Tuesday, December 27, 2011

A beautifully lazy Christmas...except for the cooking

The build up to Christmas is always a lot of work... the planning, the buying, the wrapping, the decorating... my kitchen was so disorganized, that we devoted an entire morning to cleaning/organizing all of the drawers. These little helpers were the best- especially with the candy. After Halloween/Easter/Valentines Day- we always have a lot of candy leftovers- so I tuck it away in the top shelf where no one can reach (except for Steve of course). It was such a mess up there, but we got it all together and used it to decorate gingerbread houses! It was perfection :)


Every Christmas until this year, we have traveled. It has been great, and we love to visit family, but it was also nice to not worry about planes/weather/stress and just relax at home and be in our pj's all day. It was a perfectly lazy Christmas.... well, maybe not that lazy because of the cooking involved:

Christmas for me was often traveling to Mexico City with my parents to visit my grandparents/uncles and aunts/cousins. If you've ever been there for a long time, you know the food is amazing. I don't know what they do to it- but it just tastes different. My memories of Christmas and New Years included so much GOOD FOOD, I was definitely spoiled.

My family knew how to cook- and food from all over the world. Yum.

Since our girls are getting older and are starting to remember traditions, we spent some time thinking about what type of traditions we want to start and keep in our family. We decided that we would cook our favorite Mexican dishes sprinkled with other things to start the memories with our kids.

So... I had to start with tamales. Making tamales is no small task, and I was extremely nervous about it. After 10 u-tube videos, and asking tons of people, I decided on a recipe, went to Chavez (local Latin American market), and started step by step :)

The smells in the kitchen from the roasted peppers were so YUMMY! Not to mention, the smell of Mexican cinnamon simmering in the holiday "ponche."


The greatest helper in her pjs!

With the tamale husks soaking up water.

We also made our gingerbread from scratch this year- gluten free. Turned out pretty well! Good thing I have a lifetime to perfect it though :)

Rolling out the gingerbread.

No time to brush our hair!

Since I'm kind of a mut of cultures, we also had a lot of french influence during the holidays. Buche de Noel's are my favorite!! We decided to make this too- which I was also super nervous about- but it was delicious! And, naturally gluten free!

My favorite memory with Buche de Noel's was wishing my piece had the little baby (a little baby is hidden in the cake, and the lucky one to get the piece with the baby gets a prize)!

This year, none of us got it! It landed out of the piece when I cut it on the platter!! AH! (Cute Emilie still thought I got it since I was doing the cutting).

This is my little buche de noel.


I tried to find a different sort of salad to make- and came across this super delicious recipe with kale, mango, pumpkin seeds, and a simple olive oil/honey/lemon vinaigrette. It was surprisingly really good- I mean, I didn't think kale could be that good!

After a couple of hours of love, the tamales were done!!! AH! And, they actually were really good! Bring it on bobby flay! Let's have a tamale throw down...

Steve made posole...

For Christmas Eve dinner, we dressed up, and ate our feast and collapsed on our front chairs in front of the fire and read the Nativity story and sang Christmas songs. Maddie played Mary, Steve was Joseph, Emi was baby Jesus, and I was the Angel/Shephards/Wise Men.

By this time, it was 9 and we scurried M and E to bed before Santa came!!!


Steve has great memories of waking up with blocks made by his dad and teddy bears made by his mom. So, he decided to make a teepee-- Restoration Hardware had a great Christmas cover on their baby catalog with a teepee and Christmas lights-- so we kind of copied the idea, and it was super cute! We positioned the teepee by the Christmas tree with all of the presents.

Christmas morning was a whirlwind, but there were some great moments : 1) Emilie finding her Hello Kitty in her stocking, 2) Maddie finding her snow white dress, 3) Steve opening his Wii (that really wasn't a surprise because he saw it in our Amazon account... wah wah wah.

A also made gluten free Cinnamon rolls that were delicious to me!!! (maybe not to the rest of the world... I forget how good food can be sometimes with the gluten)

The rest of the day was pure laziness, an hour at church, but just lounging around and playing games for hours.

Isn't that how Christmas should be?

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Pipe smoking santa



Before I forget... Maddie asked me a couple of days ago...


"Mom, does Santa smoke?"


I immediately almost said "no, of course not." But, wait... he does!


I didn't really know how to wiggle out of this one. Luckily, she moved on to something else!






Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Let's start with Halloween :)

My photos uploaded in such a crazy way, and I can't put them in order! So, this is going to be the messiest post, but at least it's a post :)

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and we had a great time this year! We threw a party for my kids friends (had awesome crafts, decorated cookies, danced, had a pinata and steve had glow in the dark bubbles in the garage). It was awesome.

Speaking of awesome, we made Maddie's SheRa costume and Emilie's costume as a ghost:



Super cute kids if I don't say so myself :)


Flash forward tons of weeks- this is the worst picture EVER, but I helped design the kids room for a Creche exhibit in our neighborhood- and I think it turned out awesome! We strung lights, then sheers, and made these stars :) It was a lot of work, but it's always worth it.

We also had Maddie's birthday party- her 5th! I can't believe it! We decorated aprons, made pizzas from scratch, decorated cupcakes and had a magic show. Maddie had a great time and so did we (after the clean up!)



This recipe was awesome.

I ordered everything off of amazon- love love amazon.

The cute aprons and stencils we decorated with.

Most of all the cute party goers :) We had a lot of fun!


And, here is the great lead in to Thanksgiving! My dad came out and it was a perfect weekend! We had dinner, relaxed at the house on Thursday, and then on Friday... went to a Christmas Tree Farm and then the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, went swimming on Saturday and played at the park... and relaxed on Sunday. It was a great weekend.

At the Ritz...

This Christmas tree farm has THE coolest swings- how can you beat a tire swing hanging from the tallest eucalyptus tree? So awesome- would love to have some in my backyard someday!

Hanging out on the hammock at the farm..

Thanksgiving day...

At the beach...

NOT THANKSGIVING! For Halloween, we hosted a little dinner with "scary" food- here are some bones!

Some ghosts...

Eyeball salad.

Delicious teeth.

Super cute orange pumpkins with fruit salad. Yum!


Worms in dirt...

It was a super scary and delicious night!


One of my favorite parties was this one- we come and have a pumpkin decorating contest and then arm wrestle? Yes- that's right. It is super fun... and I always feel like a super weak lamo when I feel just how "strong" everyone is! Ah!

Last but not least, Steve's mom came to visit- and we had a great time. We visited a farm/pumpkin patch place on the way to the coast. My kids always have a great time here.

These sneaky goats kept on eating emilies clothes.



The sheriff.

The cowgirl.

The outlaw.

Great times :)


Somewhere in between this, we bought a trampoline. It has been super fun, but it was a BEAST to assemble. I did it all myself, and it took all afternoon- the directions were the worst. But, Maddie was the best little cheerleader-- Mom, just keep on focusing. You can do it. Well, who can say no to that?
This is also the worst pic ever... but we threw a shower for a friend of ours, and it was a lot of fun- the food was delicious, the people were great to talk to :) Not many more people having their firsts...does that mean I'm old?

Now my pledge: I will post at least once every two weeks. This is getting pathetic. I know.