Our First Christmas

The next morning, when Molly woke up, I jumped out of bed and ran to turn on the lights on our Christmas tree.   I went back to Molly and told her that Santa had visited during the night, and he left her some presents.  She sleepily walked out to the living room, and the first thing she saw was her new trike.

And she knew exactly what to do with it too:

After a while, I took her stocking down from the fireplace, and she 'oohed and ahhed' at the treats inside.

She found a set of five hair bands, which she just HAD to wear all at once.  She's pretty good at putting them in her hair by herself!

Then she helped herself to opening the presents under the tree.  She had learned how much fun it is when we were in Kelowna, so didn't hesitate.

I interrupted her by getting her dressed, as our friend Hilary was coming over, and I wanted to hold off with the gift opening until she arrived.  Hilary was soon there, and helped Molly open gifts while I prepared breakfast.

We had a really nice morning, visiting with Hilary, opening gifts, and eating breakfast together.  Hilary soon carried on to her next commitment, so Molly and I had a few hours in the afternoon to visit with our friend Lori and her family.  As they have a family of two teenage boys, we got there just in time for the boys to get out of bed and start opening their gifts!

Lori and Molly played and sang some Christmas carols together.

Eventually, we had to get home to put the turkey in the oven and get Molly down for a nap, because Uncle Ron was coming over for Christmas dinner.

Molly played for a while with her new toys, then we popped some Christmas crackers and dug into our turkey dinner.

I had many reasons to pause throughout the day and just feel happiness for all I have, and for the love of my daughter, family and friends.  I felt lucky, grateful, and joyful this Christmas.

Later That Night...

1:00 am

1:45 am

2:00 am

Christmas Eve with Susan and Quan

Susan and I started a Christmas 'tradition' last year, when we were both on edge waiting to get "THE CALL" to travel to Vietnam and get our children.  We had hopes of being with them for Christmas 2009, but ended up still waiting.  So on Christmas Eve, she invited me over for tea.  We read a couple of Christmas stories to our babies on the other side of the world and exchanged gifts for them from each other.  This is the picture she took to remember our visit:



This year, Molly and I went over again, and had a touching, emotional evening with them.  We were able to read the stories to the kids in person.  They were able to exchange gifts and open them in person.  We were finally having our first Christmas together as family.  Yes, I cried, of course.

Quan played some Christmas carols on his ukelele for us, and Molly showed him how she plays it too.

Susan and I reminisced about the past year, drank tea and watched the kids play together

Then we said our goodbyes, as I needed to get home to put Molly to bed.  I still had a lot of gift wrapping to do on behalf of Santa Claus!

A Molly Christmas in Kelowna (Dec 17 - 21)

Molly and I went to Kelowna the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with our family there.  We had a wonderful time!  Molly got so much attention, and the whole family spoiled her rotten. 

This was 'Christmas Day', celebrated about a week early, at my nephew's place.  A big thanks to Jonathan and Debra for hosting the whole family.  xoxo

Making a gingerbread house with her cousins and Uncle Rob

The tree!

16 Stockings hand-made by Janel

Molly learned how to open presents, and started to really enjoy it 

Look at all the presents surrounding her!  While the rest of us draw names and get one present each, EVERYBODY bought Molly something.  We were opening presents for a long time.

Then there were more!  My father hand-built a toy box for Molly, and inside was a 1/8 size violin for her.  It made me cry...

Plus, she also got a white baby grand piano, just her size

The aftermath of gift opening

Bowling with Dora the Explorer. I think the guys enjoyed it more than Molly?

The next day, it was business as usual for most of the family.  My sister went back to work, but when she came home at the end of the day, she sat down on the kitchen floor with Molly and had a picnic dinner of leftovers from the fridge

Then they played a few Christmas carols on the piano

And Molly let Grandpa feed her a bottle before bedtime.

It was wonderful for Molly to have the time to get to know her family better.  We had 5 whole days to visit and celebrate.  Then we flew home to prepare for another first Christmas in our own home.

