Catching Up

This was a note I left for Diego early last week.  Sometimes I forget to tell him when I am going running in the morning and I worry he won't know where I am.  Anyways, I thought it was indicative of my life right now.  Not only is it a busy time of year but I have been dealing with illness in our house since Halloween.  It is starting to get me down.  But I want to attempt to get caught up with this old blog and not miss any of the fun and memories of the season.  I am still hoping for the day when I can blog every few days instead of every few weeks and not have these mega-all-in-one-multi-event-catch-up-blogs.  Someday.

The  first weekend in December we went to the Electric light parade.  This is something we have done on and off for years.  A friend of mine from elementary school lives very close to the parade route and she invited us to come hang out and walk to the parade.  It was a very cold, very wet night.  I love seeing the kids all bundled up. 

We walked (or hitched a ride in a wagon) to the parade route, hot chocolate in hand.

It was so fun sitting with Ava on my lap - everything was so exciting and magical.

Exciting and magical - until it started to rain. Freezing cold rain.  Fortunately Mark had brought our gigantic golf umbrella so we were ok for awhile.  Eventually we just had to pack it up and call it a night.  I have to admit, I loved how cold it was.  It makes it feel more like Christmas.  We had fun.

The following weekend was our tamale making extravaganza.  We have been doing this for at least 10 years and now that the guys are involved it has become an all out party.  I was about three days into my cold so I was not feeling so hot.  I was able to get some pics.

Here the kids are preparing the maza.  They always enjoy mushing and sqwuishing and when Nana pours in the warm broth it feels so good.

The assembly line.

When you are making 60 dozen tamales you gotta keep the workers happy :)

This is shortly before I dropped out and took a nap.

These Santa hats got a lot of use.  Earlier in the day I had all the kids put one on to try to get a Christmas card picture.  Not great but they are all there!  Note to self - look for opportunities to get a family pic before the second week of December.  On Sunday Mark took the kids to get a tree and they came home with a beautiful, big tree.  Our schedule for the week was so hectic that the only day we could decorate was Monday afternoon and we had to squeeze it in between homework and dinner.  Mark had to work.  It makes me a llittle sad to think we have officially entered the phase of a family when everyone is coming and going all the time. The kids had a great time - the girls insisted on wearing their pjs in the middle of the afternoon.  I love how they go through the ornaments and talk about where they are from and whose they are. They start reminiscing about past Christmas' and seeing their excitement and joy helps put me in the mood for the season.