Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!!!
This year we had the company of my family for the holidays. My brother, Henry and his wife, Christine, came to visit from New York while my parents came from STL to stay for an entire month! That is, until they decided that their stay was too long and decided to book their return flight 2 weeks earlier than planned. They cited “being too busy at home” as their main excuse for leaving early. Which begs the question, what in God’s name are two retired people too busy at doing? I guess they should be entitled to their own space and free-will without having the added pressure of caring for two cute adorable grand-daughters – grand-daughters that love their Grandpa Gong-gong and Grandma Poh-poh sooooo much.
But back to the Holidays…
December started with a little birthday festivity for yours truly. I reluctantly entered my 35th year of life by celebrating with my family. As predicted, Bella offered demanded to blow out the candles so I got the chance to take some pictures.
Bella's birthday?
35 flames of fury
Maddie tries ice cream for the first time.
Never did I ever imagine that I would have a wonderful and loving husband, and two beautiful little girls – all before I turned mid-thirties! Although I couldn’t ask for more than the love of my wonderful and supportive family, this year I was double blessed with TICKETS TO SEE LADY GAGA in NYC!!!!!!!!! More on that event later…
Christmas dinner was even less stressful than Thanksgiving. Instead of the traditional homemade dinner, we all opted to eat at a nearby restaurant where they served a full-course Christmas feast. Surprisingly, the food was not only edible, but quite scrumptious. And thankfully, to my father’s great pleasure, the restaurant was conveniently located downstairs in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying. Yes, this year they stayed most of their visit in a hotel (at their request), which to us, signals their desire to relinquish their role as secondary caregivers to Grandparents-who-occasionally-visit-on-vacation.
On to the gift-giving festivities. What Christmas would be complete without the gift of literacy? Bella has been perfecting her spelling skills and cleverly (albeit, incorrectly) labeled the gift bag. This was too cute to ignore:
Bella mislabels the "presit" (present)
When it came to opening all the Christmas gifts, Bella took center stage under the tree where she viciously tore open gift after gift, looking for the one gift on her “Wish List for Santa”. She mumbled a meek “thank you” to Auntie Christine and Uncle Henry as she opened a box of clothes (which were quickly tossed aside to make room for new boxes). Three boxes and four gift-bags later, she finally ripped open a box shaped like a DVD movie case…
Bella cackles with glee when she finds her prized DVD
“The Wizard of Oz! It’s here! It’s here! I knew it would come. Oh, boy! Oh boy!” she exclaimed. The next day (and several days thereafter), Bella sported her signature Dorothy costume, an ensemble put together with her own creativity – a blue checkered dress over a white shirt, red ruby slippers, with her hair tied up in two braids. You can only guess what the entire household watched over and over the rest of the week.
And who could forget that this was Maddie’s first Christmas? Grandma Poh-poh bought a cute little bib and santa hat set that seemed a little too small even for her little head:
Wah! take it off, it's too tight!
Seems like Maddie took advantage of the distracted gift-openers to go joy-riding in Bella's Dora car. Unfortunately, stealing your big sister's car won't be so cute once they hit their teens.
Maddie opens her first gifts
Happier times with Auntie Christine and Uncle Henry (see Little Christmas Gift when Bella was last left alone with Uncle Henry and Auntie Christine)
Kids in the sit n' stand stroller on our morning walk
Happy Holidays!
2 comments:
Cute!! love the pictures! You guys got a sit n stroller too! Which one did you get?
happy new year! looks like a fun time with the chou's! and i'm liking the photos with the new camera! :)
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