Susan's Colorful Birthday (Dec 15)

Susan chose to celebrate her birthday with dinner at Van Dusen Gardens, which I thought was a wonderful choice of restaurants.  Not only was the food good, the setting was spectacular!  The gardens host a Festival of Lights at Christmastime, and we could see the gardens from the restaurant.

We had a lovely meal with Susan and Quan, myself and Molly, and another friend of Susan's, then sang Happy Birthday while Susan blew out the candles on her dessert.

Afterwards, we bundled up the kids to take them through the garden to see the lights.  It was a cold rainy Vancouver evening, but we weren't going to let that stop us.

We pushed the kids in their strollers through the grounds, and oohed and ahhed at the amazing sights.  At one point, we were watching the 'dancing lights' and both kids needed a bottle.  So Susan and I juggled bottles and bottle tops, sharing flasks of both hot and cold water, plus formula powder, in the dark and in the rain, and successfully managed to produce two warm bottles of milk for our kids, without dropping anything into the mud!  We were quite proud of ourselves.

Molly liked this part the best.  She pointed and said 'Snowman!' at everything.

We had a short visit because Susan and I got cold and wet, but I hope it's the start of a Christmas tradition we will continue with throughout the coming years.  I'm sure the kids will enjoy it more as they get older too.

The Rest of the Weekend

We held the Christmas party for the Fab Five on the first day Lesia and Mylan arrived.  It's always a special occasion when they come over to visit, so there was much more to come!

In the morning we met with Nathan and Nhan for breakfast at a restaurant near the ocean.  It was a beautiful sunny morning, so we took the kids to the beach for a little while to enjoy the weather.  Here are a few pictures of our adorable children:

After naptime, we got all dressed up again, and went to another Christmas party!  This time a bigger party for families who have adopted Vietnamese children.  This party drew together families from far and wide, families who adopted in past years, and families who adopted more recently.  It was quite wonderful to see all the kiddies enjoying themselves.  There was some great entertainment, and of course, Santa!  Santa had a gift for each of the children, but we also brought a gift that we gave to Santa - a package that will be taken to Vietnam and given to children living in an orphanage.  The evening was lots of fun, and I appreciate all the planning that the organizers did.

The next morning, the same group of us went back to the same restaurant, but this time Merel was able to join us as well.

We took the kids to a playgroup at a community centre on Granville Island, and had a blast!  There were so many great toys to play with, and the kids had free reign in the room.  It was so fun to watch them play:

Finally, a quick trip to Ikea on the way to the ferry, and we had to say goodbye to our dear friends again.  We hope to see them again soon!

The Fab Five Christmas Party

Lesia and Mylan came over from Victoria for the weekend, so we all got together to celebrate Christmas.  Lesia and I hosted the gathering at my place, so I got the tree up and the house decorated on December 1st!  Rita and Ninh and Uncle Ron all came over to help decorate.  Rita brought greens and poinsettias, and Ron ended up decorating the tree when I was putting Molly down to sleep later in the evening.  What a beautiful job he did!  My 'Charlie Brown' tree is trimmed, garlanded and dusted with pipe-cleaner snow.

Molly was amazed at what she saw the next morning - I snuck out of bed early to plug in the lights before she could see it.  I taught her to only touch the tree and the decorations, not to pull anything off.  So now she stands in front of it saying 'touch, touch', and touching the bulbs and lights with one finger.  It's so sweet to watch her.

Then a few days later, our guests arrived, and the party began!  We had a potluck dinner, eggnog, and lots of different desserts to fill up on.  Suddenly, there was a 'Ho ho ho!' and Santa had arrived! 

He scared the kids, but had presents to give them from his sack.  Molly broke the ice by sitting on his lap for pictures, but we cheated a little bit.  We peeked behind Santa's beard to find that it was Uncle Ron who was dressed up, so she was happy to sit with him.  I don't think Ninh ever got over it though - he wasn't happy until Santa left.

Christmas cheer and chaos reigned for the rest of the evening, but I think everyone had a really good time.  A huge thanks to everyone for bringing food, dressing up, and decorating, but most of all, thanks for being there and creating lovely Christmas memories to treasure.

Merry Christmas!