Archive for January, 2014

We are family – January 2014 – bedtime reading

Friday, January 31st, 2014 by Jen

Just in under the wire, right before bed. Guess they found the story intense. It was “Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 3”.

Ewan, Jen, Celia, Jordi, Josie

Earlier before I got the camera set up, George was also on the scene, and Ezzy is just out of sight off camera left.

The builder

Wednesday, January 29th, 2014 by Jen

Ewan likes the magnatiles. Look what a builder he is already!

Ewan building a tower

Christmas in Miami (part 4 – the end)

Tuesday, January 28th, 2014 by Jen

Our goal for this trip was to spend a lot of time seeing people. Not doing anything in particular, just visiting, getting the kids to get reacquainted with everyone and hang out. So we did a lot of hanging out, and thankfully people came to us to hang out as getting three kids in the car at any particular time when everyone’s so off schedule is tough. Some day we won’t have any more nappers and it should be easier. That’s my theory anyway. So what did we do? First off, the girls did a lot of puzzles. Josie would easily do six a morning. We got everyone into it!

Gilbert, Celia and Tere doing a puzzle
Another major attraction were the pets. It’s always a small zoo at their house with a dog and at least one cat, often two.

Simba

Mister

Jasmin

One of the highlights for the girls on every visit is taking Simba for a walk. Josie is finally old enough to hold the leash and actually not let go. She still needs to learn a more gentle touch, but once we got the hang of which voice commands to use and got some practice, she and Simba were enjoying those walks together. Celia actually bowed out of taking the dog at all surprisingly, and walked her baby around the block with us each time in her stroller.

DSC_7755

Walking the dog

 

We had a lot of time and attention from Javi as he got to meet his nephew and hang out with the girls.

Ewan and Javi

Jordi’s friend Arturo even came over to visit. Josie asked where was his wife? ah, marriage pressure from a 5 year old.

Arturo Jordi and Ewan

And in the following picture please kindly replace Arturo with Gilbert in your mind, as Gilbert was napping, so Arturo jumped in to round out the group shot. And give several of us bunny ears in other shots.

The family, if you replace Arturo with Gilbert Vani and my kids DSC_8236

 

Christmas in Miami (part 3)

Tuesday, January 28th, 2014 by Jen

On Christmas day itself, we woke up at our usual early time and we all went downstairs. The girls jumped on their stockings and enjoyed the small presents like socks, stickers, candy, sticker-your-own-toothbrushes, and gift cards to panera. Ewan got a book and a new winter hat. We had some breakfast and after what I’m sure seemed like an eternity to the kids we had everyone together and got to enjoy opening presents.

This year Josie got really into making gifts from ‘Santa’, she found it hilarious to write question marks instead of our names in the from to be coy. She had fun playing the game with us all, and Celia is still not quite clear on the whole thing. She recently told me she wished she had gotten some presents from Santa (that someone else had gotten her), but couldn’t quite explain why. Santa brought them dress up dresses this year.

After a fun morning we headed over to Jordi’s aunt and uncles house, Ana and Carlos. They had the whole family over and cooked us a great big meal.

Espinoza family!

Celia, Ewan, Josie, Emma and Ben

Ita-mami and all the great grand-children. Yep three of them are ours, Jordi is the second oldest of the grandchildren.

Tia Vani and Ewan

After our nice meal we went outside and hung out at the playground just across the street from our house and I hounded people for pictures and tried to take some nice family shots. It was a very relaxing way to spend Christmas day and get to see everyone and reconnect.

Ben and Carlos

Mylin and Danny

Eric, Luis, Thylma and Sabrina
Gilbert and Ewan

Carlos, Ben, Ewan and Ana

Ewan’s quilt

Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014 by Jen

I started this quilt the moment I finished Celia’s quilt (as hers wasn’t done until she was 2 and I was well pregnant with Ewan). My mom helped iron while I cut the pieces and pieced them together. I had the quilt all done but the name, quilting and binding since we didn’t know yet if he was a boy or a girl, nor his name. Given a few months I managed to put his name on the quilt and send it to Laurena‘s for quilting and finishing in October. Took her over a month with the holiday timing/rush. She does a really nice job and makes it easy to finish up, I decided to take it easy on myself and even let her do the binding. Ewan seems to really like it! He wanted to touch it all over, and Ezzy likes to nap on it as well.

Ewan's quilt

Lessons from this quilt? edge the name in thread that matches the fabric. It stands out enough as such and the imperfections show less!

Sick sleeping kids

Tuesday, January 21st, 2014 by Jen

Another in my series of my kids being sick, sleeping on the couch in nice light.

Ewan sleeping on the couch

I have two big sisters

Monday, January 20th, 2014 by Jen

Somehow I see this happening more than once.

Celia crowning Ewan

Ewan does not want to be a princess

Christmas 2013 (part 2)

Saturday, January 18th, 2014 by Jen

Christmas Eve is always a big party at Tere and Gilberts house. Vanessa was in charge of most of the cooking but I wanted the girls to help out too. We now reveal that child labor was used to make dinner! The girls snapped the beans.

Javi supervising the green beans

Green beans and pasta

Vani cooking dinner

Because I had brought a cooler down to Florida, we took the opportunity to bring some cookie dough with us. Josie helped bake and roll it out the day before.

Josie making sandtarts

Christmas eve itself got dark very quickly and so I didn’t get to take many pictures. A few of the girls in their special outfits plus Ewan and Ben!

Josie, Ewan and Ben in their suits

Josie in her Christmas dress Celia giving me limited opportunity for a photo

We had a very enjoyable evening, dining and opening far too many generous gifts for the kids! Celia was not fond of eating in the dark so I had to bring her inside to eat dinner where there was light to see.

My snow princesses

Saturday, January 18th, 2014 by Jen

Josie, 5.5

Josie 5.5

Josie, snow princess

Celia, snow princess

Celia 3.25

Celia 3.25

We’re doomed

Thursday, January 16th, 2014 by Jen

I now have three mobile children.

 

And this one won’t sleep because he just tries to crawl in his sleep.