Christmas (and breakfast time!)

One of my favorite things that Xinyi does right now is announce various portions of her own day. For example, every morning, after she wakes up, she plays for 2-5 minutes while I get breakfast ready. Then I gently say, "Breakfast time!" and in the last few weeks, she's decided to mimic me and sing "Becckkfusss timmeee beeecckkfusss timeeee!!!" while running to her big girl chair to eat breakfast. Sometimes, she shouts breakfast time in the middle of the day .... But most of the time, she gets it right. She also does "lunch time" and "dinner time" and "diaper change" and "time to go!"

She is in loove with taking pictures of herself. She always asks everyone to "take a picture" of her while she has these glasses on!

I was looking through Shane's phone and found these gems...

I'm not even sure what she's upset about... but for posterity.... :P I had to!

We continued our Christmas tradition of Chinese food on Christmas Eve this year! Missing Ben, Christina and Nate Nate!

Then on Christmas day, we spent the morning with Grandpa Chuck and Peaches and Kimmy and fam, along with the Zip-parents and Zip-kids and Grammy and Grampy!

Gemma took some pictures with Grampy's phone...

and then Mommy took some baby and me selfies!

And daddy jonied in!

The kids were so well behaved!

And baby found herself enthralled with some baby show along with Archie :). So cute!

Cousins!

Yay for group pictures!

Grammy and Grampy watched Xinyi while daddy and I watched the new Star Wars movie!

What fun in the new car!

All together now!

Playing with Xinyi's new doll house from Grammy and Grampy!

And back in the car :).

Daddy put together another Christmas present for baby - a kitchen helper booster thingie.... she loves it! Here, Xinyi is whipping up some water :).

Even the next day, she spent time in and out of it, eating food, stamping her feet, playing with dolls, watching mommy cook / clean / do stuff...

What a sweet girl you are, we hope Christmas was a blast for you! We loved watching you rip things open and explore new toys!

Baby A is doing well - kicking and rolling and generally seeming to love life in the womb. We are excited that she is so active and love her so much already!

C L A R A spells kada!!!

Daddy has been working with baby girl on spelling her name... and the other night, he asked her, how do you spell Clara? Start with C....

and baby answers...
C....
L....
A.....
R.....
A......
spells kada!!!

We were in shock! She followed up with Claara, Clarp, and Claxyz.... But still, she did it all on her own the first time correctly without prompting past the C! Wow!

She also loves to comfort herself - if she falls, shes says to herself, "It's okay" and if she slips a little and mommy tells her she's okay, she says, "Careful..." :D!

Here's the face of a baby girl who wants to go see animals at the zoo...

So that's what we did! We saw so many animals close up this week! Hippos....

and tigers....and pandas again too!

Xinyi had a lot of fun at Gymboree this week - we took a break from art class and played instead!

Then on Saturday night, we went to see Christmas lights with Uncle Ben, Aunt Christina and Nate Nate on the coldest night of the year!

She still had a really fun time!

On Sunday, we spent time with Grammy for her early birthday day celebration!

The three munchkins had so much fun as always!

Grammy's babies!

This week, Xinyi has learned how to demand things, like... "Foodies!!" and "Take a picture!" and "More toys!"

She also loves to ask for specific songs, and this week her song repertoire increased...
Sing abc song
Sing wheels! (on the bus)
Sing old mcdonald have a ..... (insert any animal here)
Sing if happy and know it (She knows all the motions - clap your hand, stomp your feet, say hurray!)

Sing issy bisty spider (she says "issy" :D)
Sing owl song (I don't know what that is)

She also knows all the motions to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - and the the little diamond she makes with her fingers is adorable!

Oh and since she was a tiny baby, we've had several books we reserve just for bedtime. One of them is a seahorse book. This week, she suddenly realized there is a seahorse hiding on every page! Now instead of asking what all the sea animals are, she loves finding the seahorse! So cute!

Cheese!!!!

Holding hands, the zoo, and a first haircut!

We started the week off with a play date with Nate Nate at UTC!

These two cuties held hands when we asked them to... and smiled for our pictures!

They even kept holding hands up the hill and down the slide!

Then we took our first trip to the San Diego Zoo! Here we are looking at the "mingos!" Oh and she calls giraffes, "Gir-ree-raffe!"

She's raising her hand up like an elephant's trunk!

Hello panda!!!

There's a panda in the background, and pandas on her outfit!!!

Xinyi did so well sitting on the lion statue by herself! So proud!

She's pointing at the ducks right off the screen!

Duckie goes "kack kack" - she doesn't quite have the qu- sound yet :).

Mommy bought some muffins intended for breakfast... baby girl decided she wanted a snack instead :).

Here's some of her art projects from Art Class at Gymboree! This one is a "pizza"

... and a flag...

and a dotted pillow :).

Xinyi also got her first haircut!!!

She did so so well! We were sure she would be so upset and cry, but she was so brave and enjoyed playing with toys and watching Elmo videos while she got her bangs trimmed and hair evened out :).

Such a big girl!

This week she has learned to ask for certain songs and even certain parts of songs. She asks for the ABC song and the itsy-bitsy spider and old McDonald. For old McDonald, which she calls "Old Donald," she'll ask me specifically for a cow and a pig and a sheep. She says, "sing Old Donald have a cow please momma..." or whatever animal she wants. She's even asked for a kitty cat and a kangaroo on Old Donald's farm :D.

This little girl also peed on the potty for the second time this week! We've been slowly introducing a potty and that big girls pee on the potty, and she did it again before bath time! So proud!

I had to include the pretty wreath we bought for Christmas! :D

Here's baby girl contemplating life with a donut in her hands...

Yup, it's good... let's have another bite!

Xinyi and her cousins after Gemmy's ballet performance! So cute!

During the whole performance, baby girl kept saying "Yay Gemma! Yaaay Gemma!" Love seeing these three together!

So Xinyi finally learned that her baby sister is in mommy's belly. For the first time ever she poked mommy's belly and said baby A! We've been trying to teach her that for months! She then promptly forgot and points to her own belly now when we ask where the baby is...

She likes to repeat after me for certain things we do every day like it's time to go and it's bedtime and it's naptime and it's clean up time. She even understands the day to day rhythm. When I say it's one minute to bedtime, she knows she will go to bed soon. And she happily runs to the room when it's nap and bedtime! She also loves asking to "do it again" "more please momma" and "open it please momma" and still loves "here gi go!" Most of the time she speaks in 3-4 word sentences like, "I did it!" and "Here you go momma" and "Sitting down with mommy" and likes to say "more toys" when she wants a different set of toys to play with! She is learning so much and copies everything everyone says!

Our little sweet love! :)