Last Days of 2008

Since we are such party animals, I decided to do a blog posting on New Year's Eve. I figured this was a great opportunity to show you what we did the last few days of 2008.

This is what the girls saw when they woke up on Christmas morning.

On Christmas Day my dad's brother and his family came to celebrate with us. This time my father was the chef and he whipped up a storm. From left: Paul and Epi.



Here's a great group shot with my first cousin Angela and her family.


The girls made several ornaments for the tree this year. Here's one of their works of art.

We visited Julian for the first time in hopes we could play in some snow. It was short on snow, but that didn't stop the girls from jumping on every pile of snow on the side of the street.

My niece and nephew taught the twins through example how to have a snowball fight. So now whenever the girls see snow, it's thrown in our face. Fun !!

We visited the San Diego Zoo and Maya had a great time taking pictures of the goats with the new digital camera she got for Christmas. Thank god she isn't reaching for my camera anymore.

Here's Sahara posing with a friendly goat.

Here's Sahara kissing the goat. Did I mention she loves animals.

Here's Tata Rose with the girls on a silver polar bear.

Here's the gang with a giant silver polar bear. From left: Tata Rose, Tisha, Sahara, Maya and Andre.

Here are the girls with daddy Nader and their good friend Olivia heading to our neighbor's house to enjoy the new trampoline they got for Christmas.

This is way better than the girls jumping on my couch and bed.

Look at my little Energizer bunnies.

Sahara is also known as "Stunt Woman" by her gymnastics teacher. I'm not sure if that is good, at least for my house.

Here's Olivia a little worn out from watching the twins. She is enjoying the fairy wings and digital camera that the twins got for Christmas. I have to say, I'm so proud that the girls are finally sharing and playing nice with their friends. Now I don't need to stand around like a referee or body guard.

We went to the Festival of Lights at the Wild Animal Park.

Look how cute they look.

Check out the snowman.

The girls made some crafts.

Some of our friends met us at the park. From Left: Kimi, Klara, Alyssa and Khloe.

The girls love the carousel and because the token machine was broken we all got to ride for free. Yippeee !

Sahara got to ride the camel. It's her favorite.

Okay, enough pictures.

We wish all our family and friends a wonderful New Years.

Holiday Cheer

The holidays have been pretty festive so far. Papa Epi is visiting from Washington State, my nephew and niece Andre and Tisha are visiting along with Tata Rose. So the house has been full of family. Maya and Sahara are absolutely thrilled about this.

Here's Maya decked out in wrapping paper.

Here's Andre, Maya, Tisha and Sahara posing by the tree.

Look at these smiles.

Close up !

Here's another shot of my nephew and niece.

Nader and I went to a Christmas party hosted by F & W, the company he consults for. It was held on a beautiful yacht in Newport Beach. Fancy -schmancy.


They even had carolers.


It was nice to see that nothing really changes, as seen in the picture above.

Christmas at Lego Land

Here are the girls hanging out with a lego Santa.

This was the first time the girls got to ride this horse ride. They look so grown up riding it all by themselves.

Sahara ran over to me as I was getting off the slide to show me a leaf she found.

Here's Maya coming down one of the slides.


The girls love this lego elephant. It moves and blows water from it's trunk.

Check out the monster lego Christmas tree.


Here's another first. The girls got to ride in the front of the choo choo train all by themselves.

Christmas is just days away and we are expecting many relatives to visit on Christmas day. So we have been busy cleaning and decorating the house. The girls on the other hand have been doing a pretty good job of messing up everything we clean. And because it's been raining these last few days, they have been stuck indoors. So to keep themselves busy they have been ditching their clothes every chance they get and taking all the cushions off the couch and using it as a trampoline. It's doesn't matter how many times we put their clothes back on or put the couch back together, it always ends the same. So we are now cranking up the heat to try to keep their little buns warm. We hope everyone is keeping their buns warm this holiday.

Carrots, Cows and Donkeys

Just about every week we visit this beautiful estate home in Fallbrook which has two donkeys and three cows. The girls love to feed them carrots.

Here's Maya hanging on the fence with a donkey and cow in the background.



Here are the girls feeding the donkeys carrots.



Maya actually took this picture of the cows. The girls call the big one with the horns, "horns". Fitting.

Sahara decided to kick off her shoes and let the donkey nibble on her feet. It was funny until the donkey nibbled a bit too hard and Sahara started crying. Bummer.

Fallbrook Gymnastics Christmas Recital

A few days ago the girls had their first gymnastics event. It was a Christmas recital and the girls did a frosty the snowman performance. The girls were so excited about the performance that they kept on rushing the stage and running around it like they were crazy. I guess they don't have an ounce of stage fright in them.

Here's Maya and Sahara warming up for their performance.

The girls good friend Lauren was their with her mommy.



Here's daddy and Maya.

Here's the little speed demon smiling right before she took off running for the stage. Let's just say that mommy got a good work out that night chasing their little tails around.

Here's Maya bursting with excitement.

With all the running around they did I was surprised that they did not run out of energy before their performance.


Here they are doing their circuit. It's a mommy and me class so both Nader and I were there to assist our little ones. The picture was taken from a distance but if you look real hard you can see Maya getting on the balance beam and Sahara behind her with the instructor doing a flip.

The cutest part of the night was when Maya and Sahara was watching the advanced groups do their routines. Maya started following and imitating their every move. It was really adorable to see them admire the big kid routines.