Gingerbread Houses

The last week of school before winter break my mom came down to DC equipped with 18 home-made gingerbread (graham cracker) houses and an arsenal of decorations. She even made front doors with wreaths on them. It was a crazy fun activity for the kids. They used icing for 'glue' and everything from frosty the snowman peeps to candy I've never heard of for decorations. The kids were pretty good about not eating the decorations although one kid had a really hard time resisting them. With a pained look he told me "But these candies are making me REALLY hungry!" Charlie's girlfriend Cici didn't exactly eat the candies, but she did bend down and lick her house. One little boy Joseph couldn't stop decorating. He sat through two sessions and kept working hard until every surface was covered...and then he kept going. We were sure his house would collapse. The next day at circle time a little girl named Mira raised her hand and asked, as if she had been wondering all night, "what is inside my gingerbread house?"

The gingerbread houses were WAY more successful than Charlie's winter concert that week. It was the worst planned school event. They actually expected 30+ three year olds to actually stay by themselves and be still in front of 300+ people in the audience. By the time it was their class' turn to perform Charlie wouldn't even stand up and sing. It was tortuous and we were relieved to make a run for it after their portion was complete. I'm hoping they plan better next year...

Young Carlos

Carlos came back from Colombia with some fun gifts and a few memorabilia from his youth. My favorite is this school photo. The report cards were very cute too and he seemed to be a good student...for awhile at least...

We showed Charlie one picture that was brought back of a little Carlos and Charlie was convinced it was him. Here are Carlos and Charlie fighting over whether it is a photo of Charlie or Carlos.

Family Fun

I realized that I do a lot of forced family fun. Usually we do end up having fun, but often there is a fair amount of kicking and screaming before we get out the door or have any fun. For instance last weekend I wanted to take them to see the National Christmas tree with the train display and Santa workshop. Fun, right? Well we had all sorts of crying and screaming just getting out of the car! And, as always, I time our visit in line with Obama's commute so the whole area was closed off and we had to wait in the freezing cold with grumpy boys. Carlos and I were baffled why we put ourselves through this in the name of fun for the kids. Once we were actually able to enter we had a lot of fun and Charlie loved Santa's workshop. Diego was freaked out (hence the crying in the picture), but he loved the trains. Charlie told Santa he wanted a 'brown train' for Christmas. Random!

We did however have a great time hunting down our Christmas tree in Middleburg. It was a beautiful day and we hiked all over the farm in search of the perfect tree. Charlie liked finding and nominating potential trees while Diego was mainly taken by the cart. As Carlos cut the tree, Charlie 'helped' by holding Carlos' leg (though he admitted to being worried about getting 'bonked'). Typical Carlos was a little too zealous about the size of the tree we should get and so we ended up with a 10 foot tree that didn't fit in our car. And we still don't have a rack on the car so Carlos tied it on top in some elaborate manner that locked us all in the car. We stopped by Charlie's school to pick up stuff from their holiday sale and I had to exit through the window. Always a nice way to make an entrance...

We are glad to be going to Nevada to see Carlos' family this week for the holidays...and a break. Poor Carlos has had to deal with a lot of my work travel recently and I am exhausted from all the work and travel and guilty feelings about being gone from my kids.

Thanksgiving

Carlos has been in Colombia with his sister so Charlie, Diego and I headed to Philadelphia last week for Thanksgiving. It was so nice to see all my family and eat an unbelievable amount of delicious food. Charlie had so much fun playing with his cousins Wallis and Eli. The kids got to help cook and check out the kids table for Thanksgiving! too cute! The kids played so hard and one of my favorites was their game of hide and go seek. They would tell me where they would hide, they'd all hide there and then if I didn't find them quickly enough they'd yell out their location. When I did "find" them they would SHRIEK as though it was amazing I found them.

Here they are cooking together:

It was a full house so Charlie, Diego and I shared one room which was a recipe for a disaster. We had two air mattresses and pack 'n play...of course the three of us ended up on one air mattress. It was like camping all over again. Charlie snuggled into his cute aid mattress for about 1 minute before deciding to come into mine and Diego can't bear to be in his crib if he senses me in the room. It was comical. Well not really. After feeling like I pulled two all-nighters Charlie and I moved in with my little brother and gave Diego his own room. Clearly I wasn't the only tired one. My brother Nathan fell asleep when we were sitting around in the kitchen.

If I were to make a wild guess at what professions my sons will have I'd say Diego will be an architect and Charlie will pursue something artistic (maybe that should read tortured soul). Diego likes to fit things together and is absolutely obsessed with tractors. The only words he says are mama, hi/bye and tractor. He usually collects all of the tractors we have in the house and just sits in the middle of them saying 'tractor, tractor, tractor.' Charlie still loves his music and seems to be getting in touch with his his Bolivian roots - his masked dance reminds me of Bolivian street parades. Check out his moves:

PHL-NH-NYC-PHL-DCA

I logged a lot of miles this weekend and Diego let a lot of fluids fly. He's been randomly throwing up - only once every other day or so. I have no idea what it is and the doctor says he is fine so I'm cutting out milk for a while in case it is lactose intolerance. Last week he must have thrown up sometime in the night, rolled around in it and slept in it. By morning the puke was caked all over him and the whole room smelled. I was horrified. Unfortunately he did it again this weekend when I left him with my parents overnight in Philadelphia. I felt terrible for them - he puked everywhere. I think I'm the only one who thinks Diego is an angel. Here is my bag of sugar lounging in his robe:

I drove to Philly thursday, then took the train to New Haven on friday, then back to Philly on Saturday, then drove to New York on Sunday and back down to Philadelphia in the afternoon and arrived in DC by 11pm on Sunday night. It was a great weekend overall (for me at least). I got to see Seth and Charlie in New Haven for the Harvard-Yale game which was fun, but the game itself was so painful. The score was something pathetic like 45-7 Harvard. Especially sad was the fact that Yale QB gave up an interview to become a Rhodes scholar to play in the dreadful game.

