happy new year!

as our new year's eve gift to you, here's a video from amelia's first school concert. i can't seem to figure out how to embed the video, so you'll just have to click on the link here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1WXfpfhlYE

i strongly recommend watching it in "high quality." fans of the movie "old school" may be reminded of will ferrell's floor exercise performance. enjoy!

the xmas report

santa was very generous this year, indeed. here is amelia, carrying her pre-xmas gift from santa (elephant bag, not the polka dot bag stolen from momma's closet):

pre-xmas picture with cousins andrew and ryan:

presents from santa: harold the helicopter, james, percy, and a thomas game.

dr. amelia:

amelia the barber (with scissors from the doctor's set):

baby doll stroller and olivia:

and there was much, much more, including an awesome fire truck from uncle david and auntie bo, and a ton of clothes from everyone.

xmas yoga with annie yi-yi:

socialism, as experienced by amelia

we've been talking to amelia about giving up her binky, and her nanny came up with a wonderful narrative: give the binkies to santa so that santa can give them to babies that really need them. we'd had weeks of discussion and preparation, and finally, today was the day that amelia handed over her binkies. she walked up to santa with smile, handed them over, and even threw in a "thank you!" in return, santa gave her a candy cane, and a little purse shaped like an elephant that she picked out the day before and a little bracelet that she picked out just as we were paying for the gift from, um, santa. it was all fine and good until naptime, when she howled for about an hour, and i threw her in the car out of the desperation, and she fell asleep before 5 minutes had passed. she howled as if i had cut off both of her arms. oh, my poor baby!

on an unrelated note, it rained a bit today, and we got to bust out the kid-sized umbrella and the raincoat from big yiyi. she loved the raincoat so much that she refused to take it off, even when it stopped raining. "momma, i keep it just in case."

enjoying her candy cane from santa, blissfully ignorant of the horrors ahead:

REALLY getting in the spirit

poppa kwong, at the urging of our friend justin, decided that just buying a christmas tree from, say, target wasn't good enough--we had to CHOP down our christmas tree. so we, and the cooper-kims, took a drive up to sebastopol to pick out and, of course, chop down our tree. here are poppa and amelia on the obligatory tractor hay ride around the farm:

poppa with the felled tree:

lined up for snack time:

the finished product:

getting in the spirit

we took amelia down to union square to check out christmas decorations, and while nothing compares to new york, she was quite impressed anyway.

can you find us in this picture?

who can resist riding an elephant? and notice the haircut, anyone?

guess where my momma went to college?