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.