Christmas and New Year's reflections...

Christmas... was lovely as usual, inspite of colds and runny noses that both Ella and I had to deal with (I still do.) Like every year though, we felt a bit lonely on Christmas day as we don't have parents or other extended family to visit. However, we managed to still have fun and feel the Spirit of Christmas. Christmas Eve was great in fact. We were blessed to spend it with some dear friends. Loved their company and the yummy dinner they prepared. After coming home from our friends' house, Hrishi was so wonderful and told Ella lots of Christmas stories. I especially enjoyed (and I'm sure she did as well) the made-up one where he was describing how Santa would come down the chimney, rest on the couch, look over at our tree and the pretty ornaments, walk over to unload all the goodies and carefully place them under the tree, and then before heading back up the chimney, grabbing a cookie or two and a sip of soy milk :) This year I was probably just as excited as Ella was, don't know why. I knew what Santa would bring me and all but still. And I'm glad I felt that way. Christmas day was spent talking to mamaie and tataie, aji and azoba on the phone, playing with toys, games, and watching favorite shows on TV, and enjoying a nice ham and veggies dinner. We then went and saw computerized light displays in one of the neighborhoods, really awesome.

I really enjoyed the days I had off (remaining vacation for this year) after Christmas before I got sick. Got to go to spend some time with Ella, go the gym every day, do some cleaning, and just be home. Then my cold got worse and it was not fun anymore. I tried to walk it off by getting all my energy into making a favorite must-have holiday/Christmas "staple" dish: cabbage rolls/sarmale. They turned delicious. The other yummy thing I was able to make was a berry torte with chocolate pudding and vanilla icecream layers. Yummy! Ella and Hrishi loved it! Too bad I can't just dig into the bowl, 'cause boy I wanted to! Since I was sick, my training was put on the back burner but I'm hoping to get back into it easily so I can continue to make progress. This has been my one big "life's resolution" (not New Year's :-)) that I made and started working on in 2010 and one I'm hoping to keep for a lifetime.

Some of 2010's highlights:

*Moved to TX, YEAY! This was a big one!
*Bought our dream home!
*Ella started ballet!
*Ella started piano!
*Ella changed her mind about growing her hair long and went back to her awesomely cute short haircuts!
*Hrishi got his first deer!
*Hrishi dramatically improved his golf game (it was already good but still!)
*Hrishi won the "Dad of the Year" award!
*Our backyard deck jasmine blooms all year-round (see the beautiful yellow flowers in the collage above.)
*We've become accustomed to seeing LOTS of lizzards outside our home (and a couple of them made it indoors too. Mrs. Lizzard Killer (Queen) (that'd be me) managed to "take care of the matter" right away (luckily!!!!!)
*Cris lost some twenty something lbs, and can now do push-ups and curl 25 lbs.

This Christmas's beautiful little surprise was Ella being featured in the 40th Anniversary Edition of the Friends' Magazine, our church's magazine for children. It was neat because we had no idea! Her Friend subscription expired in December and with the rush of the holidays I had forgotten to renew it right away. A friend from Church came to me and said: "Did you see?" I said, "what?" "Ella's in the Friend magazine! We want an autograph!" :-) Then later on she stopped by with a copy one of her sweet daugthers gave to Ella. I'll be getting a few extra copies to share with grandparents. This was such a surprise as I submitted her info and pic a very long time ago, maybe 14-16 months ago when we still lived in NE... glad they went through their backlog and published it and lucky Ella, to be featured in an anniversary edition.

Another highlight I want to record here is the sweet moments we had with Ella at Whole Foods Market the day after Christmas. Yes, it may seem so ordinary but it was nothing short of extraordinary for her: she was able to enjoy "restaurant" food as she calls it, from the deli section: she had mesquite smoked chicken, steamed green beans, carrots, beet salad, and latkes! You see, with her food allergies eating out is such a rarity (we only go out to one sit-down place, Hardy's Eight) other than the very ordinary McDonalds (where she can have a very few things)! Her happy and grateful smile while waiting for her food, brought tears to my eyes. I'm so happy baby that YOU could eat out! And I'm so happy and grateful for businesses that are allergy-aware and have options for folks like us.

New Year's Eve was spent playing the neverending game of "Wack-a-Mole" and "Pretty Pretty Princess" and watching lots of old Christmas cartoons and Disney favorites. We cut our berry torte and wished each other a Happy New Year and by midnight we were fast asleep. I just thought this would be better than staying up all night for no particular reason (I know, I'm a party pooper! :-) and feeling dead tired the next day.

Now onto the New Year! I'm so excited about all that lies ahead of us (whatever that is!)