handmade valentines

The boys and I have been hard at work over the last several weeks.  Handmade valentines are not something you do the night before.

It all started with those {somewhat scary} dragon valentines.  Diego's been a little into dragons lately, so I thought it would be fun to make some out of hearts.  He added all those cool details, carefully and thoughtfully.

But he was done after two.  And there are twenty-two kids in his class.

So we decided to do lots of different animals as the 14th of February slowly approached....angler fish, crabs, snails, jellyfish...

...just a couple each day...giant squid, even a robot...

....mice and killer whales, too.

We strategically hot-glued a single tootsie roll onto each card...laughing when the mouse had to decide whether to eat the cheese or the tootsie roll and the crab was pinching his.

Joaquin's valentines were ninjas.  I made a little template for him to trace, but as he went along, he got more creative.  He decided to make some jumping, kicking, and even doing the splits!

They crack me up with the sugar stick as a weapon.

The important part of making your own valentines is using supplies you have on hand.  I don't think I've bought scrapbooking paper in years.  I'm just glad these were finally put to good use.

And by request, this year we decided to make special boxes for their valentines.  Joaquin wanted one that looked like a real mailbox so we based it off of this one from CampClem.

Isabela's in sixth grade now, so they don't do valentines.  But when she saw the boxes, she said, "Mom! I wish you would have made me one of those when I was in elementary school!"  (They had always decorated brown paper bags before.)

  This one is for Diego.... Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon.  Of course, he said, "Mom, we decorated brown paper bags in class today for our valentines."  He took it in anyway.

I hope they come home stuffed full with cards and candy. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

quinua con tocino y huevos

I have a very cool cookbook.  It was given to me by my mother-in-law early into my marriage.  I always planned on using it, but you know what happens to the best laid plans...many years of spaghetti, chicken tetrazzini, and tacos.

Our grocery store recently remodeled...it's now huge and wonderful-- and even has a bulk foods section, where you scoop out foods yourself...from chocolate covered peanuts to quinoa...and it costs a lot less.  I bought two cups of quinoa for about one dollar.

I had never eaten (or heard of) quinoa until I moved to Bolivia.  Now everyone has heard of it and probably tried it.  But it's just not the same as it is in Bolivia, where quinoa originates.  So I thought I'd go back to the source and try a quinoa recipe from my Bolivian cookbook.

This cookbook is the Betty Crocker cookbook of Bolivia.  I believe every family owns one and has memorized most of the recipes in it.  

The best part is that it's in Spanish, so just following a recipe is a language lesson in itself.  Notice the spelling of quinua...somewhere along the way, people started using an O instead of a U.  I pointed out to Joaquin that if you just add a J, quinoa can spell Joaquin.  He wasn't impressed.

I love the way the recipes are written.  There are no lists of ingredients or numbered steps, just descriptive paragraphs that are more than enough to get you cooking like you know what you are doing.

I decided to go with quinoa with bacon and eggs, since that's what I had on hand.  The recipe stated:

"Prepare la quinua como para la receta anterior."

I had to laugh.  But I went back to the previous recipe and read through it to figure out how to cook the quinoa.

The previous recipe started with:

"Dos tazas de quinua lavada como se indica."

What?? So I needed to read the introductory paragraphs to make sure I had washed the quinoa like it should be washed.

The irony of all that is that my quinoa really didn't need to be washed because it's already pretty clean somehow...no gritty sand.

But here's my quinoa, washed and ready to cook.

The best part of this cookbook is that it is full of little tidbits, like an abuela passing down her cherished recipe secrets. 

For example, she writes:

"La quinua tiene la particularidad de que se la cocina sin sal.  Si se pone sal, no revienta."

So don't put salt in your quinoa while it's cooking...wait until it has popped open.

But what made the quinoa taste so good was toasting it in butter before boiling it.  Juan Pablo likes to do this with rice, too.  I love the description in the recipe:

"Refría la quinua igual que el arroz para granear, que quede ligeramente toastada (suena como si estuviera reventando)."

And sure enough, I began to hear little pops, and I knew it was almost ready.

The next part was easy...cut up some bacon and fry until it's golden.

