For Thanksgiving this year we decided to have 15 of our friends and 8 of their children over for dinner.  The day before I was questioning my sanity but it ended up being such a great Holiday. And I’m pretty lucky to have a husband who likes to cook Thanksgiving dinner and loves to host Thanksgiving as much as I do.  And he looks pretty good doing it!  He made the Turkey, gravy, stuffing and pecan pie all of which were delicious.

Our building has table and chairs you can rent for a grand total cost of 6 bucks! It was so nice being able to fit everyone at one table. I meant to take some pictures of the food and the tables before everyone arrived, but of course I napped for an hour instead and when I woke up I had to rush to get ready. Oh well.  Here is the one I took of the table.  I had no tableclothes big enough for this table set for 20 so I had to hodgepodge something.  Not the greatest but when it was covered with food noone noticed.

Even better – the dessert table.  Mmmm, Randy made his pecan pie and all the other desserts people brought.

Guess who was also here for Thanksgiving!

Grandma Yuyu! She flew in Wednesday night and is here visiting for two weeks.

Here are all the kids, who were great.  They played so well together the entire time.  They all sat on the couch for a good 20 minutes while we took a million pictures of their cute faces.
  

We also took one of all the ladies.  The boys opted out of a posed prom picture but I think the ladies look pretty great.  Adam insisted on being in this shot with us.

Here’s my friend Jenny who is due with her second girl any day now, yet she still insisted on making and bringing a delicious sweet potato dish, two pumpkin pies and homemade cranberries!

I have been loving the holidays with Adam.  He understands so much and gets so excited about things! We had some candles lit at dinner that we have been lighting for dinners since Thanksgiving and Adam LOVES it.  He gets super excited and loves blowing them out.  Practice for his birthday cake in a couple of days!

I have so much to be thankful for this year.   Amazing friends and family, those back at home, those visiting and those that we’ve been lucky enough to already meet here.  A beautiful, healthy, funny almost two year old, a wonderful loving husband and a little baby who will be here in just 13 weeks!

We wanted to show Carrie and Simone some of the Philippines so we picked them up from the hotel and headed to Tagatay.  Tagatay is a city up in the mountains Taal Volcano which sits in the middle of a lake.  It’s about an hour and a half each way but we were lucky our toddlers are so well behaved in the car, oh yeah and we had Olivia show and Mickey on the Ipad.

We went to Taal Vista, a hotel with an amazing view of the volcano for lunch.  

We’ve been so lucky to get some great pictures of the four or use lately.  I can’t believe I’m already 25 weeks pregnant! That baby will be here before we know it.

Just last week we found out that our friends Carrie, Frederick and Simone were coming to the Philippines! This is Adam’s first visit from a friend of his and he’s having the best time with her.

The last time they were together was the day before we left DC, and they looked like this.

Now, almost a year later they look like this. 

We took Carrie and Simoone to ourt favorite coffee shop and shared a cup of ice with her.  Then we showed her our apartment and had some lunch.

This Saturday Randy and I got all dressed up and headed to the Marine Ball. It’s was the 238 birthday of the Marines and every year on their birthday there’s a big black tie ball.  Everyone in the embassy cleans up and heads over.  It’s sort of like a wedding without a bride and groom. 

I was determined to get some pictures before we headed out since I knew once we got there we would end up taking none.  I even had Adam take off his new awesome shirt from Aunt Daf and put on a fancy shirt.  This is Randy’s new favourite shirt!  Thanks Aunt Das and Uncle Mooj. And because they’re the best they sent a mini version for baby Ali.

I love when I get a picture of the three of us where we’re all looking at the camera and smiling.  A rarity.

 

We had a wonderful lazy three day weekend full of long walks and naps.  Come Sunday we decided to make some treats for a picnic and head to Ayala Triangle.  I made some spinach pies (as delicious as ever) and we made a yummy cobb salad and we got some cheeses and crackers.

Once Adam was up from his afternoon nap we loaded up the car and headed out.  About three minutes into our drive this happened.

We decided to head home and have the picnic on our living room floor, which ended up being the perfect plan.  Adam was enthralled with eating on the floor and loved the spinach pies.  We got to use real plates and listen to music.

After we ate Adam wanted daddy to read him some books.

Who could ask for two cuter picnic dates!

We’ve already been to the Aquarium a bunch, but when some friends invited us we couldn’t resist another trip. We went on election day in Manila which means it was a holiday here and the roads were amazingly free of traffic.  What took us two hours the other night in traffic took me 15 minutes.

We met our friends and headed over.

Adam loved it as always but this time the real hit was the jeepney.

 We had so much fun at the aquarium this happened five minutes after we left to drive home.

Here are some pictures of the three of us before we headed out.  21 weeks and I’m starting to feel like I look very pregnant.  Only 19 weeks to go 🙂

The Embassy threw a Halloween party this past Saturday and Adam once again donned his pumpkin costume and we headed over.  It was at Seafront which was nice because it was a totally contained and safe place to trick or treat. 

This time Adam was even more into Halloween and the games. 

Adam loved trick or treating! He held his little pumpkin out and said trick or treat and then tried to walk into every house.

Adam is definitely a Halloween fan! His good mood continued even through the two hours of traffic it took us to get home.  That’s a pretty amazing holiday if you ask me.

My friend Kate is going to have a baby boy in just a couple weeks.  I decided to take a trip over there to see her and to talk all things baby and to celebrate Kate before we both have little newborns.

Kate is 14 weeks more pregnant than me and still has more energy than I had before I was pregnant.  She’s amazing.  We traipsed all around Hong Kong looking at the prettiest baby stuff and maternity stuff.  It’s so wonderful that we’re pregnant at the same time and close enough to see each other.  Who could have ever imagined that when we were sitting in my flat in Marylbone.

I flew in Friday afternoon and a quick hour and 40 minutes later i was there!

Friday night we went to a barbeque Kate’s boss had on a roof deck.  It was awesome.  Tons of grilled meat and a beautiful view.

Saturday we had a yummy breakfast at home and headed out.  Kate’s friends had planned a surprise lunch at a yummy restaurant followed by a mani pedi for her baby shower.  It was such a fun girly day and Kate’s friends were all so sweet and so happy for her.  After a full day out we headed back to Kate’s apartment, had a yummy dinner and watched Grey’s Anatomy all night. Heaven! It was really nice to have a completely girly weekend with Kate before she becomes a mom and judging by how comfy I was the whole weekend, that is one lucky baby boy.

I miss Kate but I’m so happy we’re so close and I can’t wait to come visit and meet her precious little boy! I’m pretty lucky to have Kate in my life and to have her so close by. 

I was happy to get home to this little boy though! He loved his Hong Kong bus I brought him.

Adam had two Halloween parties to go to and since he’s been obsessed with pumpkins we decided the best costume for him is a pumpkin!

His first party was at school and the theme was hats so he made a special hat just for the party to wear with his costume. I’ve never seen a cuter pumpkin.  He loved his costume which was great because he kept it on.

When we got to the party there were games and treats.

Adam’s friend Victoria was there to play games with him!

 And Adam’s favorite teacher, Tiffany was there too.

Then it was pinata time. At first Adam didn’t really know what to do, but he figured it out and loved it.  He even went back for another try.

We’re so lucky that Adam has such a great school that puts so much thought and time into making a great Halloween paty that all the kids loved!