Christmas 2009

Every other year, it seems like Christmas is celebrated either at my place or at my cousin's. I think the best part about the holiday is that you get to spend a lot of time with family members you normally don't see on a regular basis. For me, since all of my cousins on my mother's side are older than me (interestingly enough, each approximately older by 10, 8, 6, and 4 years, respectively), they have their own lives to manage... work, bills, even children.

My little niece, Waverly, who I've mentioned before in a Thanksgiving post has gotten even bigger. Still, she's only about 1.5 years old. But now, in comparison to her personality a month ago, little Waverly has an attitude now. She's far more open than I've ever remembered, with even more energy, and still with as much brains as she's always had.

My cousin David recorded this video. Waverly's bilingual, which I believe contributes a lot to her intelligence. Split between English and Mandarin, she now understands (albeit limited amounts) complete sentences and can form simple ones of her own. In this video, she pretty much repeats how much she "loves chicken." But at the same time, she constantly repeats the phrase, "love you," after declaring her unrequited love for poultry.

Later on, Waverly plays the role of a little Santa, distributing presents to everyone. As I've mentioned in the Thanksgiving post, she's really keen on Chinese family titles. She is able to differentiate between uncles and aunts from either the mother's or father's side, sisters, grandparents, great-grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and so on. Asking Waverly to deliver a present to an aunt, she'll scamper off with the box in hand and eagerly hand over the gift without wasting any time.

Once she hits 2 years old (the infamous age of the "terrible two"), I wonder how she'll be then?

And here's another family photo taken by my cousin David.