New Years

We headed to San Francisco for New Years and had such a fun time that the boys said they wanted to spend the summer there. I think that is largely due to how much they adore tia Veronika.  We rented bikes one day and rode along the Embarcadero and Crissy Fields to end up at a trampoline park and then back to the Ferry where we crossed the bay for a (mediocre) meal at Guaymas.  The kids went rock climbing and got to stay up late catching up on Star Wars movies. What's not to love? 

Is this just a Bay Area thing?

No visit to SF is complete without dental day with Tia Veronika

The one downer was battling Sofia over the holidays which, unfortunately, seems to have become a common occurrence. Over the last two weeks I've had to exit the homes of 5 different friends because of her screaming. While I can't stand leaving with a screaming child she goes on for about 15-20 minutes and I don't like subjecting anyone to that torment. I feel terrible for Sofia that she gets herself so worked up about things and can't control herself, but after awhile I am sick of the screaming that I have to just put her in her room and wait it out.  She'll be charming and sweet and then as soon as the boys arrive she starts either defending her ground or going on the offensive trying to take their toys and it isn't long before the screaming starts.  She also can't stand being in a car seat so she battles every single time we get in the car - like it is a negotiation??!  I suppose I should read some parenting book, but I'm not even sure how to classify her behavior and realistically I never end up reading parenting books....

Let's hope 2016 brings good things and many more adventures....without screaming....

Here is from the Renwick Wonder exhibit - super cool:

Christmas

This winter has been scary warm - which, although terrible for the planet, is great for my mental health! We've been able to enjoy so much time outside with temperatures as high as 70+ in December!!  As soon as we got back from Thanksgiving we hurried to chop down a tree and get it decorated before we left town.  Aunt Mary recommended a new farm for us to visit which turned out to be a great idea and - armed with hot apple cider - we hunted around for the perfect tree. As usual, Carlos is the most particular about the tree specifications while the rest of us enjoy the scenery and then pressure him to hurry up.  We ended up with a nice tree and a fun adventure.  Because we didn't buy the tree from our school, we bought many other things and charlie spent hours volunteering at the school christmas tree sale. He and his friend Jack literally spent 4 hours sweeping the playground to keep up with the mess from all the trees being carted off.  
Once we got the tree decorated we made a massive ginerbread house and 50+ cookies and invited the boys' friends over for decorating. It didn't go exactly as planned. Diego and his friends worked hard on their decorating, but Sofia just sat there eating cookies and Charlie and his friends just absconded with candies. They weren't so interested in the decorating part....I had offered to have 1 kids sleep over, but then word got out and we ended up with 4 extra bodies strewn across the 3rd floor.  It was actually a lot of fun.  That said we had a serious night owl and an early bird so it was a bad compbination for sleep.  Sometime around 11 we had to threaten to drive one kid home if he didn't go to sleep and then by 6am one kids woke everyone up.  As an early Christmas present I had found a game table on craigslist and so the kids played non-stop on the miniature billiard table. They love it!

We tried to cram in all the Christmas activities we could before leaving so I also took them to National Harbor to see the crazy ice sculptures, decorate yet another gingerbread house and see all the fun decorations. They loved it and really wanted to spend the night in the hotel. I of course couldn't wait to get out of there....A more fun outing was going to the White House with the Ralleses to see the decorations. Big Bill has a great view of the tidal basin (and a nice tree for the holidays).

We made it to Reno for Christmas and were very lucky to arrive before a big snowstorm.  That meant we got a white christmas and the kids could go skiing! Veronika took Charlie and Carlos took Diego up the mountain and after a few days they got so much better. I got to join one afternoon - after 10 years of no snowboarding!!! - and had so much fun. I loved to see Diego go down the slopes with no help.  By the last afternoon they started taking little jumps. Crazy kids.  Unfortunately I was so enthusiastic about my venture to the mountain that I took photos, put my phone back in my pocket and then....forgot to zip up...The kids on the chairlift behind us were screaming, but I had no idea what they were saying. Turns out my phone fell off the chairlift.   Somehow it was found, turned in and I was reunited with it the next day. That was really lucky because in an attempt to stop loosing things I got a phone case that holds my ID and credit card so I would have had no ID and no money!!!

