Christmas Tree!

We ventured to Middleburg to chop down a Christmas tree.  It seems that it was an off-year for the tree farm as the trees were so small that I actually considered getting two tiny trees - one for Diego and one for Charlie.  Sorry Sofia.  In the end we settled on a medium sized tree.  Despite the small size, the kids were so worried about getting hit by a falling tree that they stood back probably 25 feet.  Aunt Mary came to meet us and we put her to work as you can see...

 

We had a few of Charlie's friends over to decorate gingerbread houses this weekend. The kids were super excited and had lots of fun decorating....and sneaking a few candies.  Cici was the only girl and was subjected to a boy-centric comments, lots of talk about poo and wrestling.  Having her juxtaposed against the boys' behavior was really shocking. I had no idea how civilized girls were compared to boys!!  I am also shocked at the level of anti-girl talk floating around 5 year old boys.  Charlie doesn't criticize girls, but he does interpret and then generalize what he sees in a way that frustrates me: girls don't play baseball, or football, he is faster than girls, girls don't like kickball.....

The gingerbread decorating was fun and Charlie and Cici (and Diego) spent 9 straight hours playing nicely (and quietly) together (once the other boys left).  I promised Diego he could choose his own friends to have over too so we are planning another gathering.  I've been trying to spend more time dedicated to Diego. He is super sweet when he gets our undivided attention.  He is also quite amorous with his classmates - he wants to hug everyone and then gets sad if they don't want a hug.  Given how tough he is, I find the hug thing weird.

Sofia loves to try to walk around.  She nearly runs.  I think she may start walking around the same time as Charlie - 10 months.  She waves hello and seems to have full conversations with her high-pitched squeals.  Saturday afternoon Carlos took the boys so I got to spend a lot of time alone with Sofia and it was so precious.  She is a total delight - she smiles a lot and can spend an hour unpacking the food-truck fabric food that my mom made a few years ago.  She examines each piece, tastes it for awhile, flings it out of her way and then is on to the next piece.  She has really taken to the pickle in particular! 

New York and Thanksgiving

The weekend before Thanksgiving we all went up to New York to celebrate Wallis' 6th birthday.  Despite his aversion to New York, Carlos did okay and the kids had a lot of fun playing with Wallis and Eli.  Everyone braved the cold to go scooting/biking and play soccer.  From there they went to the lego store and then braved the snow to go to Soogy's favorite restaurant - Benihana!  So funny.  The kids did love the chef, but the food was, well....Benihana food...

We got to see some of my highschool and college friends while we were there which made me happy.  Seeing them always reminds me how much I appreciate old friends and how I don't do a good enough job staying in touch.

On Wednesday we headed up to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving at my mom's house.  It was so nice for the kids to be with their cousins and uncles/aunts.  My vision of a family Turkey day trot didn't really materialize, but we did go to the track to run around and play soccer before the big feast.  Charlie tried to keep up with his uncles running around the track, but at 6:30 mile pace, it was a bit tough for him.....Tio Seth ran with him afterwards around the track once at 2:13.  Diego played soccer with me (with sofia attached) and my mom but then told us he wanted "a fast guy to play with him."  Guess I'm going to have to score more goals on him....The day after Thanksgiving we trekked down to the Franklin Institute.  The Pompeii reenactment film made Diego cry, but the cool digger, skybike and actual train made up for it.  

Thanksgiving dinner was an insane amount of good food.  The kids started off with presents on their plates which was a good appetizer!

Sofia slept next to me all weekend and when she is close by she spends the whole night nursing.  I guess she smells the milk and can't resist.  She is so cozy that I don't really mind except that getting back on our normal routine is hard.  She cried like crazy when I put her to bed without me.  It could also be the fact that her first tooth is finally coming in!!  

During the week Charlie's class had a publishing party which was super cute.  They wrote a book and illustrated it.  Charlie's story contemplated why tigers and bees have black stripes. Very deep.  My favorite part was the back cover which read: "if you want to learn more about tigers and bees read this book."  Here he is reading it....

Despite my best efforts as room-parent I seem to get on Charlie's teacher's bad side.  My latest stick-my-foot-in-my-mouth episode was that I told her I thought the report cards were silly.  That didn't go over well. I appreciate that they don't grade just random subjects, but the social studies section feels like they are grading them on being patriotic capitalists!  He got a "B" for basic for the American symbol one - seems our son is not very patriotic....Luckily the teacher seems to like Carlos so we might at least be in neutral territory.

What charlie is graded against