Dear Family and Friends,
Happy New Year! We hope you had a wonderful holiday and great start to the new year. This Christmas was really special. Clara seemed to revel in all of the excitement, enjoying the company of her Grandparents and Godparents, visiting and meeting new friends at various Christmas parties, and ripping open and tearing into beautiful colored packages in order to discover fun toys from Santa. She seemed to enjoy it all, and we certainly loved watching her discover the joy of Christmas, even if her understanding of it this year was pretty limited. We hope that Christmas can be a magical time for her in years to come. Spending Christmas in worship at Calvary and helping lead through music was also very special for us.
Clara must have been good the last 8 months of her life, because Santa did not disappoint. Some of her favorite gifts included a pair of bongos, several handmade items from her aunts Christy and Cara, stacking rings, and several beautiful new books. Clara's Godparents, (my aunt and uncle) presented her with a very special ornate box frame which displays the baptismal shell and cloth from her christening, along with her name and the date of the service. We look forward to finding a special place in our home to display it.
We rang in the New Year with my parents and aunt and uncle from Virginia. Joey cooked up an amazing three-course fondue New Year's Eve dinner. Around 11:00pm we walked down to the ocean where a large bonfire was burning and celebrated the arrival of 2012 with the Stonington Borough ball drop and fireworks at midnight. It was an incredibly clear night, and the combination of the beauty of the stars in the sky with the sound of the ocean waves below made for a spectacular transition into the new year.
And now life comes back to normal. Joey is back at work, and I am back to practicing, teaching violin and taking care of our darling Clara. The Christmas tree and decorations are no more, and the living room is back to being Clara's playground. She is 8 months old now and sits up all by herself. She can crawl backwards but is still trying to coordinate the forward motions. Most importantly though, Clara now says "Da-da", a word that melts the heart of my sweet husband every time he hears it. What an incredible year it has been. May there be many more to come. Happy 2012!
Erin, Joey and Clara
