Some holidayish activities

December 1st is declared officially as the beginning of all fun! This year, even more so.
Ami is 6 months old! A whole half a year!!! She an adorable baby, squishy and cuddly and so very fearless! She crawls quite well, in a matter of seconds she can go 5-6 feet to touch her target. Everything goes straight to her cute little mouth. She babble and is mostly a serious baby. If you play with her and look her in the eyes she'll smile a big, wide smile with her eyes all wrinkly. So darn cute!
The second celebration on December 1st is of course Romania's national day! We listen to patriotic songs and feel nostalgia for all the romanian good and bad that we left behind. Such is life...

Part of our Christmas traditions we used to go see A Christmas Carol play downtown Philadelphia. With Ami so little and Catalina (still!) scared of the ghost in the play we decided to skip it this year. Instead we just went to Macy's Dickens Village and to take pictures with Santa

 Downtown holds such a special place in mommy's heart! It's where she first lived when she came in America, where all the good and the bad first started

A week later we welcomed Saint Nicolas in our house. Saint Nicolas puts gifts and goodies in the kids' shoes and we did have some very nice kids in our house!

We are on a good track with all the holiday preparations. Such a lovely time of the year, especially when you have two lovely girls around you!

Thank you, world!

This was our first Thanksgiving as a family of four. There are really no words to describe how lucky I feel. To really have it all? Who does?? I do !

We had the house for ourselves. We had some invitations to Thanksgiving dinner that we did not take or did not materialize. So, the whole Thanksgiving day we lazed around the house and enjoyed ourselves. It could not have gone better. Marius made chicken wings, Catalina wanted pumpkin pie so we bought it. We made apple pie. We watched TV, ate, slept and breathed happily. An amazing Thanksgiving to remind us how unbelievable lucky we are!

We tried some shopping on Friday, but that did not turn out a good idea with a baby. So, after half an hour of strolling in a crowded mall we ended up at home, shopping online. Go figure, Amazon!! Truth be told we all excited about the next day. Saturday after Thanksgiving we always pick up our Christmas tree. It's a small market close to our house and it takes us less than 5 minutes to decide. This is also Ami's first tree, so the experience was extra special!

The tree is ready, the kids are happy. Christmas can come with all its joy. We are blessed.