happy new year

Happy New Year to everyone!!

(check out that belly on Diego!  he's making sure I'm not in this baby thing all alone.)

In looking back over our pictures from the day, I think I've discovered the theme for the next year:  simple.

I took the kids to the Science Museum's Noon Year's Eve party to get our day started.  We're members there and nothing beats free.

We passed the time making some arches....



...and taking a health check up.

The picture below is significant.  Joaquin just informed us a few days ago, he really isn't color blind.  He'd been lying for the last couple of years.  And while we were coloring, he aced our 'what color is this marker' test.

But you can't fool the real test.  Turns out, he's still color blind.  The test-givers were thrilled because he was the first one they'd come across.  Too bad there was no prize.



Someone's ticklish, even if you hit her with a hammer.



Check out this ornament, Mom!



Why's everyone looking up?



Something's coming!



Happy Noon Year!  2013 bouncy balls were thrown down to the onlookers below.



Resolutions!
We tried it a new way this year.  We each decorated an envelope with our name after dinner.  Then each person thought of a resolution (or two!) for everyone else....what we thought THEY should work on for 2013.  Much more telling in my opinion.

I saved our silly props from last year for pictures.  Everyone loved it except Joaquin.  He was ready to move on to games, but I explained a little too graphically that once we're dead and gone, he'll be glad to have these pictures to look back on.



Our one and only craft of the evening...cereal box numbers covered in glitter.



And a last minute balloon drop idea.



Armed with push pin poppers, those balloons didn't stand a chance!



Wishing everyone a new year filled with promise, accomplishments, blessings and wonderful memories!!

Christmas Day

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home! 
Charles Dickens



I tried to make the birth of a child the focus on Christmas morning...but the evidence of Santa lay all around.



Cookie crumbs....



and stuffed stockings.  Nothing like getting underwear in your stocking!



Gift certificates to Sweet Frogs were definitely a highlight.



And I'm soooo looking forward to my handmade Christmas post coming up.  What do you think is in those packages?



We took our time Christmas morning to enjoy each present.  Joaquin had written and illustrated a book about robots for Diego and read it to him.  Diego loved finding the hidden teddy bear stamp on each page.



Balls...a number one toy for a boy.



Would you believe this face was for a DVD?  The Karate Kid movie...the newer version.



Diego got his 'golfy'.  Basically, he just loves to swing sticks which is why this is so appealing to him.



And Isabela got her first ever electronic...a NOOK.





Santa brought Diego the smallest nerf gun ever, but it packs quite a punch and has whistling 'boolets', as he calls them.



After we opened everything, the boys worked tirelessly all morning to put up Joaquin's zip line in the front yard.



It's 80 feet long, but Joaquin's bike path had helped clear the way for a straight shot between the trees.



Joaquin was in charge of removing the cut branches.  He said, "Mom, can you quit taking pictures?  Does it look like I'm having fun?"

Well, not yet, honey......



...but how about now?



If you ride by, you may catch a glimpse of something zooming by.



Even Diego got in on the action.  (Don't worry, someone pulls the rope along with him so he won't go too fast or fall off, despite what this looks like.)



If you have a lot of this on Christmas morning, I'd say it was quite memorable.

Christmas Eve traditions

Growing up, Christmas Eve just happened.  There was no planning.  Just a huge amount of family gathered under one roof, lots of snacks, kids playing board games, karaoke singing, story telling...I don't remember ever watching TV, and of course, there were no video games.

I wanted that for my own small family now, but it's a little harder somehow.  It's just us, no novelty of long distance family.  Definitely not enough snacks...I'll have to remember that for next year.

But anyway, I figured I'd better use Pinterest for what it's good for this Christmas Eve. I knew the kids would be jittery with Christmas excitement that day, so I threw together a list of 'Eve activities' we could do to pass the time from morning until night.

This was the list I came up with.  The ones with the asterisk we actually did.  I've linked them up if you'd like to see how they could look.

snow globe place cards *

nativity coloring

stencil pillowcases (snowflake, reindeer, tree, santa, penguin)*

lego ornaments *

hand prints

cardboard gingerbread

prep and landing *

snowy ornament

poppers with small gift *

salt dough

bake a cake * (done on Christmas)

christmas eve interview * (done on Christmas)

punch *

lasagna *

We started with the Prep and Landing elves.....really I knew this wouldn't be that fun for them, but they were so darn cute!  Joaquin freaked out right away because he couldn't figure it out fast enough...ugh...but we made it through and ended up taping them to the bookcase because they kept blowing them off.

Then we tried the snow globe place holders.  Very easy and fun for everyone.  Open ended crafts are much better for my crew.

(yes, I made the boys paint without shirts.)



While those dried, Joaquin suggested it was snack time...so we had a huge bowl of punch with ginger ale and some graham crackers and apples.  Not exactly Christmas-y, but that was what we had on hand.



Now, at least we'll know who will sit where.



We played a couple of games...the favorite was Hide the Baby Jesus.  One person hid the baby from our nativity around the house and everyone else had to find it.

The stencil pillow cases were a lot more work for me than I thought it would be.  We used freezer paper which I ended up having to cut out.  Isabela chose snowflakes and Joaquin went with a non-christmas theme of angry birds.  I say we just ruined two good pillowcases, but they seemed to like them.

Daddy got home and got roped in to making the traditional lasagna dinner with Isabela.  He was frustrated because we didn't have all the ingredients and wanted to go to the grocery store.  I said "No way are you going there on Christmas Eve, just make do."

They ended up making one of the best lasagnas we've ever had!!  The secret ingredient...some swiss cheese, along with whatever other cheese was in the fridge!  I know, sounds gross, but we almost ate the entire dish which could have served twice as many.