The author suggested:

"...en la manteca del tocino fría un huevo por persona."

Nothing is wasted...so I used the bacon grease to fry the eggs.

And here's the finished plate.  Now, I'm no food photographer, so it might not look that great, but Juan Pablo declared it even better than the quinoa that the cholita up the street brings him when he visits Bolivia.  Quite possibly the highest compliment he's ever paid me.

Here's Joaquin's plate mid-way through the meal.  The kids couldn't stop raving about it either.  This is one of those meals that would be good for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Let me know if you try it and how it turns out!

happy birthday to me

Did I forget to mention?

I had a birthday a few weeks ago and turned (ahem!) 40.  

My hairdresser (who's 22, by the way...is that even old enough to cut hair?) said I look no more than 32.  I thought that was a funny number to choose.

Joaquin wanted to make something special for me (well, really he wanted to spend our money to buy me something) but I suggested he make me something out of legos.

He carefully taped it up so little fingers wouldn't undo it.

So sweet....I was very impressed!

Isabela baked me some cupcakes.  She knows the way to her mom's heart.

Diego drew me an awesome picture with 40 presents on it....well, really there were 38, but who's counting here?

We had big plans to go out to eat at a Japanese Steakhouse.  But Carmen had another surprise waiting for my birthday. 

She threw up all over herself on the way to the restaurant!  Not a peep was heard.  No one knew until I said, "What's that smell?"

So we turned the car around and cleaned her up, cleaned the car seat, and I had to cook a last minute dinner.

That turned out to be egg rolls and fried rice.

And would you believe Juan Pablo threw up that night, too?  He blamed it on the egg rolls, but come on.

At least no one ended up in the hospital as in years past.  So... I say.... it was a great day spent with the ones I love.  What more could a girl ask for?

why my kids love school

Joaquin has been looking forward to Thursday all week.  At the end of the day, he gets to open his store of unwanted toys and make fake money to hopefully buy real cool toys at the auction held at the end of the year.

This was the conversation overheard in the car tonight:

JOAQUIN (in an excited, quickly talking, sing-songy voice):  Tomorrow's going to be SO fun! First, we'll have 30 minutes of science, then our spelling test, and then we have an assembly, and then....

ISABELA (interrupting):  Assembly?!! I hate assemblies...they are so boring!

JOAQUIN:  Well....at least we're not learning anything!!

welcome, new year!

I love the start of the new year!  I don't care if I don't complete any of my resolutions...I'm a dreamer and an idealist, so just making them makes me happy.



1.  This year, we will recycle.

So we're a little late to the party.  I always felt a pang of guilt when I saw everyone's curbside recyclables waiting to be picked up.  We care about the earth, we really do, so now we're going to participate.  We have our green arrow sticker on our extra trashcan, and we have a house full of cardboard ready to go.

Ugh! But why is it so hard?  Now I'm adding plastic applesauce and Nutella jars to my dishwashing load, that darn cream of mushroom soup can will not rinse clean, and now there's a paper bag of glass, paper tubes, and junk mail tripping us by the front door.

I've caught myself being lazy and throwing a pasta box into the trash, only to reach down minutes later and get it back, not willing to give up so soon on this do-able resolution.



2. This year, we will exercise {outside} more as a family.

I added the outside part because everyone knows Americans in general don't get outside enough.  Our favorite memories as a family are the ones of us doing:  Seeing the snake on our breakfast picnic; climbing Crabtree Falls and complaining the whole. way. up.; the great Bolivian trek.  More doing.  More family.



3.  This year, we will talk nicer.

In public, we're pretty nice to each other.  But in our house, it's a whole nother story.  (Wait, nother is not a word?)  Brothers call each other names, sisters whine and complain, Dad is sarcastic, and Mom is easily frustrated.  Talking nicer means no yelling.  Yelling is no fun...it hurts your throat, it hurts your ears, it hurts your spirit.  Even if you're yelling to someone in another room just so they can hear you, how hard is it to get up and talk to them face to face.  I say no more yelling.  (Of course, it's nap time, Dad's at work,  and the other kids are at school, so wow! this one is so easy!)  The Orange Rhino is a great place for inspiration on talking nicer.



