A New Year...and what happened at the end of the last one

Well, here I am again after a short hiatus. Although I was thinking about blogging, we were so busy socializing that I haven't had time to actually write about our Christmas and New Year. One of my New Year resolutions is to blog more...

Anyway, rewinding a little bit to Christmas Eve. Evie thoroughly enjoyed the excitement surrounding Christmas and especially the excitement of wrapping paper. She chipped in and did some wrapping of her own. DouDou was wrapped and unwrapped several times.


The festivities kicked off on New Years Eve at Julie, Phil, Joe and Maddy's house. We were accompanied by an pretty unhappy reindeer.



Fortunately, as soon as we got to the party and she saw one of her friends, our reindeer shed her outer layer and perked right up.



Tiny Santa hats were all the rage:



After multiple glasses of champagne, lots of yummy food and one minor reindeer meltdown, we made our way back home to get ready for Santa! Unfortunately, someone ate all but one of the slightly stale snickerdoodles, so Santa got a little gypped at our house, but he was still very generous.

But before I get to Christmas morning, Jim went to the midnight service at St. Paul's cathedral. He said that the line was thousands long and wound around the building and no pictures were allowed inside and the organ nearly blew his eardrums out and the tube was closed and there were no buses running, so he didn't stay too long for fear of never being able to get home again. But he did take some nice pictures and it was a good effort! Evie and I stayed at home and slept.


On Christmas morning, Jim and I were up hours before Evie and finally just went in and woke her up. Apparently the roles are reversed in this family. I think that next year she will know better than to sleep in on Christmas morning and we will be sorry that we didn't take advantage of her obliviousness this year and sleep in!


With a hungry baby, one cannot just jump right into the present opening. A banana was necessary to give her Christmas morning energy.


Then it was time to get down to business:


But not before rubbing a little banana in her Daddy's hair!


First up were the stockings.

After that, it didn't take her long to figure out that the boxes under the tree were really more exciting than she had anticipated:


We all got a lot of wonderful and generous presents from our family. We were very spoiled and if I put up all the pictures of all the presents that Evie got, it would take me far too long to finish this blog. Judging from the smile on his face, Jim's favorite present was the pack of Chips Ahoy style cookies that he got from Cookie Monster.

After we opened presents and had our coffee at home, we headed next door for breakfast with our neighbors Simon, Hua and Jack. Evie had a blast playing with Jack and Mouse (their cat). It was a delicious breakfast with salmon and scrambled eggs and bagels and more champagne (do you see a pattern?) and we rolled home afterwords, wondering how we were ever going to eat again in few hours at a pub near our house.


Somehow, though, we managed. Our pub Christmas lunch was delicious. Evie rejected her peanut butter sandwich in favor of some roast goose and some roasted pumpkin. She also had the opportunity to pick up some tips from older kids, who were demonstrating the proper way to throw a tantrum, including lying on the floor and screaming, hitting your Dad, and throwing yourself at the locked front door while yelling. Evie was very well behaved!



After all that gluttony, we felt it was necessary to walk up to the top of Primrose Hill and catch the last few minutes of daylight. It was cold, but felt good to move a little.


The day after Christmas--Boxing Day--is also a holiday in England and we were lucky to have been invited over for a late lunch and leisurely afternoon/evening with our friends Joan and Anu and their baby Niah. Evie and Niah go way back (from birth) so were happy to have the afternoon to play together.

There were a few rough moments, but we got through them.

And there was lots of good food and, of course, champagne.

Anu:

Joan and I tried to take a nice picture with uncooperative babies:

But everyone likes a good book, especially when there are lots of flaps to flap and fuzzy things to touch:


After a couple of days of recovery, we were so excited to see Rashmi and Siddarth who were in from LA visiting Rashmi's sister. Rashmi, Jim and Jackie all worked together in Houston, so it was a reunion on several levels!

The wine was flowing and we had gumbo for dinner, followed by a delicious cheese cake made by Simon (you can see our waistlines slowly expanding as the pictures continue). We laughed in a way that you can only laugh when you are hanging out with good friends.

It was a lot of fun and we were definitely sad to see see Rashmi and Sidd go. They are among the many friend we would like to import to London!



The next night was New Years Eve. Evie stayed with a babysitter and we headed down the road to Julie and Simon's for another raucous evening. Despite Julie's best efforts, guitar hero happened.

Then I was given the distinguished honor of being lead singer in "Rock Band" (guitar hero plus other instruments). It was horrific, but a lot of fun. We chose to play and sing Bon Jovi's living on a prayer, so I only really had to scream for a while. Even tone deaf people can sing that song.


After all the silliness, we rushed up to Primrose Hill, where we could see the fireworks all around the city. You can't tell from these pictures, but a lot of other people had the same idea and there were many, many very drunk people out celebrating. London doesn't appear to have any laws regarding when and where you can shoot off fireworks, so we found ourselves ducking for cover on more than one occasion while we were up on Primrose Hill. Not wanting to lose limbs or hair, we decided to head back down pretty quickly. Jim and I went straight home, but everyone else partied on until 4am (we are the only couple who had an early morning with a baby to look forward to). On our way home, random people wished us Happy New Year and called out from windows. It was rare and wonderful to experience such unabashed friendliness from Londoners!



Although the holidays are over, we have lots more celebrating to do. Evie turns one in less than two weeks and other festivities will be happening, too!

More Evie Videos

Future Soccer Star (or football, if we're living in England)!


Identifying her belly button (and a painful rendition of the ABC's):


And a new game in her pre-Christmas sweater that Jim got her (which will fit her until she's about six):

A little toddling with Evie

Last night, Evie and I played a game where I made a video of her and then she watched it on the camera. Here she demonstrates her charms and her good listening skills!

