Nutty for the Nutcracker
To round out our holiday activities, we caught a performance of the Nutcracker ballet. Just the girls this time... G, my mom and me! As usual, I was a little worried that G wouldn't be into it-- its 2 hrs with a 20 min intermission. It didn't help that the show started at 2pm. G takes her nap every single day from about 1 or 1:30 until about 3 or 3:30 like clockwork. In preparation we had a quiet morning and I asked her to close her eyes and rest on the 25 min drive. This resulted in about 20 mins of rest. OK, good enough, lets go!

As it turned out, she did great! She loved the first half. She was actually a bit mesmerized in parts. At the intermission we went for a walk and she was so funny doing her own little interpretation of ballet moves with her arms and twirls on the way to the bathroom. So funny. We got several "wow! she's a natural little dancer" type comments. After intermission she did start to get a bit tired so she laid her head down on my shoulder for awhile which was fine. She did particularly enjoy a bit they did with a chinese dragon (super impressive really) and the little gum drop children (little girls and boys maybe 4-6 yrs old, adorable!!!) The performance itself was very professionally done with beautiful costumes and sets. And it doesn't hurt that it was in Bridges Auditorium which I think is so pretty.

After the ballet they had some of the dancers come out and sign autographs and take photos with the kids. G loved that part!

All in all a really nice afternoon. An annual trip to see the Nutcracker just might become one of our Christmas traditions!

With some of the gum drops

Santa Stop 3
We were excited about the Santa train. G had been talking about it all week. It was going to be great!!! Then, the weather happened. We don't get a lot of "weather" in so cal I know but shoot, weather.com called for 3-4 days of rain. If we hadn't already purchased our train tix we probably would have skipped it. But we had so I felt compelled to give it a try. Bobby loaded up some towels and a big blanket and off we went.

When we arrived, it was drizzling and it was all kind of muddy. But as look would have it, almost as soon as we picked up our tix at will call, it stopped raining! G loved riding the train and all the lights. And of course, as usual, she loved santa. Mrs Claus was there reading stories. G caught The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Right about the time we were finishing up, it started to rain again. Lucky, lucky, lucky!

Waiting for the train with daddy.
Finally aboard the train. We didn't have a lot of company
With SantaIn front of the Santa train

With Mrs Claus who told us she was from Norway... I'll have to research this a bit

Official photos
This was the Bass Pro Shops santa pic. Pretty good I thought but a little too much background for my tastes. My cropped version. He really was a good SantaAnd our official Yo Gabba photo. I was happy that it wasn't that bad. Usually I take a HORRIBLE picture, really awful, but this one is not that bad. Of course, G always looks great and its hard for a costumed character to look bad :-)

You used a code that let you get into all the photos from the concert. Supposedly Nicole Richie was there with her kids. Several people told me they saw it on the news (I know, I know. Yo Gabba and Nicole Richie's life is really not news but I live in the LA area, what can I say??) I'm not really a fan but I spent a few mins looking for her photo, never found it. Oh well.

Cookies and Carols
Our local library regularly does kid/family events. For december they, not surprisingly, had a holiday theme. They read a story --don't recall the name but it was something about an owl and santa-- then they had cookie decorating and one of the local elementary schools sang christmas carols. Its less than 5 mins from our house, takes about an hour, its free, and G loves it!! Yeah!

This is G decorating her cookie
G quickly realized there was a much faster way of getting the frosting into her mouth then spreading in on the silly cookie first!
Finally eating her cookie... she would NOT share with daddy

With her goodie bag in front of the tree. G's getting better at looking at the camera for photos. For a long time she would always look toward the camera then quickly look away. Now she'll say "was I looking at the camera, mama?" and then I'll show her the pic. Sometimes she'll say "nope, need to do again" and she'll go pose again but if she finds she likes the pic she'll say "adorable!" I agreee.

Santa Stop 2
G loves Santa and I had some stuff to return at the mall so I figured, what the heck! Let's go see santa again! We got there early, waited just a few minutes and off she went to explain to Santa that she'd like a Rapunzel doll and a stuffed frog, again.

G telling Santa a secret. G loves!! to tell secrets. She always tells me the same one "I love you mommy" Not sure what she said to santa though???

Yesterday morning with Georgie
G: Doing her usual dancing to the music in her mind.


Me: Smiling.


G: Are you happy mama?


Me: Yes, I'm happy.


G: Why are you happy?


Me: It makes me happy to see you dance.


G: I like to make people happy.


Me: You do? That's nice. How do you make people happy?


G: I dance and sing.


Me: That's a good way to make people happy. How else do you make people happy?


G: I share my toys with my friends.


Me: That's really nice. I bet that makes them very happy.


G: And I use my nice words.


Me: I like when you use your nice words.


G: Everybody likes me mama. I'm a nice girl.


Me: Yes you are, sweet face. Yes you are.

Georgie Day 2010
A lot of people don't celebrate the day they met their child. For many, it wasn't a happy day. Many children grieve horribly. For some the day was so stressful they just can't think of anything to celebrate about it. Some people even feel that its a negative day for their child, a day of loss --country, culture, language-- and therefore not something to be celebrated.