4.  This year, we will earn more money.

The kids came up with this one, but it's a good one.  We saved and cut back till there's no more to cut.  Now it's time to up the ante.  My new job as a preschool fitness coach is only four hours a week, but it's been the jolt I needed to believe in myself again.  I tend to gravitate towards volunteer work.  It's always appreciated and I can stop when I want...but that doesn't put food on the table.  And we want more than food.  We want dessert, too!  The kids are brainstorming their first summer job ideas.  It's very exciting for them.  And I've got lots of ideas on the back burner...maybe I could write, maybe I could open an Etsy store?

5.  This year, we will learn to count to 200.

OK.  This was Diego's goal.  But I've been reading One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, about the power of gratitude and living fully present.  Could our family be truly thankful 200 times a year?  That's about sixteen times a month.  Four times a week.  I think we should give it a go.

So these are our hopes for the new year.  If we can do all this, I think 2015 will be the best year yet.  Let's get started!



TAG...you're it!  What are your new year's resolutions?

putting Christmas away

Meet our Elf on a Shelf.  He doesn't do wacky things like at other people's houses, just winds up in different spots each morning after checking on the kids.  This year, though, he seemed a little broken. He wasn't moving at all. 

The kids blamed each other for touching him.  I thought the cat might have been scaring him.

At some point, Isabela started moving him before the other kids woke up.

Then about half way through December, he sprang back to life.

Joaquin made him a sweet sign and hung it on our tree Christmas Eve.  On Christmas morning, the elf had wrapped it around his neck.  I think he's quite happy as part of our family.

But now he's in a box along with all the other cute crafts the kids brought home from school...like this snow globe Diego is stuck in.

I did leave out this cardboard snow scene we worked on during the break.  I'd like to add to it over winter, but sometimes when I'm in cleaning mode, I think about just chucking it in the trash.

Is anyone else following The January Cure?  It's a New Year's start to cleaning and decluttering your house.  My kitchen floor got a good hand scrub over the weekend because of it.

And now it's time to find a place for all these new toys we got for Christmas.

I spend long nights the month of December, contemplating our children's likes and personalities, trying to figure out the perfect gift for each of them.  But it's always funny who ends up playing with what.

Diego got this bear with one of those ball pop shooters...

which is definitely more fun to shoot at people than at the bear.

But look who's got her little paws on it.

And she was also fascinated with Diego's robot.  We call him Earth to Echo, but I think his real name is Tipster.  Maybe she just likes anything that's Diego's.

Isabela got another ball maze this year, but we all go through periods of intense concentration and then rages when that little ball falls off the track.

Santa brought Carmen a baby stroller....

...but that's Joaquin's cat in it...

....and then she decided it was the perfect size for her.

We try to limit electronic gifts, but this little panda speaker made it under the tree for our almost two year old!  She loves music and that little iPod is from my work, loaded with music for the preschool fitness classes that I teach.  But that panda's so cute, I just might have to snatch him.

Joaquin got this super balloon from Diego.  It's basically just a big plastic bag filled with air.  Juan Pablo had some fun with it before it got a hole.

Joaquin takes great care of his own things.  After playing with his new ball outside, he came in and wiped it clean.  I said something about it getting dirty eventually, and he said, "Not on my watch."

 I also need to find a home for this giant roller coaster that's taking up the front of the house.  Joaquin was scared to start putting this one together.  It looked daunting with so many pieces.

But he finished it up with his DAUNTLESS sister (Divergent reference!) and now Isabela's decided she wants legos for her birthday.  And not the girly ones, please.  

I think I see a STEM career in her future.

There's probably one more trip up to the attic this week to finish putting Christmas away.  Going into the attic is a big deal around here.  We use a bamboo ladder (that's supposed to be a room decoration) to get into a tiny square hole in the ceiling.  It's a little spooky up there before the bare bulb light gets switched on, but everyone is converging at the bottom of the ladder squabbling about who will go up first.  

These are the Christmas memories we'll have forever, long after the toys have broken or been donated away.  The ones stored in the boxes.  And that's why we keep them.