Merry Christmas!

We hope you had a blessed and wonderful Christmas and continue to enjoy the season! Ours was, as usual, interesting! Sebastian is thankfully beginning to feel much better. On Christmas Eve he finally began eating more and in the evening when we went to my Aunt Monica's house for festivities he was excited to play for a little while with his cousin Angelica. He didn't open any presents because he fell asleep, but we saved them for Christmas Day.

At our friend Cathy and Zach's wedding, they played this game called "table presents." Typically you'd play on a table, but we just set ours up on the floor. We thought this was a really neat tradition and wanted to share it with our families. Each family had a string attached to a gift and all at once had to pull their string to find their gift.

As the families opened the gifts they were in for quite the surprise! Each contained a homemade Christmas ornament that said...

It's a BOY! or Es un NENE!

The secret is out! We are SOOOOO excited to have another little boy, especially since they will be so close in age. They will have so much fun together!

At the news everyone was gasping and clapping and cheering and Sebastian was just a bit confused...then he started crying. He didn't take the news so well. =)

My Mama's favorite present was a special book I made her of just her and Sebastian.

Along with the Christmas festivities we were also celebrating my Titi Monica's marriage to Nandy. We celebrated with a toast, exchange of rings and cake. Here is a picture of the new blended family - Monica and Angelica with Nandy's two grown kids.

Exhausted, but happy. Merry Christmas!

On Christmas morning, Sebastian was not feeling his best. He opened a few gifts, but we ended up saving the majority for another day when he felt better. He did enjoy tearing the gift wrap of a few of them though and he would say "abre!, abre!" which means "open" in Spanish.

Later on, we went to Nana and Papa's house where he got his little red car from them. Wow! (Those were his words once he saw it.) He was so excited and played for about an hour just getting in and out and driving even though he didn't feel well.

Video - turn up volume and click the play button.

Sebastian playing with his car on Christmas morning.

He kept doing this little "excited dance" you will see in a minute.

It's very cute!

A few days later he opened his gift from Abuelita - an art easel with chalk on one side...

...and magnets and dry erase on the other. He LOVED it and again, has been so excited to play with it throughout the day.

Two days later, the car is still a huge hit. As soon as he wakes up in the morning, he runs over to it and gets in and out at least 10 times with a huge grin on his face.

We slowly continue to open Christmas presents and have found that he really seems to be able to take the time to enjoy them more this way. So I think it will be a week long Christmas event for us. As of today, he is certainly back to his normal self, although he is still coughing. We have felt so blessed and so overwhelmed with all the gifts. We are thankful for so much loving family and friends, but at the same time feel so torn because we want to find a way to give back and make sure that our children grow up knowing that Christmas is about giving as well. As we look at the mountain of toys, books and singing gadgets, we know Sebastian is enjoying them, but also hope that in the coming years, we can make sure our family understands that we have so much more than we could ever need and truly want for nothing...

Today was Paul's 29th birthday and we celebrated with a lunch at our apartment with our families. We had a great time and Sebastian and Daddy both thoroughly enjoyed the cake. =)

I've posted additional Christmas photos too, so click here if you want to see more pictures! At the top is mostly pictures of my Titi's wedding, but towards the bottom are more Sebastian Christmas pictures. Enjoy!

We will continue blogging in 2009! We know it will be an exciting year of moves, a new addition to our family and entering the toddler years. We look forward to it and know that God will continue to guide us on this path! Happy New Year!