We made our annual virtual christmas card to overload everyone on pictures of the kids: http://bit.ly/2015taftvazquez

As I look back over the year it's amazing how the kids have grown and changed. Charlie is becoming a very thoughtful, well-rounded and diligent young person. I admire him very much. He works hard and is competitive, but values his friends more than winning (which has caused issues with one of his best friends this year who wants to win over anything else). He is diligent and respectful at school and his teacher love having him in class. He works hard - he was the first in his class to complete the math curriculum - but loves to have fun once school is over. He has a group of very close friends who are all extremely nice.

Charlie and his Capitol Kicks champs

Diego is still my angel baby.  Carlos and I both worry about him being stuck in the middle. He is overshadowed by a confident older brother and a tyrannical younger sister. He is the only one of the three who can play by himself for hours - he loves legos, building, vehicles, play figures and drawing.  He loves his teachers - past and present - and I've been told by multiple mothers that Diego is by far the teacher's favorite. I think it is his scrumptious cheeks and contagious giggle. He hasn't been as quick to learn to read as Charlie and I worry he may be a bit dyslexic. It's been hard to get much alone time with him to work on his reading/writing given Sofia's constant demands. In any case Diego shines bright for me.

Sofia, Sofia, Sofia. I admire her so much. She is more strong willed than the rest of us put together and is the boss of the household.  The below comic sums up how we often feel about her:

She is super self-sufficient - she gets herself dressed (multiple times a day) though the clothes are often on backwards and inside out.  She had a record destructive week recently (broke or ruined at least 1 thing everyday) and Cici's mom got me thinking when she said "Puppies destroy things when they are bored." I'm thinking that maybe Sofia needs more stimulation so school will be good (if she gets in). She can already spell her name, but needs some help counting after twelve..."twelve, thirteen, nineteen, eleven, sixteen...".  She sure is a force within our family.

Thanksgiving

Despite the fact that Carlos hates NY, we had a really fun thanksgiving weekend there. That said, we did get a classic welcome to NY by getting sideswipped by a taxi about 100 feet after getting through the Lincoln tunnel.  The taxi cut us off and Carlos went after him. A police happened to be close to where his passengers were being dropped so our midnight arrival turned into 1am as the cops processed the incident. The kids all woke up and were so excited about the whole thing they didn't go back to sleep until 2am....

working up a thanksgiving appetite

Thanksgiving day was full of preparations and enjoying the beautiful weather.  With 8 little kids running around it was tough for everyone to sit down at once, but we all enjoyed the meal in rounds. On Friday we went to the big apple circus. Sofia was scared to death and made me stand in the back for much of the time, but overall it was a lot of fun and the kids loved it. Fortunately it's mostly acrobatics instead of animal abuse...

The kids idolize Tio Charlie so they wanted to spend sometime with him alone. We dropped them off and enjoyed a surprisingly quiet brunch with highschool friends.  While the kids adore Tio Charlie they were pretty judgmental of his apartment: "this is SO small," "do you have another house?" "this isn't fancy and the stairway smells!"  Sofia especially loves Tio Charlie - on the car ride home she was fast asleep and started screaming "WHERE IS TIO CHARLIE?????"

On Sunday we went to my aunt Phyllis' mom memorial service. It was a very nice service and so wonderful to see much of the family. Charlie was the only one of my kids who sat through the service and he seemed to think about it a lot because on the car ride home he wanted to talk about it. He also wanted to understand how everyone in the family is connected to us and what it means to be part of the "family" - cousins, aunts, aunts' moms, etc.

Legoland discovery center was close by so we took the kids for one final round of fun before heading home.


The best part of the weekend was seeing how much fun the kids had together. They played every iteration of spy games they could think of. They even gave each other spy tests. I'm going to try and infiltrate to break their code and spy on them next time.

Pretty fun time.