Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Christmas Post
The long drive to pick up the tree ... about 2 miles to our nearby Target.
Rita "hugging" the Christmas tree. Funny, she did this many times through the Christmas season.
More hugging.
Rita asks for very few things. Usually it's a food thing - mac & cheese, hamburgers or Chuckee Cheese (yes, I admit it, she's been two times). A couple weeks before Christmas, she also asked for "the hat that Santa Claus wears". Apparently, it was cool to wear these during recess at school.
Rita at Chuckee Cheese, showing off her prizes.
Still wearing Chuckee necklace, dressed up to go to a choir concert at our neighbor's church.
The Sioux Tribe (Rita's daddy-daughter YMCA camping club) went Christmas caroling at an assisted living facility. Here are their outfits.
Making the sugar cookies.
Making the gingerbread cookies with Aunt Kristin.
Visiting with Santa Claus at Fashion Valley.
I hope he is saying "listen to your mom this year".
Putting together cookie plates for our neighbors.
Christmas eve dinner. I have the same photo last year, only without Rita. This year, the meal was simple ... Spaghetti and meat sauce, garlic bread and salad.
Christmas eve. Rita getting her Christmas ornament from Pskov. (When we were traveling, I collected enough ornaments from Pskov and Moscow so that every Christmas eve we will have a new ornament to place on the tree representing her home country.)
Rita getting her Snegurochka doll. I picked this up on Trip #1 last year.
Kristin's Christmas eve tradition (started by our Aunt Tam) is to get the girls Christmas pajamas. Here we are!
The Christmas tree fully decorated with the gifts.
Rita's Christmas gifts from Santa Claus on Christmas morning.
Rita in her Christmas dress from Grandma and her Nutcracker book from Aunt Tam.
Rita with more gifts from Grandma.
Rita opening her American Girl doll from Grandma.
Rita with her Barbie's from Cousins Ben and Amanda.
We were lucky to have Uncle Rich out here for two weeks over Christmas. Rita loved to go running with him.9 Comments:
Adopt A Child.orgAdopting from Russia
Eastern European Adoption Coalition, Inc
Embassy of the Russian Federation
Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption
Karen's Adoption Links
Older Child Adoption
Russia Adoption Blog
Russian Adoption Medical Services
Russian Family Search
Russian Toys
Vernissage Press
What a wonderful Christmas you all had!
I hope you have a wonderful new year!
Myra
Amber & Nala
i know it wasn't without the hard stuff but you work hard to help her grow and trust and make lovely memories in the process!
Thank you for your post on O'Reilly's passing - it really blessed me. I've been remiss in thanking everyone, just now getting to the really moving on stage, partially due to helping my friend move. so i apologize for the lateness of this but wanted you to know I really appreciated your words and encouragement. O'Reilly had a great 1 1/2 years of life with us and I am a better person because of him.
glad you had a joyous holiday