Horse Feathers (or is it one word?)

Remember how my older kids taught Pedro to replace the word "uneducated" for the word "stupid"?

They have now brought to my attention how often I say the word "crap" by teaching Pedro to tell me that crap is not a nice word (I know it already!) and to replace it with "horse feathers" (horesefeathers?).

Whatever would I do without the little gems?

Some Bold Re-Gifting

I hesitate to share this with little holiday story you because the re-gifter is a really cool lady and a friend of mine from church. But, I keep cracking up thinking about it, so I have to share. No one in my "new" life knows about my blog (that I know of), but even so, I'm sure I'll be deleting this post in a few days when my conscience gets the best of me.

Last night this woman and her husband came over for a quick visit and brought us a little plate of treats (maybe it was his idea-why am I blaming her? I can totally see Guapo suggesting something like this). We chatted for a while and then they left at which point I surveyed the plate. A nice variety of homemade candies and cookies.

But hey, wait just a second-haven't I seen that chocolate covered Oreo with the cute little holly leaf and berries on it somewhere before?

And what about those chocolate covered peanuts clusters?

I know I've seen the cute little gingerbread cookie with the M&M buttons.

We had received three plates of goodies from people in our ward before this little plate; the little plate had something from each of the others on it. I still had the other plates, so I know I'm not making this stuff up.

My friend is known for being super practical and not worrying about what other people think-so it totally makes sense. It prevents her from a) eating too many sweets and b) from having to do time-consuming holiday baking, and c) spending money on those types of gifts. Win-win-win, right? She had to have assumed that I would have received a plate from at least one of the three people I did, and yet she went ahead and re-gifted anyway.

I respect her decision and may even consider the move myself- just probably not to people within the same social circle.

Those chocolate covered oreos were my favorite-so I was happy to get an extra. :)

Random Holiday Post

Holiday shopping

As of today at 4:00 pm I.am.officially.done. Everything is wrapped. Everything is shipped. I will buy nothing else.

Except, what do people generally give to the mail carrier? Money? If so, how much?

Margarita Redeemed

We had a busy week of holiday parties, concerts, and recitals. And we're not done yet. At Margarita's choir concert Tuesday night this was a sight that made me happy:

The lost and found table. Apparently Margarita's not the only middle-schooler who temporarily can't find things (they are never lost; even if we haven't seen them for months).

The Problem with Mormons

I thought it'd be fun have a casual "little" get together Sunday evening with a three other families from our church. You know- hot chocolate, snacks, some relaxed conversation.

I just added up how many kids will be here.

EIGHTEEN.

Any ideas for high-yield snacks?

Holiday Cheer

After contemplating for months about how my children would no longer have holiday celebrations being in US public schools, I have been happily surprised. Sure, Julio had "Secret Snow People" instead of "Secret Santas" in his class, but Margarita's choir concert had a couple of songs about Jesus' birth(I thought that was a huge no-no), the teachers wished us "Merry Christmas", and Pedro's class even had a special visitor today:

I know, what a crappy photo. It was bad lighting for my poor little iPhone, but I also discovered later that the lens was totally gooped up (how in the world did that happen? Pedro, I'm sure.)

Look at this one:

Santa asked the kids to be quite while he read them a story so Pedro sat like this for the next few minutes. What a little monkey.

2 Minutes of Fame

Julio's basketball team got to play for 5 minutes at the halftime of the CU game tonight. There are 10 players so they each got about 2 1/2 minutes. Julio said it felt like 23 seconds. He attempted one shot and got a rebound. His little buddy who hasn't made a basket all season (tomorrow's the last game), scored.

See? I cleaned my lens. Much better.

Hey, What About Juan Carlos?

I just realized I've talked about every kid but Juan Carlos; as I mentioned before, this week has been crazy. So on Wednesday morning as I'm walking the boys to school I realize his clothes look a little too familiar. We had gotten home from the choir concert late and they kids scurried to bed-some of them not even bothering to change into jammies. He got up and wore the same (visibly dirty) clothes the next day. Lovely.

Oh well, at least he was at school.