(whoa...I need to clean those windows in the back!)

The Christmas poppers were by far the favorite activity.  I gave each of the kids a toilet paper tube taped on one side and told them to search the house for little trinkets to fill up their tube.  I helped Diego with his, but they really enjoyed filling those up.  Then you just wrap them and tie the ends.

We had two real poppers from my aunt's house.  Isabela and I opened those.  Everyone else got the homemade version.



Diego was thrilled that his included a real 'sharp' (pencil sharpener).  He also got a furry mouse which I pulled out by the tail and it looked like a real dead mouse!





I was up for some family pictures after our dessert of vanilla ice cream and homemade whipped cream. (By the way, that is SO easy to make...we've been having it way too much now!)

Will I ever get a non-blurry, beautiful, sparkling lights, Christmas Eve picture like I hope for?  Outlook not so good.



The rest came out something like this......



....or this,  as the kids were eager to help.  (That's the table in the foreground.)  They were too tired to keep it up for very long.


The Christmas Eve interview really happened Christmas morning and I missed out on Diego since he wasn't up yet, so I just asked him right now as I typed this to see what he remembered.  Here were the questions:

What was your favorite Eve tradition?
Isabela:  making the poppers
Joaquin:  opening the poppers
Diego:  eating ice cream

What do you think Santa got you?
Isabela:  a stuffed animal
Joaquin:  a bed that looks like a clubhouse (definitely check out that link.)
Diego:  a scooter-bicycle

What did you want Santa to get you?
Isabela:  a puppy
Joaquin: a bed that looks like a clubhouse
        (I think someone thought he was very good this year!)
Diego:  a repto-slicer (this is a made up animal something like a raptor...I like to call it a rapper-slapper which cracks Diego up.)

What was your favorite thing you ate?
Isabela: lasagna
Joaquin:  punch
Diego:  Santa (what?!)

What naughty thing did you do this year?
Isabela and Joaquin:  woke up at 3:30am and snuck around checking out the presents
      (yes, they really did that!)
Diego:  nothing!

Why do we celebrate Christmas?
Isabela and Joaquin:  It's Jesus' birthday!
    (exhale from mom)
Diego:  I don't know! (oh, no!)

These will be fun to look back on years from now to remember their funny answers.  We also do a video interview on New Year's Eve with lots more questions.  They're hilarious.

As the evening wore on,  I whipped up this stocking for Isabela that I'd promised to make her.  Yes, Christmas Eve I was still sewing while the kids watched Home Alone 3.

But we LOVE this stocking.  It's lined with red fleece and has a polar bear print that she picked out in her favorite color: blue.  Lots of room for little gifts in there, too!



And so the stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

The kids all slept in one room together....the door was wide open with a view of the chimney in case they heard any noise in the night.  Luckily, Santa snuck in before they woke at 3am to check out the goods.  I heard the pitter patter of feet from my room and wondered if it were reindeer on the roof.  But then I heard a chair move and saw a shadow and told them they better hightail it back to their beds or else.  Surprisingly, they did, and there wasn't another peep until 7am.

I'm not sure which traditions will carry over for next year and actually make it onto the official tradition list as memories of their childhoods.
Maybe it could just be the tradition to have a new list every year?

Do you have any favorite Christmas Eve traditions?

snapshots from Christmas

The good thing about Christmas being on a Tuesday is it seems to spread the holiday out over several days, maybe even a week!

Our family doesn't live too far away, but DC traffic on 95 really puts a damper on visits.  Unless it's 2am when you're on the road, there will be others out there with you.

As soon as we get there, the kids like to crash in front of the TV, mesmerized.



Some are more squirmy than others.



I was really trying to capture the movie they were watching...the Wizard of Oz.



Us adults were amazed that anyone ever liked that movie, especially kids, with those scary monkeys, witches, and ridiculous acting.  We couldn't even watch the whole thing.



I love twenty-something cousins that wild up my boys.  They have a fear/love relationship with them.



Yay!  Joaquin snapped one of me! and the belly.



We opened pjs a few days before Christmas Eve since we were spending the night.  Isabela is all about the peace sign these days.



And Diego got two sets of angry birds pjs.  He said, "The box says I have to wear both of them," so he put the red ones on top of the black ones...until he got too hot.



Aunt Leah Ann always thinks up fun things for them to do...she had saved all the bubble wrap from shipping boxes and let them jump around on it pop, pop, popping it!



Add in a huge lego box for the boys and that will occupy them for awhile.



And now I finally get the baking cookie tradition of Christmas.  If you do it from scratch, it really takes all morning.  Isabela loves to be in the kitchen and encouraged everyone to help out.



Leah Ann had the world's smallest cookie cutters.  I bet they're from when we used to eat the right sized cookies.



It's hard to ice with only one hand.



But they were delicious!!  Every time I passed the kitchen I had to pop one or two in my mouth.



Not sure why she was so amazed at that candle...except that candles are wonderful.



Look who found something to play with.



A dangling paddle ball is perfect for a cat.



My boys are meant for outside.  Forty mile per hour gusts of bitter wind had kept them in the night before, but the next day was beautiful.

Which one should I choose?  They're both so awesome!



Diego and his sticks...this is the mother of all sticks.




I still think Joaquin would be great at ice hockey.  And check out that red hoodie...a very thoughtful gift from their TaeKwonDo teacher.




Watch out! Score!!!!



Cat on a hot tin roof.  That's Puff.  You can see how she got her name.



It really is a lot of work for others when we come to visit.  Diego got ahold of some styrofoam packaging and ripped it to bits in a room when no one was looking.  Oops!

But those are the Christmas stories you remember for years to come.