These are all perfectly valid sentiments and each family is different. But, for me, the day I first held Georgiana in my arms will go down in history as one of the best days of my life. For years I dreamed of having a little girl to complete our family. When we applied to adopt from china the wait for referral had been at 6-8 mos for a few years. Just our luck, the very month we submitted our paperwork to china, the slowdown hit. Our 6-8 month wait turned into 31.5 grueling months of massive slowdown. I admit, I cried a lot. I had zero faith that it would happen.

But then eventually on 9/28/08 we did receive our referral! About 10 weeks later on December 7th, when she was exactly 11 mos old, we waiting outside a conference room in our hotel. I was looking over the railing at the ornate circular stairway when finally she came into view. Sweet, stoic Georgie being carried up the stairs by one of the swi workers. She was wearing a puffy brown puppy outfit and little shoes with pumpkins on them. She looked confused and concerned. I've seen the look many times in the last two years. Her sad look. It broke my heart that night and its broken my heart every time since.

She was then abruptly placed in my arms by the swi director and, just like that, she was ours. Before we traveled I'd given thought to naming her Georgiana Joy instead of Georgiana Rose. In retrospect it would have been a good choice. She is a joy. An absolute joy. I cherish my daughter. She is one of my greatest gifts. She is sweet and smart and so beautiful. I feel so lucky to get to be her mama.

I fully recognize that just because Georgie Day is one of the greatest days of my life, G may at some point feel differently. If and when that happens, we'll have to reassess. But until then, we'll celebrate!


This is G on the original Georgie Day:

Bobby and G were a little under the weather but G was really excited about Georgie Day so we decided to go out anyway. For the second year in a row we went to PF Chang's. Certainly not traditional chinese but so yummy! G got her gift from china, a small doll, that she loved! She sat it next to her on the seat during dinner. Any attempt to move it were quickly rebuffed.

G opening her giftG doing her favorite thing in the world, coloring!
The pix of us are just not very good. The one below is probably the absolute best. bummer.
G with her dolly

Santa Stop
The season is upon us. I'd heard that Bass Pro Shops had a nice santa and that you hardly had to wait to see him. Apparantly the big man was to be available at noon today. Sooooo, at about 11:30 we headed on down there to beat the rush. Uh, yeah, no. Seriously, I think there must have been 100 people in line and santa wasn't even going to be there for another half hour. They do give you a "fastpass" to come back an hour and half later. Not quite long enough to go back home, just a little too long to wander around the store without starting to go a bit nuts.

Anyway, we did stay and ended up buying a few things --can't imagine those smart people at Bass hadn't thought that might happen LOL!!! --and then got back in the "fastpass" line. Still waited another 30 mins or so. We left there at about 1:15. If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm really not. G had a lot of fun.

They had a coloring table which kept G happy for like 1/2 an hour. We looked at the giant fish tank and the animals --I couldn't figure out and kind of didn't want to know whether or not they were taxidermy. I was hoping they're fake. I'm sticking with that thought and will be putting my fingers in my ears if anyone tries to tell me different. Lalalalalalala.

As always, G loved Santa. She ran to him, hugged him. I have no idea what she told him she wanted. Earlier she told me that she was going to ask for a Rapunzel doll, and a stuffed bear, giraffe and frog. Oddly, she already has a those stuffies but whatev's.

After that, she got her candy cane and we were good to go... finally. We'll be seeing Santa a few more times this month so this was good practice :-)

G in front of the store
Coloring her little mask. G loves to color. She kept saying "look at all the colors I'm using mommy!"

Modeling the result of all her hard work

Finally made it to the man

Ahhh, so cute!

Rapunzel
As everyone who knows Georgie is aware, she loves princesses! This time, its the newest princess, Rapunzel. Since its a Disney movie El Capitan had an event which included a pre-movie stage show with Micky, Minnie and lots of princesses and a post-movie tea party attended by none other than Rapunzel herself!

G loved her Rapunzel dress and I threw together a silk flower garland for her hair the night
before. She was so cute driving to the theater, she was super excited about seeing Rapunzel or as G says "Ree-punzill."

The movie itself was cute. Typical disney good guys, bad guys and doe-eyed female lead. The fact that Rapunzel believed her abductor to be her mother was a little disturbing to my adult mind but G was completely unaffected by it. In fact, she totally got it, and later in the day referred to Mother Gothel as "the witch." During the movie she giggled and laughed and when Rapunzel was sad my sweet girl commented "ahh, she's sad but I think she'll get happy in a minute."

The tea party was cute. G mostly ate the sweets! She got to hang out with Rapunzel for a few minutes during which she spent quite a bit of time showing Rapunzel her light up wand. G really likes that wand. She dragged it around her with for the rest of day almost lost it a couple times.

Awesome day!

This is the official G with Rapunzel photo
Menu from the tea party
G discussing her wand and the movie with the newest princess

I'm not sure if you can see it or not but they have a rapunzel tower with the characters on the right side above the el capitan sign. I'm not sure my pix to it justice, it was super cute! I really wanted to get a picture of G and Bobby in front of the sign but, in true Hollywood style, we had to wait a few minutes for security to subdue some crazy guy who was ranting and raving on the street. I think you can still see the security guys in the photo to the left behind G. That's what all those people were standing around looking at.