Navidad 2010

We had a lovely Christmas (You notice Joaquin showing off his chocolate coins that Santa left him in his stocking), our friends Sule, Patience and their daughter Yasmin came and stayed with us. We went over to my parents, carrying our obscene pile of presents with us. Daniel and Joaquin did a great job of finding presents for me. Joaquin wanted to make me earrings to go with the necklace he made me earlier. He was actually quite good at present suggestions this year, because when Daniel asked him what to get me, he said he wanted a book of music for me to play on the piano so he could sing with me. So, even though this suggestion came the day before Christmas Eve, Daddy made arrangements for this to happen. Needless to say, I was suitably touched. He also suggested a drill for Uncle Matty, which ended up happening as well. He was on fire! Although I think I did a great job of well. I got Daniel an inversion machine. It was quite the hit (as you can see from the pictures), Daniel & Sule put it together Christmas night to try it out. In case you're considering buying one, by all accounts it's as

wonderful as advertised. Daniel is totally addicted. We also had a fun time just hanging out with our friends. They came, hoping to move their little girl into a crib on her own. They did succeed, but I think it's because Joaquin showed her how fun they could be. Isn't this the sweetest picture? Despite being a typical selfish four year old, Joaquin is genuinely fond of Yasmin, and has been since he first met her as a tiny baby last year. (He calls her Auntie Yasmin, funny joke!) So he had a great time having her around for Christmas. We also enjoyed our final advent (Joaquin was sad to put away all the candles). Merry Christmas everyone, remember Christ came for you!

Hacer Cosas

So to keep up your Christmas spirit, here's a blog on our Christmas accomplishments. :) Joaquin and I had quite a crafty season. I looked and looked for a Nativity set that Joaquin could play with, that had all the characters, and that I could endure putting out in my house. Turns out that's pretty hard to find, and when you do, you can't afford it. (Or at least I couldn't) So we decided to be creative and make our own. We used old coke bottle, which we always have plenty of, and bits of fabric left over from various other projects. Some sticks for the shepherds' staffs, some wrapping paper for wings plus some cotton balls, and voila! Our very own beautiful creche. It turned out pretty charmingly and we still get to make the Magi for Dia de los Reyes. I think my favorite are the angels, but the sheep has a few devoted fans as well. And this cute little picture is the finished product of Joaquin's 'birdhouse' from Thanksgiving. Isn't it fabulous? Notice the stickers, they came with the kit. (I feel like an advertisement for Lowe's.) This last picture is also Joaquin's. He made this little poster in school right before it got out for Christmas break. It shows all the different sense and how they relate to Christmas. For example, Christmas tastes like..... a candy cane! And it sounds like a jingle bell :) But we ran into a snag for smell. According to his poster, Christmas smells like a Christmas tree. Since we have a fake tree, Joaquin has never smelled a real Christmas fir. So Joaquin grabbed some rosemary from the tree I bought and taped it on. To Joaquin, Christmas smells like rosemary. (This is based off our Advent book which teaches different Christmas customs and legends.) Here's also the promised pictures of our gingerbread hacienda. Daniel did an excellent job setting it up and putting up the vigas. My contribution was the wreath, the ristras and the luminarias. I think they add a lot. And since it's a hacienda, it of course had courtyard. We filled ours with a pottery planter (M&Ms and pretzels), chairs and a fountain. See how productive we are? We've also made some cookies, I've learned to cable knit and Joaquin has made countless sculptures with ribbons, jingle bells and his Tinker Toy wires. Tis the season to be creative.

