Christmas

Merry Christmas y'all! Hope you all had a wonderful and joyous day with your families and loved ones. I sure did! As you know, my mom, niece, hubby, and I spent Christmas eve making tamales. Oh, it was a lot of work. But so worth it in the end. Everyone loved the tamales and ponche :).  Here's Clarice just waiting to open all the gifts...

I gotta admit I was beat. After doing the tamales I went and took a shower and changed into tights and a tshirt! Yup. I did not feel like getting dressed up at all. I didn't even put make-up on. So sad :(. . .lol... It's crazy, but I seriously just felt beat. It made me appreciate all that my mom does for us though. I mean she never stopped to rest. Not Once. I truly admire her strength because she had dialysis earlier that day and she still managed to be full of energy. Love that woman! Here she is after opening her second gift... which was some more moola. She loves to play in Vegas, so now she has some extra cash to play :)

George, my sister's hubby got her a framed portrait of two of their wedding pictures. She was happy. They're lovely. He's like Santa Claus.... his presents were on going. LOL.... cute :)

Then we have my two beautiful nieces. Clarice had already opened all her gifts while Angie was at her dad's. So we got to see her open hers Christmas night. She's so cute and in love with hippos. Any size, shape, or form.... she loves them. Here are a few new ones that she's added to her collection. Watching her play "Mama hippo" is the cutest thing ever! Little Secret: I think it would be the sweetest thing ever if my baby had a stuffed animal addiction like Angie. Maybe to little stuffed Lions :) hehehehe.

Manuel had to go to work before midnight, so we decided to change it up a bit and began opening presents at 9pm that way he didn't miss out. I really appreciate my family for taking him into consideration. He was very happy. Here he is opening one of his our gifts.... movie tickets! We love going to the movies!

This is Salvador. He's my step-dad. An awesome, kind, and giving man. My mom is very fortunate to have found him. Since my mom's kidney failure he's been the most awesome-est man ever. He got nothing but colognes from everyone. Hahahha... he loves to smell good :)

Luis, my brother got liquor. He was very happy about it. Luckily, he doesn't drive so he can enjoy his little bottle. LOL...

And finally here's George... trying out his new sweater. Fit him perfectly. 

So how was your Christmas? Did you have a big party or a small family dinner like us? Well whatever you did hope you had fun and thanked God for your meal and the memories that were made! Have an awesome rest of 2011!  eeeeeeeeeekkkkk!

P.S. Just in case you're wondering, we haven't shared the news with the family yet. It's killing me to do so, but we're going to after our appointment tomorrow. Maybe invite the family to dinner... :) How exciting! 

Christmas Eve Tamales

What a day it's been! We woke up early and started prepping for the day long tamale making. Man, they are hard work. You gotta get EVERYTHING ready before even starting all while preparing the famous Christmas Eve Ponche. Yummm. My mouth is watering just thinking about all the yumminess that we'll be enjoying toward the end of the evening. My mom always makes the best tamales and I'll admit I never really helped. But today I actually dove right in and helped with everything and I'm beat! I was standing for hours and my back is killing me. I'm tired and all I want to do is take an eight hour nap. LOL. So right now I'm supposed to be resting, but I decided to blog about the process instead because later on I'll just be too tired to remember.... So here are some pictures of the process... Maybe next year when I'm all about I want tamales I'll remember the hard work and think about it more. lol..... But yeah, the house smells delicious! 

By the way, these are Guatemalan tamales. Yum. Yum. Yum! 

Christmas Shopping

Manuel and I went to the Santa Monica Promenade or as it's known now the Santa Monica Place. I hadn't been there in years. It's a pretty nice little mall out in the open air. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't that perfect as it rained on us a bit. Not too bad, but enough to get my hair all in a frizz. I was hoping I'd get everyone their gifts, but that was not happening. At least I was able to get the kiddos their gifts. I'm sure they'll love 'em. Now I gotta get the rest of the family in the next 6 days. :/