Christmas in the new house

When we first started thinking about Christmas, in maybe July, we thought we would all get together in Colorado this year.  Of course, circumstances change, and once we were a) pregnant and b) penniless from purchasing a new home, we decided everyone should come to San Francisco instead.  So started the traditions!

Before we headed off to St. Louis for Thanksgiving, we had to start the eggnog.  We use a recipe that sits in the garage for about a month, so we have to get this going early.  The alcohol has to be added to the eggs very slowly, so that the eggs don't curdle - Sam and I devised this ingenious setup which ran for about 25 mins.  We also added some amaretto this year, as an experiment, and used some rye whiskey in it as well.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, it's banana bread making time!  We have a traditional Yang family recipe we make, and now that we have 2 separate Yang strongholds, there might be some trash talking going on about who makes it better.  Charli helped us out - in addition to cleaning the mixer (only at the end!  I promise!), she is also not too bad at cracking eggs!

We were banana bread making machines!  9 recipes in about 4 hours; 57 loaves I think.

Now that we have a house, we can actually put up Christmas lights!  There just wasn't much point before, when we were in a condo where our windows were facing the alley and we had a big deck that made it hard to see our windows from the ground.

Charli tries on my Christmas finery

This is the first year in SF that we bought a cut Christmas tree - all the previous years we've had live ones.  I had forgotten how great it is to have a cut Christmas tree; I was totally psyched to bring it home and set it up, and it smelled so good!  Charli was very interested in helping to decorate this year.

She's also practicing her camera smile.

Yay Christmas at the new house!

Charli goes downstairs and puts these dresses on by herself, and then she comes upstairs and everyone oohs and aahs over her.  The dresses are of course all gifts, because I never buy Charli anything but shirts and jeans, but she sure looks adorable in them!

Every year Kelly sends Charli a gift to open on Christmas Eve.

They are always the cutest pajamas, and Charli LOVES these.  She wants to wear them all the time now.

Here's our tree on Christmas Eve.

And our fireplace!  We had a fireplace at the condo too, but it wasn't as suitable for stockings as this one is.

Christmas morning coffee

Charli in her Christmas pajamas, in the Christmas rocking chair from Biembaw and prickly Grandpa, holding the 3 pigs that Kim made her

Annual Christmas webcam with St. Louis

Charli's Christmas gift from Binka and Granpa, the most awesome tricycle ever

The terrible thing is that I hardly took any pictures, especially of anyone other than Charli, and we forgot to take family photos, too.  :(  So everyone was here for about 2 weeks, and we have 1 more bedroom now than we used to, so everyone actually got a bedroom (at the condo, Sam always had to sleep in the living room), and the kitchen was big and now that I think of it, did I not take any pictures of all the breads that Kim baked?  Kim is turning into a tremendous bread cook, and she made this AWESOME chocolate something loaf that took 3 days and was absolutely heavenly, and like 3 other breads too, all really delicious.  We also tried making chocolate dipped cashew butter coins, which went moderately, but it was fun.  I can't believe I have no pictures of these things.  Our eggnog this year turned out to be our best ever; we're not sure if it's because we used different alcohol or if it's due to an extra week of aging. Brent made fruitcake; we got a breadmaker before Christmas so we had bread from that, we got an ice cream maker for Christmas and made ice cream, we ate delicious strata and 6-week muffins, we made paper robots first thing on Christmas morning (stopped our gift opening cold for over an hour, and we hadn't even made it past the stockings yet), and I have pictures of none of it.  O well.  Hopefully next year I'll reread this post again before Christmas, and it will keep me on my toes (but probably not).  Someone else may have to be made Responsible.

Because Cec told me to

O, hello blog! I'd forgotten all about you. What's that you say - you could tell? So sorry...

So here's a lot of catch-up. What have we been doing since, well, a long time ago? Let's take a look!

At the beginning of September, we went to Tennessee for the annual Lawler family reunion.  Charli played with cousins in the Gallatin Lawlers' awesome backyard, was introduced to trampolines, and ate a lot of chocolate cake.

