One of my favorite things about the holidays are the little projects, which in our house aren’t so little, but are fun still. We do gingerbread houses and lots and lots of cookies. I make the gingerbread houses from scratch, using a pint cardboard cream container for interior support for the kids, it lets them come together quickly and not get smooshed down. My parents came over to help this year and we did a big project of putting them all together with lots of different candies. Celia mostly loved to unwrap and see all the different kinds of candy. Josie worked a bit more towards a design, also aware that she’d get to eat some of it later, she focused on her favorite kinds of candies (chocolates, not gummys). Josie had also made a little one in school that she liked too.

Jordi and I made our own semi-house that didn’t quite have enough walls to complete a whole house with whatever candy we could manage to separate from our children. Jordi did hide a kitkat in the bottom inside so he could find it and eat it later.

Then the following weekend it was cookie bake off weekend. Throughout December I made cookie dough with the girls and put it in the freezer, mostly the drop cookies. Then over one or two days I take it out and we shape and bake it all off. This entails a pretty big mess of flour but it’s generally pretty enjoyable. The girls did a fantastic job this year of working together to make the peanut butter blossom cookies, taking turns making the balls and rolling them in sugar. Then I got to re-roll the ‘balls’ to make them round again. This year I also focused on making a bunch of cookies that my mother could eat. I think I overwhelmed her with four different kinds that were non-dairy. Some were successful (like forgotten cookies with dark chocolate) but the peanut butter blossoms were not my favorite. Next year I need to use shortening instead of margarine, it gave them a funny unpleasant (to me) taste. Chocolate chip cookies with coconut oil and dark chocolate also came out well, but I’ve made those before. I didn’t have enough cookie tins to hold all the cookies.

Between me and my cousins, we made at least 12 different kinds of cookies (I think I made 8+ myself). It may have been a bit much, but the variety was fun and we did a pretty good job on them even if it did take a few weeks.

December is always a busy time celebrating multiple things, my birthday, Hanukah and Christmas all in a few short weeks plus all the decorating and such. We manage to cram it all in there but boy it is tiring to have so much to do every night after the kids finally go to sleep!

We started off with getting a tree but had a lot of trouble getting to decorate it as we had so many things going on like Hanukah parties and other kids birthday parties. So the tree stood there naked for a while. One day we got lights on. Every day we tried to get a little done and by the end of the week we had bejeweled it with ornaments and the star.

The girls still cannot resist touching everything on the tree so the fragile stuff goes about 4 feet up and a number of ornaments just weren’t hung on the tree for our own sanity.

Also during the same time we were doing Hanukah. I tried to get an interesting picture of the candles and failed, somehow I just couldn’t make it dramatic or anything.

We were very diligent this year and lit them for every night but this combined with my birthday made Celia oh so very confused. Every time we lit up the candles she wanted to sing Happy Birthday. But then by the end of the week she was disappointed it was not ‘Hanukah time!’, as she called it, once we were done. Kids do latch onto those traditions quickly! And we were also doing our advent calendar simultaneously so that added to the confusion. Josie insisted that we only do the advent calendar once every two days so that both of them could do one at the same time. Since they were both amenable we went with it, but I think Celia will catch on that Josie got more of the ‘exciting’ things to put on the felt tree next year. Josie was very sweet and let Jordi and I do the last day’s item, the santa, in her stead.

We went to two Hanukah parties this year which was awesome because someone else got to stand there and do the frying and I got to enjoy multiple days of fried potatoes! Plus of course the people were fun to hang out with too.

On Wednesday we went to the Miami Seaquarium which has three different shows featuring dolphins! It was so much fun getting to watch them flip and dive and do all sorts of cool tricks. We were the first ones in the gate and got to the main tank first. The dolphins found us quickly and were so excited to stare back at us through the windows and play around. The girls were thrilled and so amused. Celia played it cool at all the shows, not seeming too interested or happy, but she was concentrating highly as when we got home and in the days that followed she showed us her versions of the dolphins tricks and told us all about them. “Dolphins walk!” “Look at me like dolphin!” We also got to see the killer whale which was really intimidating for me, having read about all the incidents involving killer whales over the years with their trainers. Seeing her jump was awe inspiring and just a moment that feels like it was in slow-motion as she was so massive and jumped so far. Lots of fun pictures from this day.

