six

(Para Español hacer click aquí.)

Ah yes.  This beautiful face turned six this past week.  My baby is growing. Growing too fast.

Once again we surprised her with a decorated door on the morning of her birthday, and later in the week we celebrated with family and friends.  We ate, we played, and were merry.  

I love you my beautiful, silly, outgoing, yet shy at times, loving, caring, responsible, smart, amazingly creative, wonderful girl.  You are my baby and my baby you'll always be...even when you're one hundred and plus.  

and they keep on growing

Gees Luis!  Our home seems to go round and round with sickness these days.  When we finally think we are all clear of germs, one more gets sick.  Sigh!  I can't wait till regular spring days are here and colds are gone gone gone!  

Now enough with the ranting.  

Aside from us being sick, we also celebrated a birthday this weekend.  My chiquito turned 6. Six!  He is growing up fast.

Like every year on his birthday we celebrated small with a cake and family.  The big party won't be until the summer, when I combine both his and his sister's celebrations.  Our theme:  Pirates and mermaids!  They are looking forward to it, and so am I.  Which reminds me I never posted about last years Western themed party.  (Must do!)  Anyway, back to this weekend celebration, shall we.

Yes, so he is officially six.  My little guy.  He asked for a Transformers chocolate cake.  Nothing fancy.  

To begin with, for his class I made chocolate cupcakes, covered in chocolate frosting.  (Have you ever made the Hershey's chocolate frosting?  It is yummy! And one of our favorites.  Super easy to make.  Just follow the recipe on the back of the Hershey cocoa container.) Then I topped them with little stickers of transformers.  

Neither of my printers have been working correctly lately, so what I did to make the cake toppers (and to keep it as uncomplicated as possible) was buy small rectangular Transformer stickers.  I then cut out small rectangles (slightly bigger than the stickers) out of card stock and then stuck a toothpick between the sticker and card stock.  Finally we wrote his initial to the back of each topper.  

Nice and simple. Just the way I like it.

I made the cake the same way, but instead of using the toppers I made for the cupcakes, I bought small Transformer figures to decorate.  Again, nice and simple.

He was happy, I was happy, we were all happy.  And at the end, that is all that matters.

Happy Birthday to the most adoring, caring, and creative six year old I know! I love you so very much.

Photo courtesy of Aunt Nelly

 

 Hasta el infinito y mas!!!

              (aka Mami)

birthday girl, I was

So this weekend was my B-day.  I'm getting old.  But, I don't feel old.  I still feel like I'm in my early 20's, yet I am much, much closer to the 40's.  I guess it's true what they say- your as young as you feel.  I truly want to believe it.  So let me dream on!

I'm sure you are dying to know what I got as gifts, right?  (yea, right!)

Well, let me share with you anyway.

First off there is no party, without...

PARTY HATS!

and CARDS!

Now for those big item gifts...

a brand new BED!

a fully loaded CELL PHONE!

the most lovely BOUQUET OF FLOWERS!

a brand new fancy CAR! and lots of lots of LOVE!

Ahem, I think some little ones have been listening and paying close attention to my conversations about needing a new bed and wanting a new iPhone.  Now what about the car?  No idea.  Maybe my little guy thought it would be pretty cool to drive something else rather than a mini-van.  Ha!

I loved my gifts.  This is the first time my little guy takes the time to make such beautiful gifts for me. (Spunky nena tried, but it was a bit difficult without mami's help.  She did pick a lot of those lovely flowers/weeds/leaves you see.) They are truly special gifts.  The best! 

Note: All photos, with the exception of the last one, were taken my my little guy.  Not bad, huh?


Now, just in case you are wondering here are some photos of how we ended up decorating our Thanksgiving table this year.  

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my in laws.  So the table decorating was a team work.  I just added the finishing touches.  The  napkin rings/place cards and the Gratitude tree (I used the same idea as our valentine heart tree.) 

The kids helped me make them.  It was pretty easy, I just drew one leaf and then used that as a stencil to draw the rest.  We then colored the edge of each leaf and I then colored the veins.  Finally for the napkin rings/place cards I added each person's name with a bronze marker (mi name didn't fit- too long!)  For the Gratitude tree, we got a branch from our the back yard, and hung the leaves.  Before that though, each guest would write something they were grateful for this year. 

Simple, yet meaningful.  Just like our dinner.



Well then, now I am off to rest on my brand new bed, but not before I make a phone call on my fully loaded new phone and admire my beautiful bouquet.

