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

We have a tradition of going to my Aunt Mary and Uncle Don’s house for Christmas Eve. We sit around and talk and eat and eat and eat. This year was very special in that 2 of my cousins have had babies this year as has my sister and of course, LiLi came into our lives. The last time we were all together, LiLa was the only child in the family and now there are 5 children. We all dressed in our outfits that we had bought in China. I was suprised that LiLi’s outfit still fit but it did. LiLi has one cousin(2nd cousin once removed to be exact) whose mother is Chinese so he, too, was wearing a special Chinese outfit.

Christine with baby Clare in the sling, Lila, LiLi, Luke and Atticus

LiLi fell asleep at Aunt Mary and Uncle Don’s and we put her in her carseat for the ride home and rather than falling back to sleep, she just stared off into space and then every once in a while she would say Santa and then go off into her trance. She did this the whole 1 hour car ride home. Once she was put in her crib she just rolled onto her side and fell asleep.