The Puzzle - Told in pictures, by Emma

Sunday morning, Alexa begged to try the puzzle that Ginny gave her for Christmas. Arturo and I were a bit reluctant, because it's a 60 piece, and we thought it might be too hard for her. I am actually proud to say that Alexa is better at puzzles than I am - because she never even looked at the picture on the cover, and she knew how to fit pieces in a way that I never thought of. With only some verbal guidance at the very beginning, Alexa put together the puzzle all by herself in about 15 minutes.

Emma captured the progress, stage by stage :

Christmas Day

We spent a lazy and quiet Christmas Day at home. This time last year, our house was filled with all our family from Mexico - lots of cousins and lots of activity.

Emma spent a lot of the day taking pictures with the camera. I love seeing what things catch her eye, and also her perspective of things. (For example, all the pictures taken of things on the countertop show how little she is!)

Here is Alexa enjoying the treat that some neighbors brought us - Chocolate Cake Balls - a wonderful, wonderful culinary invention.

Christmas

Feeling the Christmas Spirit

We hung out with the gang this morning (which stretched into the afternoon). Elizabeth made sinful fresh donuts, Ginny made a yummy french toast dish, and we munched on bacon too.
There goes the diet, but it was so worth it!

The girls played together for 4 straight hours, and were sad to say goodbye at the end too.

Alison orders some Girl Scout cookies as Alexa tries to upsell her a few more boxes.

We came home and then got layered up to go Christmas Caroling with Jed, John, and Ian. The kids had so much fun going from house to house - Emma didn't complain about the cold once, and Alexa sang even as we walked between houses. The child really feels the music. That reminds me of a funny story about Alexa. One day when we were out for brunch in Mexico with the entire family, Alexa, out of nowhere, leaned over and whispered into my ear, "Mommy, I feel music in my heart." Bless her, the child really feels the music in her heart and lets it out!

Christmas Cookies

Alexa helping me decorate the Christmas cookies this year:

Posada at the Orozcos

We went to a Posada at Birgit and Luis' house last weekend - good food, yummy tamales, some singing, and of course a Piñata!

Daphne and Alexa started playing with some trucks and cars - it was very cute:

Here is where half the group goes outside with candles and sings to the group inside. They are supposed to be like Mary and Joseph asking to be let in on Christmas Eve - and the group inside finally lets them in.

Luis hangs out of his 2nd floor window to hold the rope that the piñata is attached to. It was funny in real life. To me, at least.

Ok, only for a Mexican party would 15 kids bundle up in 30 degree weather to hit at a piñata. Plus, the piñata appeared to be a pink Easter bunny with its head half hanging off. Between Luis hanging out of his window, all of us shivering, and the kids whacking at a poor pink bunny - it was really pretty funny!

Chaos when the piñata broke. Em and Lex usually have it pretty easy going for the candy. Here, they were up against 15+ other Mexican kids (aka, professional piñata candy grabbers) - but they still fared pretty well. It was endearing to see Emma jumping into the mix and actually grabbing candy for Alexa and putting it in Alexa's bag for her. They may bicker all the time, but they sure do stick up for each other when times get tough!

CBA Holiday Show

Time for the CBA Holiday Show - the kids sang from a very multi-cultural repetoire of holiday songs - Starting with that You better watch out, you better not cry song(what's the name of it anyway?), then moving on to "Feliz Navidad" and then closing with "We wish you a Happy Hannukah"

Alexa actually sang! It was very cute :)

Gingerbread Day at Crossfield

Last Friday was Gingerbread Day in Emma's Kindergarten class. My neighbor Maura and I signed up to help make the Gingerbread frosting - so the day before, we stood in her kitchen separating egg whites and whipping up 12 pounds of powdered sugar. It was insane.

The next day, there we all were - sticky, gloppy, icing, 27 extra adults in the classroom, and lots and lots of sugar...

Emma poses in front of her creation:

The girls decided to play some reindeer game (I think they were burning off sugar) and were racing around in circles...

Chocolate Reindeer

It's that time of the year again, and the Chocolate Reindeer have shown their antlers at our house. The cookie is relatively easy to make and the girls can help me with putting on the faces. This year, they got to try their hand at doing some dough rolling too!

Gingerbread House

Another year of decorating a Gingerbread House, and another year when Emma and Alexa sneak bites and licks of the candy and icing. This year, I think that they actually ate more candy than made it onto the house itself - but look how happy they look in the pictures!

Silly Girls

Arturo and I were relaxing upstairs, the girls were playing together nicely in the basement. This is how Alexa looked when she came upstairs:

Tree Trimming

It was so much fun decorating the tree this year. About 75% of our ornaments come from before the kids were born. Arturo and I traveled a lot back then, and we always collected an ornament from the places we went. So as I unpacked all the ornaments this year, I told the girls about the places - each ornament has its own story, which is pretty neat.

We got the "medal" Emma is wearing around her neck after climbing the Great Wall in China (2002). So we decided to turn it into our Christmas ornament. Emma put it around her neck, and she was wearing her gymnastics leotard that day. I thought she looked like an underage Chinese gymnast, so we took this picture ;)

Christmas Tree is up!

We got our Christmas tree this past weekend. Took the obligatory tree on the car shot. Feel the need to compare it to our 2005 shot:

James Madison High School Band - "Tiny Tots Show"

Last week, we went with some of Emma's kindergarten friends to one of the high school band's "tiny tots" Holiday show - the band (which was surprisingly good!) played holiday tunes while costumed characters jumped around and dazzled the kids. Emma and Alexa loved it!

I never remember our orchestra being nearly that good in high school. Perhaps that is why our fundraiser each year was selling oranges, and not charging tickets for a performance for kids. And it was definitely weird being in a high school again...

Emma and John were captivated!