El Pan de Jengibre Alberga

We celebrated Christmas Eve morning building gingerbread houses with some friends. Admittedly I should put 'gingerbread' in quotes since we used graham crackers. As you can see from the pictures, we had an absolutely obscene amount of decorative/candy material. While our friend's little boy was too little to participate, Joaquin had a grand time, at least for a while. You can see Daddy here indoctrinating him with the joys of graham crackers covered in icing. Because of a Max and Ruby episode (how many times have I said that on this blog? Thank goodness he's starting on a 'Curious George' kick now.), Joaquin thinks gingerbread houses should be held together with gummy worms, so his personal creation had a lot of those. Apparently it's a gingerbread house with a bird's nest on it? My other favorite picture is Daniel and Eric photographing our friend's gingerbread castle. (I was quite impressed with the turrets). Daniel used his flashlight to create a sunrise over Nielsen Keep. Ooooh. (I'll save our creation for another blog.)

A Pie

Since it's Albuquerque, December has been absolutely beautiful. Highs of 55 to 60 everyday, and tons of sunshine. Perfect weather for my little cold weather baby so he's spent more time in his sandbox this month then he did all July (he really hates hot weather). So we took a walk the other day to use his new camera, and discovered that the batteries were already used up. :( So we took Mommy's camera out instead. We took a picture of cool green twisty thing hanging from our neighbor's tree that Joaquin had been admiring. And on the way there, Mommy took a few of Joaquin and Chita. Part of the joy of having a fairly docile little dog is that a four year old can walk her. She hates it when he does because he's very unpredictable

and just drags her along without letting her sniff things, but it's still cute. Just a boy and his dog.

Los Muddy Buddies

So as a holiday treat, we made Muddy Buddies. Joaquin had a great time measuring out the cups of Chex since I wasn't worried about the mess. (Yeah, just a tip, never let a 3/4 year old measure out a cup of flour. You'll regret it for hours.)I never let him do all the steps himself so actually making them was a real treat. We had a bit of a contremps when he misunderstood me and dumped the cup of chocolate chips into

the bowl with the Chex instead of into the bowl to be melted, but after 10 minutes of picking them out everything went fine. But they are too delicious! It took us way too little time to eat them.

Nieve!

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..." So it wasn't Christmas, and the snow is now gone, still it was pretty close. These pictures don't do it justice, since snow melts pretty quickly on our brick backyard. We actually had about a inch or more of snow, most of which stuck everywhere but our backyard. Joaquin was quite thrilled when he woke up, as you can imagine, and he had to go outside, even before putting on clothes. So here he is, outside in his puffy coat and pajama pants. Go, my little snow baby, go.

Cuatro Años para Joaquin!, Feliz Cumpleaños

So, taking a break from Christmas, let's talk about Joaquin's birthday! Yeah! Joaquin is now officially four, sigh for Mommy. Actually, while I miss my little baby sometimes, I'm pretty excited about four. He's really managed to grow-up some. And the fits are much, much less frequent, which is lovely. So I'm anxious to see how he changes this year. Anyway onwards to the party. We had a 'storytime' theme with everyone coming to our house. We still had most parents, but we also had a few kids all by theirselves. Which was kind of hectic, but also fun. We read several of Joaquin's favorite stories ('The Very Hungry Caterpillar', 'Curious George & the Dump Truck', 'Gingerbread Baby', and 'SkippyJon Jones') and sang songs and played games. The kids were great. They listened so well, Daniel's crazy rendition of SkippyJon Jones had them almost in hysterics. They were also very cooperative for the pinata. And man can some of them hit hard. One of Joaquin's little friends (not pictured) has an exquisite batting form, I swear she's a future little Babe Ruth. I tried to make every activity match the stories; for 'Gingerbread Baby' I had little gingerbread men cookies hidden around the room and the children 'chased' them. So of course we had to have a piata for 'SkippyJon Jones' and it had to have jelly beans for filling!

After Daniel broke the pinata and the kids grabbed their share we had cake and ice cream. We made a very hungry caterpillar cake which didn't turn out as well as I wanted it to, but was still charming enough for the kids to eat!!! Joaquin got some fabulous presents, but this was his favorite, a set of gears from Uncle Jeff and Aunt Alicia. Isn't it fabulous?