We also spent some time in St. Louis, during which I didn't take nearly enough pictures, but I did get this cute one of Kelly and Charli.  Charli also tried out Brian's old big wheel (can you believe it is still at his parent's house?) but her legs aren't long enough yet, and she also practiced her first golf swing.

Later in September, we took Taipo (great-grandmother) apple picking, which turned to mostly be picnicking, and family from all over Northern California joined in. 

Then one of my best friends, Daisy, got married (right before she moved to Hong Kong).  Charli was the flower girl!  So cute!  She carried all the flowers petals very slowly to the end of the aisle rather than scattering any, then threw a couple of handfuls at the end, and then she went behind all the party guests and threw the petals around the elevator area.

Random farmer's market photo

At the end of September, Kim and Brent came for what turned out to be a momentous visit.  We went to an open house, which we do quite often, but this time it was actually a relatively affordable house in a good location and a reasonable layout and size - the first we've seen with all those qualities at once.

Charli learns a new skill

In October, Grandpa Jerry (aka prickly grandpa) and Kelly came out for the annual Raiders game.  We went in all our gear, and it was an AWESOME game in which we beat San Diego and it was tons of fun.

At the end of October we closed on the house we first saw with Kim and Brent.  We picnicked there the first night, sans furniture.

Charli was a Raider for Halloween.  This is her mean look.  :)  You should see her 3 point stance!

We moved into the house at the beginning of November.  Mom and Dad came out to help.  This is our first meal that we actually cooked in our giant new kitchen!  Our old kitchen had 3 wall cabinets.  Our new kitchen has about 30.  We could put each appliance in its own cabinet!

For Thanksgiving, we made our traditional pilgrimage to St. Louis, where Charli and Katy celebrated their birthdays (3 and 19, respectively).  This is the trip where Charli for the first time really appreciated the wonder of deep fried turkey skin.

We also cut down Christmas trees, took family pictures, and ate Christmas Tree Soup as we love to do every year on Christmas Tree Day.

I obviously get very few pictures of myself; I should copy more from everybody else's cameras.  This is the only one I have showing the other major thing keeping us occupied beside the house - we are expecting a boy at the end of March.  The classy wrinkles in my shirt are there particularly to emphasize that point.  You can also see, if you look closely, the lovely manicure that Charli gave me.

Random rainy day picture

We were wandering around one day, and we came across the Nihonmachi school making fresh mochi (I mean REALLY fresh - here they're pounding rice or rice flour I think).  The drums drew us to the scene, from several blocks away.  What an awesome town this is!

Preparing for a whale watching trip!

aloha!

Early this month we took a trip to Hawaii for my cousin's wedding. We spent a week in terrific weather hanging out with family and friends and generally having a super relaxing time and eating a ton. What more could a person want?

	We rented a house in Kailua, which is on the windward side of Oahu (it's about 30 minutes from Honolulu, on the leeward side). The windward side is WAY better! Breezy all the time! Never hot! Brilliant!
	The house was a jewel, with a beautiful little swimming pool and a huge kitchen with a wonderful sink. We spent a lot of time in and around each (well, not in the sink).
	We grilled, too. Delicious!
	We went to the botanical garden and ran and drove around. It was beautiful!
	Except for this - a disgustingly ugly tropical flower!
	We went on a super muddy hike (didn't make it to the end) where we found that some of us really didn't have the right footwear (like me) and that Charli doesn't like to get dirty (hope we've broken her of that).
	We introduced Charli to shave ice. She likes it (duh)!
	We went to some beaches.
	We had a picnic with 40 or 50 of Mom's relatives (not that you can tell from this picture).
	We went to the north shore and saw sea turtles.
	We hung out at my uncle's house and Charli fed the fish very fast.
	We went to my cousin Cecily's wedding and it was lovely and fun and we had a great time!
	Charli wore some more wedding finery, of course.
	She also participated in her first chicken dance. :)
	We had The. Best. Malasadas. Ever! Agnes' Portuguese Bakery is the bomb! They make their malasadas when you order them! Way better than Leonard's!
	Then we had to come home. We picked Charli up from the checked baggage and headed for BART and cold, foggy San Francisco.