Happy New Year

Madison was up for the first minute of the new year, but not much longer after that. Come to think of it, nobody in this house was awake much longer after midnight last night. We were pretty wiped out!

We woke up this morning late, but ready to head over to Ye-Ye and Nana's house for our annual New Year's Day celebration. We watch the Rose Bowl Parade together over at the house, and have breakfast too. Nana serves up crumpets and other breakfast cakes as we watch the marching bands and floats. Madison saw the Chinese floats, and most of the others too.

Her cousins were over, along with Aunt Shain, and it was a very pleasant morning together. After the parade, we had a nice big lunch together. Ye-Ye had roses placed on the center of the table, and Nana had even gotten a cake with a rose created out of icing in the center.

Madison loved the icing. Here she is just after taking a few bites of her cake - she got the bright red icing all over her lip! It almost looks like lipstick, and everyone was laughing. Poor Madison didn't know why everyone was laughing at her until we explained it!

Really, Madison was rather tired this morning. Who can blame her after such a long and exciting evening? Now that the holidays are drawing to a close, we should go back to an ordinary rhythm with things. Still, it was fun these past few weeks. So much to do with Madison, and we had a great time doing all of it. We didn't get to do everything we had scheduled, but we'll be sure to do it all next Christmas season.

Now it's time for the Chinese New Year - that's the next holiday. We'll start playing the Chinese music, and Mommy will have the house decorated very nicely. It's going to be the Year of the Tiger, and soon we'll be putting together our second annual Chinese New Year card to send out to everyone. On top of that, just yesterday we were watching "Big Bird in China," and starting to play our Chinese music here and there.

It's not as huge as the Christmas season, but this time of year helps us celebrate Madison's heritage a little bit more. I've got a few children's books on Chinese New Year pulled out, and of course there's the big event itself where we all dress up and celebrate together with many other families with children from China. It'll be a good time as usual!

But that's all a ways from now: at least a month. Today it is only January 1st of the new year. Of the new decade, really. It's amazing how time flies, but that's why I started this blog to keep track of it: to record as many precious moments with Madison as possible.

Happy New Year!