Diligent blog readers may remember that we started growing plants back last February. We planted zucchini, basil, impatiens, and butternut squash. We had drastically varying luck with them. The zucchini plants were strong and prolific. The impatien plants and basil were very small and fragile. My parents cat has some munching on them which didn’t really help anything, but was better than my cats who threw our plants on the floor and the sink repeatedly. Sometime in early May we transplanted them into the ground at my parents house.

My parents got these nifty planters and we installed them with some fresh dirt, water and covers. My mother also planted some green bean seeds herself. We also picked up some tomato, pepper, and lettuce plants at the store and from a neighbor of mine who is a very excellent gardener. Towards the end of spring things were growing pretty well. The zucchini plants were growing like crazy and flowering a lot too.

We also planted about half of the impatiens here at my house and half at my mothers. The basil plants were tiny, so we punted on them and my mom bought two regular basil plants so we could make pesto.

So what grew? not so much, but a few things. We ate a few green beans regularly, like these below.

If we waited a week we could even get a small serving of those green beans. By the end of the summer the impatiens grew very well and looked just as gorgeous as the ones we had bought the previous summer. I know I took a picture of the flowers themselves, but I can’t find it. So here’s some of the pretty flowers in the background of Celia playing with the drain hose.

At my moms house, the bought basil plants grew ok, not as well as the year before. The pepper plants didn’t do all that much, we only got a couple. The lettuce plants grew well until they stopped getting picked enough. The zucchinis grew until mid-summer sometime with tons of flowers, but absolutely no zucchini. Then they just all sort of shriveled and died. I had even tried pollinating them myself but still nothing. I’m not sure what went wrong, some people think little critters were getting in and eating the buds. Similar to the zucchini, the butternut squash plants grew well, but nothing happened after the flowers. The tomatos grew well from both kinds of plants we had and so my mom had an abundant tomato supply.

For next year? I think we’ll do the impatiens again as those worked well. The green beans were a hit, although fragile, we may just want to plant them right in the ground in late spring so we don’t have to transplant them. Josie really enjoyed planting, transplanting and learning how to harvest. I just wish we would have gotten some squash for all the effort! We eat a lot of them.

Poor Celia has an ear infection. She hates medicine. Hates hates hates it. Anyone have any favorite tricks for getting it in? we tried applesauce, chocolate, kefir, yogurt and dipping her grapes in it. Absolute no go other than a really ugly scene of forcing it in.

Here’s some photos of her in happier times this month.

So as I previously mentioned, we’re all sick in Miami, spreading our germs around more. Sorry about that. We most kept it low key hanging around the house while Josie had a fever upwards of 104 for 48 hours. Wrapped some presents, got some naps. We did some exploring of the decorations too.

By Christmas eve thankfully Josie’s fever had broken so she was feeling considerably better. The party was at my inlaws house so everyone came over to visit and party. We had food, mostly cooked by Vanessa, and what we here would call a Yankee Swap. Jordi and I managed to go home with the present we came with, score! It was great to get to see everyone and even introduce Celia to a few people she hadn’t met yet.

Josie spent most of the night with Sabrina, pictured above in blue. Josie had a great time telling her what to do and where to go and Sabrina played along gallantly. They even worked on a gingerbread train together. Later on Josie hung out with Sonya, in pink above, playing. Later on she told Jordi, about the time when she was with Sonya (who is married to Jordi’s older cousin), “we were all alone without any grownups!”

We had a last minute cookie emergency, in that there were no cookies for Santa Claus. We had made 7 different kinds up here in Boston, but didn’t travel with them to Miami. So I whipped together a batch of shortbread cookies for Santa, which Josie insisted on hiding inside the cage that holds wine ‘So no one else here would eat them.’ We also put out some carrots for the reindeer. Josie insisted that we make a sign that said ‘Cookies for Santa, Carrots for Reindeer.’ She was also a little disturbed when she realized that since the cookies were in the house, that meant that some wierd guy in a red suit was presumably going to be in the house that night. Perhaps she thought he’d just leave the stockings out front like the postman.

