Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and were able to celebrate with family and friends. We hosted Christmas Eve with my family at our house. There were 18 people, plus Keira, so we had a full house. We had a great time and celebrated into the wee hours. Mark and I didn't get to bed until 1:30am!!! Keira kept to her schedule, of course, so she was up and ready to play at 6:45am. Zoikes! I was pretty tired, but managed to get some shut-eye on the way to and from Rochester. We were there to visit with Mark's parents today and had a good time!

Keira had a wonderful first Christmas and made out like a bandit. She is definitely not lacking at all and is lucky to have so many people who love her and want to spoil her. It's times like these that I miss my Mom tremendously and ache for her physical presence, but I really think she was with us and is with Keira every day. She was definitely with us on the drive home from Rochester. The roads were so slick! There were many cars in the ditch. My brother said there was a car that came down the hill, lost control and nearly ended up in the pond behind our house. What a sight that would've been! Fortunately, no issues for us. Thank goodness Mark is such a skilled driver.

Here are a couple of pictures from our Christmas. I'm back to work tomorrow so I should be getting to bed soon. I'll definitely be posting many more pictures later...

Keira's 7 Months Old Today

Keira's 7 months old today. She's had a rough couple of weeks leading up to today, but she's been a trooper and seems to be recovering from her bout with a bad stomach bug. She is quite the character and is ready to become mobile. She's still trying to figure out how to crawl, but who knows if and when she'll actually figure it out. In the meantime Mark and I are enjoying her lack of mobility. For now we know she stays where we put her. Her new trick is going from a sitting position to a standing position. She's only done it once on her own, but is definitely getting the hang of standing (with assistance). Check this photo out. Mark thought he'd give it a try and see if she could stand by herself and as always, she amazed us!

My sister, Mai, comes home from Thailand this Saturday and will be here through Jan 3. We're so excited for her to come home and I'm looking forward to Mai and Keira getting reacquainted with one another. It should be interesting.

Linh and Steve closed on their new home on Monday and finished moving in today. Congratulations! We can't wait to visit!

I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged by Meredith and the deal now is you, my blogger friends, need to post 7 interesting things about yourself on your blog. I'll do my best to make this worth the read and inspire you to play too.

1. I love watching horror movies, but hate being scared. Does that make any sense?

2. I have several obsessive/compulsive tendencies. Here's one example - I do a lot of things in 3's - make sure the door is locked, the garage door is down, etc. It doesn't matter if I'm late, I have to do it or I can't go.

3. I love reading and hearing about celebrity gossip and have subscriptions to People and US Weekly. I get upset when the pictures and gossip are too similar and the magazines aren't doing a good enough job of giving me differing info, stories and pictures.

4. I don't know how to swim. When I try to swim, I have to wear goggles or I refuse to dunk my head under the water.

5. I love learning, but don't like going to school.

6. My feet are so small I sometimes buy kids' shoes. Other times I get enraged when I can't find shoes that fit. It's like the shoe people discriminate against people with incredibly small feet. I've also recently found out that one foot is a size 4 and the other is a size 5. Seriously?!

7. I can pick things up with my toes.

Sarah C., Runa M., Chris B., Susan M...You're It!!

'Tis the Season

Happy Holidays everyone! We hope this blog entry finds you and your loved ones happy and healthy. 'Tis the Season for visiting with family and friends, indulging in scrumptious foods, having fun, shopping, etc. 'Tis also the season for germs and viruses. Yes, Keira was hit with a MAJOR bug of some sort. She kept Mark and me hopping the past couple of weeks. This is the first time I've been able to find time to catch up on our blog.

My abilities and patience as a parent were put to the test the past 14, yes 14 days!! From vomit down my shirt to a direct hit with liquid diarrhea, I've definitely completed my round of hazing for parents! It was a bit scary at times since she was walking the line of dehydration. Fortunately, things have turned around. She's still got the runs, but the vomiting has ceased and she's taking down her usual amount of formula. She lost a little weight, but seems to have regained it nicely. Unfortunately for Mark and me, her sleep routine is now erratic. We had just gotten over the hump of needing to feed her in the middle of the night and were looking forward to getting a full night's sleep when the bug hit. Since then we've been getting up with her every 2-3 hours. Sometimes she's crying for no apparent reason, but half the time it's because she's pooped her pants and wants to be changed. We'll have to work on the sleeping thing all over again. I'm not looking forward to that.

Here are a couple of photos from Keira's visit with her friend, Sam. They took to each other right away and had a good time.

I love this photo. Keira's teacher, Miss Laura, put her in the basket with all the stuffed toys. As you can see, she enjoyed it very much. Can you find her among the toys?

Miss Laura caught Keira napping on the floor. She tired herself out from scooting all over the place and fell asleep!

Here's Keira working on her first finger painting. She didn't know what to make of the cold, slimy paint at first, but once she got the hang of it, she loved it!

For one reason or another this holiday has been tougher than I thought it would be. I feel the loss of my Mom more now than I have in a long time. Perhaps it's knowing she won't be here for Keira's 1st Christmas or perhaps it's just because she's not here period. I guess I'm still grieving because my emotions have overwhelmed and snuck up on me at the most unsuspecting times, particularly over the past month. For someone who likes to be in control, it's hard to deal with.

My Mom's 51st birthday would've been last Tuesday. My family and I went to the cemetery to pay our respects and to celebrate her life. I'm fortunate my family is so close to me. I don't know what I'd do without them.

On top of it all, we got word that my uncle, my Mom's brother, passed away from cancer. While I didn't know him well and only met him once when my family traveled to Vietnam, I still feel the loss and pain for my Mom's family. They have buried 4 members of their family in less than 2 years. That seems to be a ridiculous amount of loss for one family to bear. My heart goes out to his family and my relatives.

The good news in our lives, however, is that our friends have welcomed two new babies into the world. Congrats to Raj, Andrea and Ajay for welcoming their baby boy, Avishan, into the world! He shares my Mom's birthday on Dec 11. It's a day I won't ever forget. And, congrats to Jose, Amy, and Nico for welcoming their baby girl, Portia, into the world! She shares a birthday with my aunt on Dec 12. There's another birthday I'll never forget...And, of course, Mark and I are blessed with our little girl who amazes us more and more every day. Despite the hardships, we truly are blessed in our lives.