So, that's what we're up to. My kids finished school today. I'm not sure if things will be more hectic because they are around, or less hectic because we don't have all of their activities we have to be at. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Happy Holidays!

Forced Holiday Decorating

About a month ago, someone from the Relief Society (women's organization of our church) asked if they could have their Christmas dinner at our house. "Sure, no problem!" I told them. Then the rest of the month everyone kept telling me how "brave" I was for hosting. I was starting to get really paranoid near the end, did they know something that I did not?

It was a lot of work to get our house ready, but it forced us to do some things we'd been putting off (like washing those windows way, way up there-requiring me to get on the roof, setting up the treadmill and hanging some pictures that had been sitting around for MONTHS) , but I didn't have to be in charge of the invitations, the food, or the program (the things that stress me out), so it worked just fine for me.

The party was a success and now my house will look great for the rest of the season. Here are some photos:

Yes, that's a real tree-isn't it perfectly shaped? Several people asked me where I got such a real looking artificial tree. And those lights? They took about 10 trips to Target and 5 years off of Guapo's life to get them just how he wanted them.

Finally, something up in that space that bugs me everyday. Watering them could be difficult. I don't think dead poinsettias will be quite as festive.

Look at those awesome pillows I found. I was so proud of myself.

My favorite room of the house-so cozy for Christmas.

Guapo's tree that took an additional 2 years off of his life.

My animal from Venezuela greeted people as they arrived.

And look at Kitty with the golden reindeer the previous owners left up in the attic.

I'm practically done with my holiday shopping and wrapping so things are good. Now, if only it would snow. We've only gotten and inch and a half here-very dissapointing to my kiddos.

I hope you're having a wonderful December.

Not Today. Not Today.

My blog haunts me every night as I go to bed; it nags, "You didn't post today. AGAIN." Oh, the disappointment, the guilt, the horror. Not only am I missing my blog friends and their interesting lives, I'm not recording my own life. But I just don't have any big chunks of time like I used to when I didn't have to cook and clean and that's what I require to write. I'm hoping that at some point I will be able to get it together enough to post a couple of times a week, but so far, I'm just living with the daily nagging of my blog.

So, forgive me. It's not you, it's me. I promise.

Anyway. You may have wondered how our first Thanksgiving back in the States went after 9 years of it slowly losing its meaning because I couldn't get fried onions, cranberries, or sweet potatoes and Guapo was always at work anyway, so what was the point?

Well... we spent it...back to Mexico on the beach where we spent our three Mexican Thanksgivings. We went with my parents and siblings and their families. I'm obviously not complaining, I just think it's funny. I also think it's funny that after 9 years of having to travel with with baby after baby, making each and every flight a veritable nightmare, our kids are now pretty easy to travel with and now we won't do nearly as much airplane travel. I took naps, read a book, stared into space for long periods of time-I didn't have to do barely anything for them.

So, here are a few shots from the trip...

The lovely beach that has unfortunately been discovered by Europeans snorkel enthusiasts-it used to be so sleepy and this time there were certain days when herds of waddling-finned and goggled people invaded in hopes of seeing a few of the many turtles that live just off the shore.

The sand crabs the kids caught every night:

Poor Pedro was terrified of them and refused the nightly "crab hunt" after the very first night when he told me, "I can't take it anymore!" (My mom asked, "I wonder who he's heard that from." Who? From me? Yeah, probably.)


Here's the little guy on the beach.

Awwww. He's growing up.

Speaking of "Poor Pedro", he spent a good portion of the 8 day trip sick. I gave him the croup which I had right before we left (I know, you thought grown-ups couldn't get the croup. They can.), and then he got a bad case of "Montezuma's revenge" the last 3 days and spent most of his time on a lawn chair sleeping:

He was still pretty good natured though:

We relived our Mexico days and climbed the ruins of Coba:

And, we did some zip-lining into a cenote:

Yes, I was that scared. After having lived there for 3 years and seeing the lack of quality control, and the high frequency of jimmy-rigging with wire and duct tape, I'm still surprised I did it (and let my kids do it). But, we all survived and had a ton of fun in the process.

Here's my splash into the beautiful cenote:

And with that, I'm going to go to bed IN PEACE for once, having appeased my nagging blog.