This year for Christmas we started off in Orlando to visit with Jordi’s paternal side of the family and his mom, dad and sister drove up to visit too. The night we got there we were invited to Jordi’s uncles house for a yummy traditional Venezuelan Christmas dinner and many presents. In the picture below there was an alligator in the water behind everyone, just a little one, but still. Josie was not in a mood for pictures after the long travel day.

Sadly Celia is not as a good a flyer as Josie has been and was a lot fussier on the plane than usual since she couldn’t move around much in our laps. Josie enjoyed JetBlue’s TVs as we broke our normal TV rules and let her watch some for all our sanity. But she got bored before too long anyway.

We stayed at an easy Orlando hotel with a spray park and pool. Only us northerners thought to bring our bathing suits though, and it was a good thing we did, the pool was heated and awesome the next morning.

I played with the bright bright light and a high shutter speed to freeze the water.

By the end of swimming I think Josie was tired enough that she didn’t notice all the pictures.

After our swim we cleaned up and went to a Thai place for a quick lunch before a family nap. And by family I mean everyone but Josie who somehow managed to be considerate and quiet for two hours in a hotel room with us. Maybe she did sleep a little but she didn’t admit to it.

A couple of days before the trip I started to get sick with a cough and runny nose and chills. The airplane didn’t help, but we continued to muddle through.

After our nap we went to Downtown Disney and met up with more family. We posed with characters and ate ice cream.

Josie was not terribly impressed with the legos, but maybe she will be later when she starts to play with them herself.

Josie and Celia rode on the train. But then of course the train ride ended. And Celia was very sad…

Thankfully she then saw we were headed to the merry go round and then she was excited again.

Of course that ride had to end too eventually and we had more sad faces and crying. But we moved on eventually and did some pictures with characters and I tried some artsy shots as the sun went down and there wasn’t enough light to do anything.

All in all I should have brought my flash for some pictures. But we capped off the night with a nice dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s little restaurant and headed home with the girls while everyone else went out for more fun. The next morning we did a little more family visiting before heading for Miami. Unfortunately we all started to feel considerably more sick that Friday and the ride unfortunately was capped off by an hour of Celia crying and Josie vomiting in the car only three blocks away from the house and spiking a high fever that night.

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates!

Sadly both our kids are pretty sick right now. Josie took two naps today, when she generally won’t even take one even with a long ride in the car. She’s had a fever and Celia is very congested. I even got a picture of her passed out on the couch.

We had a nice sunset today though, and so I grabbed the camera for a few shots before dinner.

Here’s a shot from earlier in the day with Javier and Celia hanging out on the bench with Simba nearby.

Celia has picked up some new tricks lately to get herself into trouble. She has learned how to climb into the learning tower and onto the dining room chairs. Thankfully she doesn’t do much with the chairs yet or else we’d have to figure out how to remove those too. I’ve already gotten rid of a footrest and the kid chairs.

She now likes to point, while shoving her hand front and back, to let you know what she wants. She expects you to follow her and do as she says.

Woe be unto you who does not do what she wants when she wants it. I have to make sure that there isn’t something hard behind her head when I have to give her bad news. She will just lay on the floor and cry. She’s having a very hard time learning that while she can influence the world, she does not in fact control it.

She really hates the car. Have I mentioned that? If I have to put her into it more than two times a day (out and then going home) I feel really bad because of how big a fit she makes. Our days have a lot of screaming lately sadly. She is a diva. If I’m eating something, she has to have some too. If Josie is playing with something, she has to have it. If I go into the bathroom or the tub she has to go too.

Kaya was enjoying the sun yesterday, sitting still while we had lunch, so I grabbed the camera.

As always, photos can be clicked on to see them bigger.