Now that we’ve got this sweet camera and Josie’s gotten a little older and more careful with things, we’ve given her our old point and shoot camera to use for herself. It gives me some opportunities to discuss photography with her and gives her some chances to be the one on the other side of the camera. I’ll have to upload some of hers sometime, but I haven’t sorted through them yet. She wanted to do the classic taking a picture of someone taking a picture, picture and here’s mine when she showed me what she took. I love it when I can get her eyes to be not so dark!

This year Josie learned that some kids write a letter to Santa. Probably from one of the books from the library. This one was a great one for anyone interested in the history of Santa. I sat down with her to write it. She thought she needed to tell Santa where we lived so he could bring our stockings, thus the beginning of the note. Then I reminded her we’d be traveling. She suggested he could just leave them on the front porch and we’d get them when we get home. What patience! But I intended to bring our stockings with us so I suggested that maybe she could ask him to bring them to us in Florida. She agreed, but again didn’t know what to write. So I told her that kids usually asked Santa for things in their stocking. So you can see what she asked for below in the picture [click on it to make it bigger]. Remember Santa, above all, you should be polite.

She signed her name and wrote Santa on the envelope and I scanned it before she dropped it into the mailbox. I expect the post office gets a lot of mail like this at this time of year.

So that sent me onto the hunt for candy canes, a picture (of unspecified variety), and a thank you note, but I was sick, so I delegated. My mother in law bought some festive candy canes. Javier drew a cute picture of the north pole and Jordi wrote the thank you note. I think the picture was her favorite part of the stocking as she decided she wanted to recreate it herself on Christmas day as shown in the photo below.

Earlier in the month, after she had written the letter to Santa we had gone to the mall to buy my dad some pants (with him). It was a Thursday afternoon around 4 and so things were relatively quiet. I pointed out to Josie the Santa sitting and taking pictures from far away on the second floor. She was interested but wary. We bought the pants and then went down for a closer look. I asked Josie if she wanted to go say hi, she didn’t. But she wouldn’t walk away. Finally as we go to leave, she says she wants to say hi. Thankfully there is no line and I drag her through the maze to get in. We decline the pictures and I try to walk up to Santa with Josie, but she prefers a more comfortable 10 foot distance between them. My dad walks Celia up closer and at about 5 feet away she starts to cry and reach back for me. This seems to be a normal Santa reaction I find as I look at my friend’s pictures. Why do people do this again?

To continue, I tell Santa that Josie wrote him a letter and that gets her going a bit to actually walk up to a more comfortable 5 ft speaking distance. She tells him where to bring the stockings and he asks her what she wants for Christmas. And she is silent. Santa then starts making suggestions and I hope he notices the death stares I am giving him as I am not too thrilled with his ideas as they are largely plastic, big and loud. Then he offers a candy cane and Josie is won over enough to touch him and take the candy. He gives the Celia a candy despite me saying no thanks, which I then have to take away because she puts everything in her mouth. She continues to refuse to sit down but she just wants to stand there and stare pretty much. Thankfully no one is in line behind us for a bit, but we eventually drag her away.

I’m very curious about what she thinks of all this but she isn’t sharing. Later on, at Christmas, she tells cousin Sonya that there is one Santa that lives at the mall, and another at the north pole. So I ask her what the Santa at the mall does the rest of the time. ‘Oh he goes shopping and walks around.’ We’ll have to keep our eyes out for him if we ever go again.

Following the lead of some other fun pictures I saw on the web, I took some tri-pod enabled night time photos of the Christmas tree in Miami. Ours at home was of the small basic, baby in the house, variety. My in-laws had a nice big one. One year I will eventually get one set up with a small table on the bottom and a train set, like my grandmother had.

I think it just looks like magic with the glow! Celia only broke one ornament, the rest survived. If she had been healthy and faster I think we would have lost some more.

Christmas morning the girls were up their usual early selves and I took a video of them coming down the stairs to find the tree and presents. It’s dark and out of focus. Sorry about that. Most notable is that Celia and Josie both want to know if they get to eat the cookies that Santa didn’t eat, and then Jordi drops most of them on the floor. Pretty much this video is only for the grandma’s, everyone else can skip it.

The girls went for their stockings first while waiting for everyone else to get up and shower. Josie enjoyed that Santa knows her favorite restaurant.

They both wanted things out of each others stocking.

Later on we opened presents. The kids struggled with how long it took for everyone to get through it all, but they did ok playing with their new toys and old toys and the boxes the new toys came in. Celia went around picking up different presents from different piles trying to open them, but then didn’t want to open something when it was her turn!

All in all it was a relaxing morning at home opening gifts. We got some pretty fabulous stuff and lots of gift certificates to spend! We’ve already booked our winter weekend getaway.

Later that afternoon we went to Javier’s new place and got to see all the hard work he’s put into fixing it up. It looks nice and modern! Josie and Celia enjoyed a clarinet performance and banging on the keyboards (both musical and computer). But I guess I forgot the camera because I have no pictures.

This morning I was rushing out of the house to get Josie to ballet lessons. Just as I shut the door I realized that I left my keys, ipod, and phone inside the house (my door locks when it closes). Ugh. So I go get the other key hidden to go open the door and get all my stuff. When I try to stick it in the lock I find my keys are already in the lock, left there from the previous night when I went grocery shopping. Oops.

I’m always on the hunt for new recipes to try and expand our tastes and enjoy and so I want to share some of our favorites from this year that we’ve started making. This has definitely been the year of using my slow cooker.

• Vegetable enchiladas. I’ve been experimenting with different recipes and this one is by far my favorite, especially in the height of summer when everything is ripe and perfect.
• Veggie dogs in biscuit blankets. I know this is pathetically easy and I’ve been making them for a long time with crescent rolls, but it’s quick and yummy and when the crescent rolls from Trader Joes are disgustingly moldy even though you just bought them, biscuit dough (half a recipe) from Joy of Cooking saved the day.
• Quinoa with black beans and corn. We’ve done a lot of quinoa this year although less so now that Celia is eating with us as it is a tremendously messy food. Still tasty, but I’ll just wait for her to get a bit better at eating.
• Tofu with spinach in the slow cooker. This is an approximation of Indian cooking, which is good, although not nearly Punjab good. But also not Punjab prices.
• Crockpot Tapioca pudding. Real tapioca takes a long time and requires a ton of stirring. In the crockpot it takes a bit longer but requires very minimal stirring and tastes really good. I like to get my tapioca pearls from amazon, dirt cheap although the supply will likely last me all year. I think I’ll make a version with coconut and coconut milk soon. Too bad for Jordi that he doesn’t like it.
• Vegetarian meatloaf. (the first recipe) Unfortunately this has been off the menu since Celia joined us in eating as it has nuts in it, but it will return once she has proven non-allergic to nuts!
• We tried two kinds of chili which I keep making, just to get some variety in the basic yummy dish!
• I learned how to make my own falafel, which I definitely should have tried earlier. The box mixes are terrible and the already made version is obnoxiously expensive for what is purreed beans.
• Baked beans. I’ve shared this one before, but it’s been my winner slow cooker recipe.

I look back on this list and yet still each week I’m still wondering what’s for dinner. Like right now, I should be making our grocery list and meal plans but I am uninspired. Love to see your favorite recipes for the year to inspire me too!