The Ramos Family

We celebrated Christmas Eve with Paul's family at Mike & Myra's house. There was SO much unbelievable food - Tita Li made all of the Filipino favorites plus everyone else brought something to share. Everytime I walked into the kitchen or just nearby, I had to try one (or two) of the goodies! As always, it was a laughter-filled, loud and fun evening! Lots of games for the kids and adults and opportunities to win money! Lolo and Lola are always so generous! Lola put a bunch of money into a jar and each person gets a guess at how much is in there - the person with the closest guess, without going over, wins all of the money. There was a jar for the adults and one for the kids. Maria guessed $50 and there was $51 and she won! She was very excited and decided she would put the money in her donation jar for Feed My Starving Children.

There was also a talent contest for the kids - it was pretty entertaining. Maria played a song on the keyboard (and later sang O Come All Ye Faithful) and Bella sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas and twirled. There was lots of Jingle Bells and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer - TJ played his trumpet (very well) and Sophia played her recorder! Lolo had a tic tac toe game for the kids as well and all three of our kids won, they each got $10. Finally, there was the dice game for the kids and the prizes were gift cards to Target. All of the adults were watching closely, coaching (yelling at) their kids telling them to roll faster, get the $50 card, etc. It was pretty funny! Aidan & Owen ended up with the $50 gift cards, Maria got a $30 gift card! All-in-all, it was a pretty profitable night for her!

We decided to draw names for the kids this year because it was getting to be a bit much to buy for all of them. It was SO nice to just have a few gifts for each of the kids. Lorenzo got a Little Champ sports game from Sophia - it has baseball, basketball and football - yeah for sports stuff! Maria got a Hannah Montana guitar filled with makeup from Eddie and Bella got a Hannah Montana t-shirt and the Cheetah Girls - One World song/CD from Gen Gen. The girls both got a Hannah Montana doll from Lolo and Lola. Thanks everyone for the gifts!

The proud family!