Here is to a great week everyone!

a little bit of everything...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know we did. We were surrounded by loved ones and great food. And guess what? It just so happens that the day of Thanksgiving was also my B-day, yes, my B-day! And because it landed on the same day, we decided it would be nice to wait and officially celebrate until Saturday. (Of course, I did get lots of wonderful calls from family and friends wishing me the best and some even sang to me Las Mañanitas, a traditional Mexican Birthday song, that I love.)
Espero todos hayan pasado un lindo Día de Gracias. Nosotros si pasamos un lindo dia con familia y mucha, mucha comida. También ese día fue mi cumple, pero decidimos no celebrarlo hasta el sábado. (Claro que recibí muchísimas lindas llamadas de familia y amigos, y algunos hasta me cantaron las mañanitas!)

So on Saturday my hubby did it all! As part of my gift, he took care of the little ones, cleaned house (kitchen included), made me breakfast and a cheesecake from scratch! My favorite. (It was so yummy there is none left and it is barely Monday!) Then we dropped off the little ones with the grandparents and headed out on a date. We rarely have time for those, so this was a treat in deed.
El Sabado como parte de mi regalo de cumple, mi esposo se dedico a todo. Cuidar a los nenes por completo, limpiar casa, cosina, hacerme un delicioso desayuno y hasta preparme un riquisimo pastel de queso (cheesecake), que es mi favorito! Le salio buenisimo! Mas tarde dejamos a los nenes con los grandparents ( abuelos) y mi esposo y yo salimos en un date. Casi nunca tenemos tiempo de salir solos, esque fue algo como regalo para los dos.

I love birthdays like this.
Me encantan cumplaños a si.

(Thank you Honey.)


On another note. Today we started decorating for Christmas. My favorite Holiday of all. I have so many wonderful childhood memories attached to this holiday. And no, non of them are about the gifts I got (wich were plenty), but of family gatherings, train trips to visit family far away (yes back in the day there where trains still being used in Mexico for travel afar), piñatas being broken, posadas sang, attending the midnight service all tired and full, but thankful to be there... and so much, much more.
Cambiando el tema, hoy empesamos a decorar la casa para Navidad. La Navidad es mi dia Festivo favorito. Tengo muchos lindos recuerdos de viajes en tren para ir a visitar familia (en Mexico todovia se uso el tren de pasajeros hasta hace poco), romper piñatas, celebrar posadas, asistir a la misa del gallo...y mucho mucho mas.

Now my one and only wish is that when my little ones become adults, they remember the special things they did, the people they spend time with and the reason we celebrate Christmas to begin with, instead off what gifts they did or did not get. It is why I believe less is more. The less toys they get, the more they will enjoy the ones they do get. And instead of focusing on what toys they will get, I try for us to focus on the things we are making to prepare ourselves for baby Jesus birthday. I know this can be hard even for me. It can be so easy to get cought up in the buy this, buy that craze, that I often have to STOP and say, "hey, that is not what I want Christmas to be all about!" No!
Espero que cuando mis nenes lleguen a ser adultos, en ves de recordar que regalos recibieron, recuerden esas cosas especiales que hicieron, la gente que los quiere, y la razón por la cual celebramos la Navidad. Por eso creo que es mejor recibir menos regalos que de mas. A si podrán disfrutar mas esos pocos que reciban, y a la vez podrán enfocarse mas las preparaciones para la celebración del Nacimiento del Niñito Jesús. Se que esto puede ser difícil hasta para mi. Es fácil perderse uno en la locura de la temporada de estar comprando esto y lo otro, que seguido tengo que parar y recordar y decirme a mi misma, "Hey, esto no es de lo que quiero que se trate la Navidad!" No!

So I am excited to say that today I finished our Advent Calendar (with a little help of Ri and A). I can't wait to show it to you. And if the pictures I took turn out half decent ( I took them at night), I might even post a tutorial.
Es que les tengo que contar que hoy terminamos de hacer nuestro calendario de Adviento. Pronto se los enseñare, y si mis fotos salieron bien (pues las tome de noche) hasta les pondre un "tutorial" de como lo hicimos.

I have plenty on my list of things to do before Christmas arrives. I see a lot of gift making and lost of baking (I just love, love to bake during this time of year) my way.
Tengo mucho por hace antes de que llegue la Navidad. Muchos regalos por hacer y muchas galletitas por hornear (como me encanta cosinar en esta temoporada).

What are you doing to prep for Christmas?
Que tal tu? Como te estas preparando para la Navidad?