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LiLi has some obsessions as I have mentioned before and one of them is snowmen. She loves the song “Frosty the Snowman” and her Nana has a book of the song and a little snowman bell that she can hold when the story is read to her. She calls them Thumper which comes from “Thumety, Thump, Thump look at Frosty go….” Anyhow, as you can imagine, she now has quite a few snowmen and she loves to point them out to you and give them hugs. Actually, she insisted on giving a snow globe with snowmen in it a hug yesterday. Sometimes when she see them she gets so excited that she almost cries and needs her lamby for comfort.
Last week it snowed. We came home on Monday night and I let LiLi out of the car and was getting the bags out while she stared across the street. Then I heard her same “Thumper” in this awed voice and then in an excited voice and then ask for her lamby because she was so excited, she was near tears. Sure enough, across the street someone had built a snowman. She was so thrilled that she wanted to go over and give it a hug. To make things even better, she could see him out the window of the house while she ate. Poppie came over for dinner that night and she kept pointing “Thumper” out to him. The next morning, she did not know whether to look at the bird feeder or the snowman(as the bird feeder did not have food in it, the snowman was a better bet).
On Tuesday morning, we walked across the street to look at “Thumper.” I am guessing that he was built by college students since his eyes and mouth were made from beer caps. She had her Nana take her over that night, too. Well, Wednesday morning, we again strolled over to the snowman and now he had very large male genitalia so we could not get too close. Then his facial expression changed later in the week to an “Oh” versus the original smile. Unfortunately, to all of our disappointments, he has now melted. The advantage of having a child whose favorite song is Frosty is that you can just tell her that he will be back again someday.

Unrelated picture except that we have to build snowmen with the playdoh

I am not a big football fan. I did not particularly like it as a child and did not begin to watch games until college when I lived in a quad and one of my roommates watched the college games on Saturdays and the other one watched the NFL on Sundays. I enjoy it now, but baseball is by far my favorite sport.
However, I have another friend whose brothers taught her the football signals when she was little and they are quite fun to learn(at least what few I know). Therefore, we have been teaching LiLi some football signals and it is really quite fun to get her to do them. Lately, she only does them when she feels like it. This disappoints her Poppie who loves to have her do the signals and keeps asking her for them. However, the other day, I was able to get her to do some signals and in celebration of football season and the patriots, here they are.

Holding

Offsides

Invalid fair catch

Invalid fair catch continued

Touchdown

Touchdown again

LiLi has spent the last couple of weeks visiting with her cousins. First her cousins from Brooklyn Lila and Clare came to stay with Nana and Poppie and LiLi enjoyed going over there to play with Lila. Her only real reference to Clare is saying baby.

LiLi, Clare and Lila

Last weekend we went down to visit Thom’s sister Becky, Uncle Mike, cousin Emily and Gram. LiLi had a lot of fun playing with cousin Emily. We went to the park and fed the ducks which are so tame that a lot of them will eat out of your hands. LiLi touched one duck but would not let them eat out of her hand. She then enjoyed swinging with Emily.
The next day we went to the zoo. It was a great zoo and the animals were very active. LiLi got to see the lion roar and the alpha male monkey try to attack the window of the observatory. That gave her a delayed scare. She was fine when it happened and then about 5 minutes later started to cry and wanted to move away but then about 5 minutes later she wanted to go back and see the monkeys again with Daddy. The whole trip was a lot of fun and LiLi enjoyed herself a lot.
LiLi also remains a great traveler. She was fabulous on the plane both ways even though both times she was tired. On the way there, we flew during bedtime and on the way back during her nap. Stickers worked very well at keeping her occupied. By the time we landed at Logan, LiLi had covered her whole face with snowmen stickers and she was a very happy child who thought she looked quite spectacular and kept feeling to make sure that the sticker was still on her nose.

LiLi, Emily and Uncle Mike

LiLi and Emily at the zoo

Well, we had a wonderful Christmas day the most wonderful part being having LiLi to celebrate it with us. Also our friend Sara Lee visited for Christmas which was a lot of fun and very special. Sara Lee was with us last New Year’s Eve painting the mural in LiLi’s room. That mural is such a wonderful part of our daughter’s life. I think it inspires her in so many ways. I will come in the morning and LiLi will be obviously talking to one of her animals and then she will point out different animals while she is on her changing table. The birds are, of course, her favorite as is Sammy, the naked mole rat.
As a family, we ended up with a very birdy Christmas. Thom and I got each other bird feeders. Ten months ago, neither of us had any interest in birds and now we have a bird feeder in the backyard and one in the window. Thom and LiLi enjoy looking through the bird identifcation book together and Thom enjoys looking at it by himself, too. LiLi also got 4 new Audobon birds including an owl.
LiLi loved unwrapping gifts. Her Gram had sent her a lot of presents and some for Maggie and they were perfectly wrapped for little hands and she opened all of hers and all of Maggie’s and then started to try to unwrap everything under the tree.
Later in the day, we went to Nana and Poppie’s. LiLi enjoyed hanging out with everyone and continues to be quite the charmer. One of her favorite people still is her cousin Lila. They seem to get along very well and love to make each other laugh. Nana has one of those Santa Claus’ that sings “Jingle Bell Rock” and swings his hips. LiLi and Lila spent a good hour swinging along to Santa and then breaking up into hysterical laughter. None of us wanted to break up their fun so they ended up going to bed later than usual.

Hmm, what is in here

Look a mitten

Now I am going to try on the mitten and hat

LiLi looking ready to go out into the cold except for the fact that she is in her pajamas

LiLi and one of her birds

LiLi enjoying her presents

LiLi and Lila eating Christmas dinner

LiLi and Lila playing with LiLi’s new kitchen