Memories of snow

Snow, and the Christmas season in general, evokes memories of my childhood and beyond, which have all come flooding out lately. It started with the Nutcracker ballet, which we went to here in London for the second year in a row. As soon as the music started, I found myself teary eyed.

All of my main snow memories are from Cleveland, OH where we went almost every year to spend Christmas with Virginia and Grandpa and Aunt Ann (known, in more recent years, as The Shug). This trip was definitely one of the highlights of each year and, as children, we would bounce around whatever large vehicle Dad was driving in our excitement to get there, looking forward to the snow and, most of all, to seeing our adoring and adored grandparents.

It's significant to note that I lost both of my grandparents this year. Although their deaths were sad, they were not tragic. They both lived to be old and they loved each other with a passion that most people don't experience. For me, what has been the hardest part about their dying is all of the memories that I have of them, all of the things that they did that impacted me throughout my life and how I wish I could tell them every time I think about something wonderful that I connect to them.

Growing up, the Nutcracker was a tradition...and it's something that I have tried, as an adult, to keep as a Christmas tradition in our new, small family. Each Christmas, Virginia (and Grandpa? My memory on this is not clear) would take us, dressed in our Christmas finest, to the ballet. She was the ballet doctor for the performance that we attended (and probably countless others) and after we sat, transfixed, through the performance, we would sometimes go backstage with her to see how injured dancers were doing. I used to try to walk like a dancer, in hopes that people would think that I was a professional dancer in training (laughable when you know me as the clumsy, uncoordinated person that I am).

Another tradition was a visit to Dunkin' Donuts, which we did not have in the South. We would pile into Virginia's car, which had a heater, but not a radio, and she would treat us to as many doughnuts as we wanted. In my mind, I ate dozens and dozens each time we went, but probably it just felt that way because I knew I could have if I had wanted to. Unfortunately this tradition ended when Kate and I both came down with some terrible stomach bug, which we forever connected with doughnuts.

Gingersnaps and Ginger ale and tea and a beautiful Gingerbread house which we balanced on our heads with Virginia, to measure our ever increasing heights are also things that I think of when it snows. A warm wood stove and competing to stand directly in front of it after coming in from hours of playing in the snow; pewter mugs and Christmas decorations on the mantle piece; the citrusy smell of oranges burning on top of the wood stove; driving through the Metropark's giant Christmas card display; sledding down a big, snow covered hill; the thrill of feeding the Canada geese; my beloved grandparents: this is what snow means to me.

This morning we woke up to snow on the ground in London. I fed Evie breakfast and while I was washing dishes, she wandered out of the room and into our sunroom, where where I found her staring, in astonishment and glee, at the snow in our back garden. It took great effort to coax her away from the window so that I could put her into her snowsuit and let her experience the snow first hand. Her innocent excitement is a new memory of snow for me to file away. I know that she, too, will have happy memories of her grandparents and her siblings, whenever they come along, and I hope that some of them involve adventures in the snow.

Will and Hope

A couple of weeks ago, Will and Hope arrived for their first visit to London! This was also their first time to meet Evie!

Evie was thrilled and immediately started showing off and sharing her stuff (and theirs) with them.

Their first tube ride:

And a visit to Borough Market:

Evie is, it turns out, a fan of stuffed grape leaves and refused to eat anything else for lunch:

Bunny ears: a family favorite. Har har.

It was a cold day, but the sky was clear (which was not the case for most of Will and Hope's visit, unfortunately):

Will's birthday was the day after they arrived, so as part of his birthday extravaganza, we went ice skating at the Tower of London.

We rocked the blue, plastic rental skates.

And posed for the paparazzi:


Jim was obviously the most talented skater of us all:

Hope and I were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, but the men got sore feet and were hungry so we cut our ice-capade short and went out to China Town for dinner and then to Camden, where we all got tattoos of Will's name and birth date. We also made a toast to Kate, who was celebrating her birthday with some football and Thanksgiving leftovers.



Because Will and Hope were in town, we had no excuse for not celebrating Thanksgiving. It's the first time we've been lucky enough to have family around for our American holiday! Despite the extra people to help with Evie, it was still a challenge to keep her out of the kitchen and away from the hot oven. I prepared accordingly:


Jim was ready with the knife:


Jim was the turkey man again this year and was pretty intrigued by the things he pulled out of the turkey's butt (like it's neck).


Evie was keeping everyone happy in the living room..except for maybe Finchley, who she was using as the base for her block towers:



Dinner was an international success, with not only Americans, but also English and Polish people in attendance! And, best of all, Will and Hope did the dishes.


After Thanksgiving, Will and Hope had a day out in the rain on their own and then headed off to Amsterdam, en route to which Hope came down with some flu-like illness. Despite feeling under the weather still when they got back to London, She gamely allowed me to drag them around London some more. Evie was dreaming of Aunt Kate and Uncle Andy:


In Regent's Park, watching the ducks:


And, later, at The Washington, a pub near our house where we met our friends Julie and Simon for dinner:


Not sure what Jim was doing in this picture, but I'm sure it was something very significant.

Will tried black pudding...which is basically gelatinous blood.

I am racing through the rest of the visit because Will and Hope were out on their own a lot and I can hear the sounds of Evie waking up, which means that if I go into too much detail, I will have to continue to not post this blog! Blogging happens during nap time these days, if I'm lucky!

First bus ride:

A stroll in Hyde Park:

Very crowded Portabello Market.

And then the rest of us came down with the flu-like illness, so we didn't really do much more than lie around the house using incredible amounts of kleenex. It was so great to have Will and Hope here, though, and I still am waking up in the morning and expecting them to be in the living room. I feel lucky to have such a great family!