Splashing in Singapore

'Twas the Night Before Christmas....

I love having Christmas Eve just our family at home in cozy PJs. We always have cheese fondue and a LOT of excitement. I love being married to Mateo who LOVES Christmas so much and is the very best Santa helper/elf in the world!

Santa Lucia, American Club Santa, and Team Challenge

Since Mateo is part Scandinavian, we love celebrating SANTA LUCIA every 13th of December. The kids get dressed up in their Swedish outfits and we eat Abelskivers and sing the Santa Lucia song (well we try to at least).

We love attending the Danish market because they have such lovely European decorations and special crafts for the kids....not to mention, abelskivers!

It's our Singapore tradition - seeing Santa at the American Club! He's our favorite Santa.

This year, Astrid and Jeff invited us with their family to sing and have lunch with the boys/men of TEAM CHALLENGE, a halfway home for people to make the transition from prison to the real world. We met such warm and kind people who had beautiful messages of hope and change for the Christmas season. Definitely a wonderful way to share some holiday cheer.

Parties! Parties! Parties!

I just LOVE Christmas parties! Here are some of my favorite people in Singapore celebrating with our family and making the season so MERRY and BRIGHT!

Melissa and Randall's Sing-a-More is such a highlight to start off the Season because it's all about music, singing, and celebrating our Savior through music. It was a delightful affair.

The Gatlin Christmas party was HILARIOUS because of all the White Elephant Gifts. I am so glad that I passed my first trimester so I was well enough to bake my traditional Buche de Noel AND enjoy everyone's company.

We had Niko's playgroup over for a Kids & Mom Christmas Brunch. Nine mothers and 26 kids squeezed into our home for cookie decorating, crafts and kiddie fun.

Probably one of our FAVORITE tropical Christmas activities is the magical TANGLIN SNOW with all its bubbles and glory. Dinner with friends at Chilli's before really makes us feel like we're in America.

I love this Jane! My kids adore Jane and Blake and having them on all our Singapore outings....we were laughing that we were at every single Christmas party together....guests changed...but Moores and Furners were ever faithful... this photo represents having a NEW CAMERA and learning some great tricks from my friends already. Malia and family below are so adorable - she's an amazing photographer and she's the talented one who took our photos and did our Xmas card this year.

Brooke and Stuart had Ocean's 3rd birthday party and Christmas party all in one....their apartment is so spacious (they're with the State Dept.) and perfect for entertaining! My camera setting was left on manual by mistake, sorry for the blurry shots...still learning.

Christmas Adult Dinner Party at Jeff and Astrid's

Canadian Int'l School Christmas Parties

The new principal of the school decided to put ALL my kids' class Christmas parties on the same day so it was a little bit of a crazy time preparing crafts and cookies for that many kids, but it all worked out and the kids had a wonderful time! I recruited Mateo to help me run Ethan's class party b/c 4th graders are the MOST energetic, especially when it's GAME TIME. Photo is of Niko in front of the NEW campus we moved into last month.