 

Two weeks ago we were lucky to get a visit from Jordi’s mom and sister. They stayed with us a few days and Vanessa ran the BAA half marathon around Franklin park even! Her first half marathon race and she did great. We did a lot of eating out, exploring the city and also showing them our own routine. We started off on Friday morning by going to the local ‘paint your own pottery’ place. Celia’s never done it before and Josie’s only been there once before. They both picked bowls. I haven’t snapped pictures of them yet but I’ll have to do it. As usual Celia mixed up all her colors into one general yellow/orange, I had anticipated that and gave her colors that would meld as such. Josie chose a few other brighter colors and kept them separate. We picked them up the next week and they love to eat out of them and enjoy them. Friday afternoon we headed down to the park and showed off their bike riding skills before enjoying a nice dinner at Punjab.

Saturday morning included our usual routine off to Quebrada for breakfast and then we went into Harvard Square for some playtime and lunch before returning home for snack. Saturday afternoon we brought the ladies into their hotel in the city and joined them for dinner in the prudential shopping center at Wagamamas.

This picture I took in front of the Harvard Square movie theater which has now closed. No midnight rocky horror for my girls there!

The next morning was race day, and after a super-short visit with my cousin will at my parents house, we headed over to Franklin park zoo and caught Vanessa running at mile 12 as she’s inside the zoo. Our friend Steve also happened to be running and see us there so he got some extra cheerleaders too! Vani was running with a smile on her face and did great.

Sunday afternoon we got Celia back home for nap and I took Josie to a birthday party while the other ladies rested up from the big morning. Then we all met up for dinner again at the prudential before we were all too exhausted stay any longer. Monday I took the girls into the city to the childrens museum before meeting up with everyone for lunch just outside of Jordi’s office. Then Tere and Vani made  their way to the airport at the end of their quick visit. It was a jam-packed weekend!

Everybody jump jump!

Just sneaking this one in under the wire, almost forgot this month!

And the ‘reach for the sky’ pose.

Did I say I was done posting pictures of cape cod? No, apparently I’m not.

They’re watching Jordi fly his kite on the beach.

This is the skyline late one morning right before a huge storm rolled in on us. We went to the beach for an hour anyway.

I handed over the camera to Jordi so I could get in a few shots with my girls.

This was taken just shortly after the other picture of my dad flying the kite, what a difference the settings make for what kind of image and emotion you get!

Celia only fell into the pool once, while trying to catch a ball. She was pretty dexterous otherwise since she mostly just wanted to play along side the pool rather than in it.

Phew and now that’s the end of the cape cod pictures.

My mom’s birthday today, and while I won’t announce her age, it is a very round number.

This weekend my aunt Diane, uncle Todd and cousin Ally came to visit us. Unfortunately Abby had to stay home to work, but we had some intense time all together hanging out at my parents house and then introducing them to our Quebrada habit and Harvard Square. Josie was super excited to see everyone and adopted Ally as her own personal playmate for the weekend, holding her by the hand and directing her in all her games. It was a short visit, but hopefully one of these summers we can go visit and enjoy their pool and Hershey park when the girls are big enough!

Sunday was mother’s day, at least in the US. I looked it up before we went and the french have their own day which isn’t the same as ours. But to us it was mothers day. I got a little time to sleep in, and the girls gave me a very nice card that they had made. I also requested time to take pictures, because that’s what I like to do! I got some cooperation, especially from Josie.

I learned how people love to take pictures of people on beds with big white blankets. Great natural reflector of light, people are comfortable and can move around a lot.

Boy some day I cannot wait to have a gigantic bed and get a big white cover for it, to only be used for photoshoots, because we have cats that puke on the beds regularly.

And then we headed out for some family time doing family things. We were in Paris, I was with our little family, what a great mother’s day present. To be continued…