Today, despite the sub-freezing temperatures outside, we ventured outside to go to lunch.  Daddy starts school next week, so this would be the last opportunity for us to be able to eat lunch together as a family until summer.  We headed on over to a nice little Chinese restaurant that serves really good food.  As soon as we walked in the door, Liliana was the center of attention.  Our waitress fell in love with Lili, and enjoyed playing with her and talking to her in Mandarin.  Lili seemed to have a great time as well, and smiled and laughed throughout the meal.

After lunch, we headed home, and put the little one down for a nap.  When she awoke, she was nice and ready to start eating yet again (that’s Lili, our good little eater!).  Rather than feeding her with a spoon, we decided to let her feed herself the entire meal with her hands (she does not yet have the dexterity for a spoon, but she is working on it).  She was easily able to eat her noodles, and enjoyed every last one of them.  We then fed her some strawberry applesauce (one of her all-time favorites).  Now, before you start criticizing our child rearing methods, keep in mind that we did read about this idea from a parenting magazine.  We took her applesause and just plopped some on her highchair tray.  She had a blast finger painting with the sauce, and then eating when she was so inclined.  This was a very messy meal for her, but she enjoyed herself, and we had a good time as a family.  We were able to capture some of the messier moments on film and VIDEO, so if you visit the DropShots site, you will be able to see all of the day’s photos there.

After dinner, we felt the need to hose down our little girl.  Unfortunately, because the temperature outside at the time was -3F degrees, we opted to bathe her inside instead.  We filled up the kitchen sink and plopped her inside.  She was a little hesitant at first, but as soon as Daddy brought some bath toys to play with, she knew what was going on.  She had a blast splashing around while getting good and squeeky clean.

All in all it was a good, fun family day.  Til next time…Aloha!