Christmas Take Two

On Jan 15th we celebrated the holidays with Kai's family. We had a great time getting together with everyone and enjoyed all the wonderful food (especially the delightful seafood etouffe courtesy of Alan and Adair and Sarah's famous German Sweet Chocolate Cake).

Luci received a ton of awesome gifts - a Tinker Bell costume and doll & princess shoes (both of which she is now obsessed with wearing), from Auntie Heather, Uncle Jeff and Cousin Eme, a really cool marble run and Tonka trunk from Taty and Captain, a tutu, wand, sticker books and a cooking set from cousins Adair and Alan, a Ladybug Girl book from the Ballard family, adorable kitties and a special house for them & a video starring Danusia from Savannah (Luci's Secret Santa).

holiday cheer

happy new year to everyone! we wish you and your loved ones a very happy 2011.
here are some photos of our family over the holiday break which we spent most of in NY. luci really enjoyed this christmas. and seeing the holidays through her eyes, made kai and i really enjoy this christmas as well.

cuddling with Daddy

playing songs on her new christmas music book on Christmas Eve

leaving cookies and milk (not pictured) out for the fat guy in red (also not pictured)

checking out the loot in her stocking

one of the first gifts luci opened, a rain coat for her baby doll that matches the rain coat she has. there are not too many other pictures of luci opening gifts (of which she got way too many) because we videotaped the whole ordeal. however, because the date listed on the video camera was incorrect, kai thought it was an 'old' video and accidentally deleted it. maybe next year.

making music with Mimi

cleaning up after the unwrapping frenzy

opening her presents from Aunt Janet

Googling something for Poppi on her new 'computer'

Blizzard 2010.

Kai learned to shovel snow. He would prefer not to repeat that life lesson.

if you look at this picture closely you can see "Luciana" etched into the snow

Luci showed Uncle Mark how to cut and paste

playing train with Mimi and Daddy - she makes a mean caboose

and back at our house playing with her new Lego set where she likes to build 'horsey houses'

and making mosaics - she went through all 5 in the kit in 2 days

Christmastime is Here

We had a nice weekend getting ready for Christmas. Mimi came from NY for a visit. And NC had one of the earliest snowfalls I can remember, providing a nice backdrop of falling snow as we decorated our newly bought Christmas tree. We also took Luci to her 1st movie, Tangled, this weekend. I think she liked it - she was very quiet the entire time - and towards the end wanted to sit on my lap and bury her head in my shoulder during some of the scarier parts. We decorated a gingerbread house and made yummy Christmas cookies. An in-house Christmas card photo shoot took place - not sure if any of these will grace your mailbox in time for the holiday, but we had fun doing it. Bonus video of Luci jamming on the harmonica and clapping for herself included.

thanksgiving weekend

we have much to be thankful for this year - a wonderful family, loyal friends, our health, a nice house, a slightly neurotic brown dog, jobs that don't bore us to tears (at least not on a regular basis) and an amazingly beautiful, smart and sweet daughter, our dear Luciana.

here are some photos from this year's thanksgiving weekend:

paging dr. luci...

luci told us a few times that her ear hurt, so i took her to the doctor monday afternoon and sure enough she had an ear infection. when we got home she was so inspired by her doctor's visit that she took out her fisher price doctor's kit and began examining George. the diagnosis - a 'boo boo on his wrist' - you can see the band-aid in the last picture, which according to luci is George in 'time out'.