear named, Floppy Ears.




Aybrielle was so excited to feed the little puffballs.




Kambren has just loved holding & playing with the bunnies. Here he is with Snowball.





Devin & I just loved watching the kids just having fun & enjoying Christmas morning. They didn't quit smiling until they were fast asleep.




Devin has been looking all over for an original songs Erasure CD. Mrs. Claus was the winner when she found it for Santa to leave in Devin's stocking.





Aybrielle just loves Nursery Rhymes, so Kalen gave her a darling book of them.



It really was time for a new bike for Kambren. He had grown out of his little bike & had to ride Aybrielle's or Rhees' old one (which was way too big for him - but he managed). He is thrilled to have his very own tall bike now.




Love those Christmas pictures together! Ambrian was on the other side of the room posing for Daddy's camera with Kalen.



Don't you just love seeing sisters hug each other!




And here is the pose on the other side of the room with Daddy's camera. So so sweet!




WoW! A laser pistol that really shoots bottles & cans over! How fun!




Daddy & Kalen enjoying a little snuggle.



So, while we were home this summer we went to stay at Bryce & Vicki's house. They had an electric guitar that you could make up your own cool rock songs on & Rhees really loved it. Bryce offered to let Rhees take it home, but Devin & I politely declined on account of the fact that the thing got to be really obnoxious. But, thanks to Santa, we now have one of our own. Rhees was thrilled. It came with earmuffs for the grownups of the family.....




Pretty little Aybrielle was so excited about the My Little Pony colored Play-Doh.




If you can't tell from Kambren's expression, he was more than thrilled to have a real live Tuck from Wonder Pets. He loves turtles so much anyway, & thinks that Tuck is just the best.




Each of the 3 youngest kids got a Wonder Pets play set. Kalen thinks they are the greatest. Each of them has a button that you can push which will say 3 different phrases that are common in the movies & also sing the theme song. He pushed the buttons over & over again. Each time at the end of the song when it says, "Go Wonder Pets, Yay!" Kalen would throw his hands up in the air & say "Yay!" . It was the most darling thing ever!






Isn't Kambren's Santa suit just the cutest ever! I saw it at the beginning of December in Carrefour & couldn't resist. He wore it around all morning until he opened a Cars shirt that he wanted to put on. As cute as it is, it was getting quite hot I think. His hair was all sweaty when he finally took it off.



Ambrian showing off her new locket with a heart on it. She has been asking for one for months now. You can't see it very well, but it is very pretty. That's my little girl for you, asking for jewlery.



Yep, more jewlery. She must take after her mom who loves to wear jewlery. What a darling Christmas themed charm bracelet.



The kids ended up opening some Wii games before they opened the Wii control unit. I told them that I guessed that they were going to have to go play the games on their friends' Wiis. You should have seen them inspecting the other gifts trying to find out if we really did get our own. When they finally found it they were so so excited. There were some girl games that were opened first & so the picture below is Rhees crossing his fingers hoping that he isn't going to have to play only girl games for the rest of the year until his birthday or next Christmas. Funny Rhees. He did end up getting some boy games too.



They finally found the Wii!


Rhees holding the prize.



And at the end of the day, I finally got everything all ready for our Christmas dinner. I was a little bit loopy from my all nighter & so take a close look at the table & you'll notice that I forgot to set the Christmas Ribbon Jello & the Ham on the table. I really did. I'm so dumb. The jello sat in the fridge & the ham remained in the oven the entire way through dinner. I sat there looking at our plates thinking, "This doesn't seem like everything. Did I have anything else I was going to do for dinner?" But it never occurred to me that yes, there were the 2 main parts of the dinner that were missing. Nice. I really must have been tired. Either that or I'm going senile. But the funny thing is, nobody else thought to go get the ham out of the oven either, or at least mention that it had been forgotten. Oh dear, we all must have been exhausted.



We did have such a fun Christmas day. The only thing that it was missing (besides the ham & the jello) was all of you. We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas of your own!