On Sunday we went up to New York for Wallis' birthday. It was so fun to see the cousins play together and cruise the sidewalks of nyc holding hands.

Despite the puke accident Charlie and Diego had fun staying with grandma lulu. They ventured downtown on the train, pl1 ayed with her mountain of toys and somehow ended up with even more toys to take home. The one piece of instruction I left for my parents was: DO NOT SLEEP NEXT TO THEM! YOU WON'T GET ANY SLEEP! 1 guess what they did....My mom slept on the couch next to Diego and my Dad slept next to Charlie. Seriously??!?!?

It seems my aunt is trying to turn Charlie into a car salesman...Would you buy a car from this guy?

car

Who Rocks The House....

Today I chaperoned Charlie's school field trip to Eastern Market. It was really cute - they are doing a cooking theme this week so each team had a clipboard with items listed that they had to find and pay for. Prior to the walk they had morning meeting where they check in, sing, do yoga and just generally be cute. Here is one of their songs....Check out Charlie rocking the house!

My friend Maria came to visit us this weekend and she didn't have much luck breaking Charlie's shyness until the music started playing and her iphone came out. Charlie loves to be on video! Here he is rocking out in the middle of Eastern Market

I think he invented a new dance move this weekend called "snaking' (his term). It's part worm, part slither. It's pretty awesome and has become part of his dance routines.

Diego continues to be my sweet sweetness. I just love to be around him - he brings me so much joy. One of my favorite things is that he loves to sit in our lap and play - the other day we were at a friend's house for dinner and he sat in my lap letting us eat and talk for an hour! His smile is so cute and funny with the missing front tooth. He still doesn't say anything but he does screech "mama" when he wants me to pick him up. And I believe he is starting to have tempertantrums - when I take something from him he flops down on the floor, kicks his feet and does his purring cry.

Unfortunately Diego and Charlie both had a bumpy transition this week. I'm not sure if it was because of my travels or what. Diego wouldn't stop crying when I put him to bed the night after I got home. And Charlie cried for the first time since school started when I dropped him off. Charlie's sleeping continues to be an issue - a MAJOR issue. In fact I don't like Charlie between the hours of 7pm and 7am. And he certainly is not making the case for another baby brother/sister....

However from 7am-7pm he is pretty fun. The other day he told me that Santa Claus was the vice president of the United States. He knows who Obama and Biden are so it was interesting and hysterical to try to decipher what he was trying to say about Santa and our government. Any thoughts?

Too Much Travel!

Three weeks ago I was in Switzerland for nearly a week and last week I was in San Francisco for almost a week. I can't complain about the locations, but my poor husband is about to kill me. I've noticed that day three is the tipping point - more than 3 days and things start going downhill and everyone gets cranky (me included). Luckily this past week Abuela (Carlos' mom) was here to help out and Charlie loved having her stay.

Here are some pictures of Vevey in Switzerland. wow - this place is gorgeous. The meeting was hosted by Nestle, which is headquartered here, and I kept telling them to hire me....

I met up with an old friend of mine for 24 hours in Paris on my way back. I haven't been to Paris since middle school and I haven't seen this friend for 15 years!! Now I'm really looking forward to cashing in on the bet that Carlos lost - a vacation to Paris planned by the loser. He lost the bet when he didn't finish the house before Charlie was born and then the poor guy doubled down and lost again when Diego beat the house project.

Here are some pictures of Paris.

Couples put locks on the bridge overlooking Notre Dame to seal their timeless love...:)

Because of the travel I missed my favorite holiday - HALLOWEEN! I was so sad to not get to trick or treat with the kids. To make up for it we had a pumpkin carving party....of course with the three year olds I figured that carving was a long shot so I got sticky eyeballs and wax teeth. The kids definitely liked the sticky eyeballs more than the pumpkins and they realized they could throw them against the wall and watch them slime down.

Charlie took part in the school's book character parade - he dressed up as Max again and marched around the school. He made the circuit and asked "where is the parade?" We had spent so much time talking about the school parade that it was hard for him to realize that he WAS the parade.

Really Delayed Post...

wow - I'm so far behind! I lost the cord to my camera and haven't been able to download pictures! So - I'll post what I have....

Here is Charlie's school pictures which I think are hysterical. Very cute, but very fake looking. I bought the whole package and have no idea what I'll do with the prints.
Charlie really seems to like school. As far as I can tell he mainly plays with the girls which I think is great. The girls seem to play much more civilized games than boys do. Recently he seems to like to play with Jack and when I asked him why he likes Jack he answered "Because he has down hair just like me." I burst out laughing. He was referring to the fact that despite my best attempts to part his hair it always falls down straight over his forehead. In fact he flattens it down! Here he is on a field trip with his class to the postal musuem

Last weekend we went to pick pumpkins and enjoyed the halloween festival at Butlers:

A few weekends ago we had a somewhat amusing attempt at camping with Isaac and his family. It was pretty hysterical....though not at the time given that none of us got any sleep. Diego seemed to be able to smell me and cried out only to wake up Charlie and this went back and forth the whole night.

My angel Diego grunts his way through the day. He doesn't seem to have any need for words as we all know exactly what he is grunting about. Charlie continues to mainly use Diego as target practice - knocking him over and stealing toys.