One of the big changes we made around here, in addition to Jordi’s new job, was in February we took Josie out of public school. We did this for a number of reasons, which I’m happy to discuss not in a public forum like this, but in short, she wasn’t happy. We’ve had her at home and she’s come back to being her usual mostly delightful self. It’s a bit adjustment to have three kids here full time, especially for Celia who had gotten used to having more one on one time with me, and that’s getting more rare as Ewan drops his nap too. We’re getting into a routine though and finding more things to do in addition to having more time to play with friends in the afternoon, because playdates were not working when Josie was in school, it was just too much. Now we can do one every day! Tomorrow we head to a big gymnasium with gymnastics equipment, a trapeze, a giant foam pit and lots of  things to bounce and climb on and the kids all work on their strength and coordination and have a blast. We also spend a lot of time at the library, but that’s not particularly new. We spend way more time outside and Josie works on her reading, math, and science understanding through regular activities like cooking, playing and reading to me, alone, and listening to others.

Yay it is finally getting warmish up here. Just watch out for pushing your toy into fish on the basketball court. He had a total fit that the fish wasn’t moving, back arching, crying-fit. Also loved to try to eat some dirt and sticks. Girls did a lot of biking and tried to climb some trees and we all soaked in the sun.

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Way back in November, for the whole month, we sit down at dinner and list off the things we are thankful for. We try to get a new one each day and try to even write them down for each day. Sometimes we have to play catch up for a few days, and sometimes we let small children fudge with the ‘no repeats’ rule. It’s always a joy to hear what they have to say to be thankful for. This year almost every day Celia said she was thankful for a ‘healthy baby Ewan.’ He certainly is the biggest change we’ve had this year. We also had a bad stomach bug this month so it reminded us all to be well thankful for our health! And those around us! Here’s their lists.

Celia:

1. Mommy
2. Red Sox
3. My ABC’s (the art we do to discuss/learn the letters)
4. Nice house to live in
5. Healthy Ewan
6. Healthy Papa
7. Healthy Celia
8. Healthy Josie
9. Healthy Daddy
10. Ice skating
11. Quebrada
12. Nice Mommy
13. Fun Pama
14. Good Dinner
15. Three birthday parties!
16. Museum trips
17. Throwing leaves at Connor
18. Healthy Ewan
19. A mommy to love
20. Daddy working hard at work
21. Watching TV
22. Dollhouse and toys and games
23. A new baby brother and a healthy daddy
24. New Warm House (umm who got a new house?)
25. Daddy helping me while sick
26. Our new car
27. Bronwyn and Blake
28. Kind Josie
29. Silly Mio
30. Mommy not stepping one me when I fall down (ummm what??)

Josie’s list

1. Sister whom I love
2. Watching red sox from office (we saw the victory parade from Jordi’s office!)
3. MacKenzie’s party
4. New presents
5. Good dinner
6. Fun Ewan
7. Eating M&M cookies
8. Long weekends
9. Watching the movie
10. Dinner with Zach and Ethan
11. Ice skating
12. Nice mommy
13. Ezzy looking so cute
14. Mommy coming to school
15. Making good cookies
16. Going to the museum and learning new facts
17. French fries and Liam (a boy in her class)
18. New books
19. A mommy to love
20. Daddy working hard at work
21. Watching TV
22. Ewan feeling better
23. Celia worked out her frustration smoothly (i.e. Celia didn’t hit me when she was mad)
24. Nice house to live in
25. Mommy making good soup
26. Thankful we have money to buy each other presents
27. Irsa (girl from school)
28. Silly Mio
29. Warm house
30. Warm clothes and electricity

Jordi and I offered up some other boring things like the health of our parents and families, clothes, housing and food to eat, each other and our fun times as a family. We are blessed!

This year for Christmas we were down in Miami, away from the snow and cold. I am still having to adjust to a non-cold Christmas even after eight(?) years of doing it!

We spent pretty much our entire visit just trying to soak up time with the loved ones so everyone got to meet Ewan and hang out together. The newest members of the family, cousin Ben only 9 months old, and Ewan spent a lot of time together, sharing toys. You get lots of pictures because what’s more cute than one baby? two babies!

We had a very short photo session with the two of them outside and it was hilariously ineffective. Ewan was easy, because he can’t move and just sits there, he has no choice. Ben is constantly on the move though. We’d put him on the blanket and he’d crawl the wrong way, no matter where we put him, he’d crawl a different direction, immediately. Finally once we put them on the grass they were both very curious about what it was that they were sitting on that they sat still to examine it. And then laugh at us making funny faces at them.

It was also warm enough that we went swimming! Well those of us from Boston did, plus Ben and Sonya.

And we weren’t even the only ones in the pool! Ewan liked swimming and didn’t seem to mind the chilly water. Josie is tall enough to walk around the shallow end just barely now and Celia enjoyed being carried around the pool.