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.