Merry Christmahanzakwanikah!

To start off the holiday festivities, Pepere flew in to visit from New Hampshire. He greeted Lily with a stuffed zebra as he was inspired by her dancing story. Lily fell in love with Pepere's many musical numbers (from "Singing in the Rain" to the "Sound of Music"). His singing made the albuterol treatments just fly by!

Our childhood friends, the Loughrans, had our family over for Lily's first Hannuka celebration. We enjoyed all of the laughs, the stories and the homemade latkas! Evy noticed that Lily's outfit matched her bedspead...some rather art-sy photos were taken. We were hoping to introduce Lily to Julie (who is Hilary's age), but unfortunately she was stuck in the Seattle storm.

We had our traditional and yummy Christmas Eve dinner with the Brimhall family and Auntie Janet, Uncle Nick, our cousins, Katie, Kenny and Meggy. Lily got to play with Ken and Katie's son, Aiden. Aiden is going to teach Lily how to be a cute rascal. Every time we meet with our cousins, we try to figure out the relationship between Aiden and Lily. They are either second cousins, or cousins once removed.

Christmas morning, Grandpa, Nanny and Hilary came over. Lily didn't quite open her own presents, but she sure did suck on the wrappers. Lily got wonderfully thoughtful presents from her family, including a miniature table and chair set for her future tea parties, soft and practical outfits, a matching apron (to go with her mom's new apron), wooden blocks, sweet books, and even a start on her college savings! Though Lily will enjoy her gifts immensely, she seemed most impressed by the company.

In the afternoon, we all went to our family's favorite restaurant, Saul's. Though the wait was over 45 minutes (being Christmas and the fourth day of Hannukah), we were seated after only a couple of minutes...the hostess said "Ok, the wait will be around an hour...oh, are you with George and Maryjane? Just follow me."

Christmas night, Uncle Jereme and Auntie Ariel came over for dinner. They brought with them homemade bread, festive cookies and apple pie. After a couple of hours, we all started to miss Lily, so we woke her up. I think she appreciated it, she semed to have a lot of fun...she especially enjoyed Jereme's fun facial expressions!

The next morning, Lily wanted to experience more of Jereme's expressions, so the five of us went to Ocean Beach to catch some rays and to fly kites. Not a bad way to spend the holidays... we hope all of you had equally enjoyable, sharing, and relaxing times too.