Mateo Goes to Chickie's 7th Birthday Party

So yesterday Miss Lucia had a birthday party to go to and today was Mateo's turn and since I had the honor of taking Lucia, it was Papi's turn to take Mateo. And guess where he got to go for the very first time?

"Chuck E. Cheese!"

So many games, so little time

And after the games, it was pizza time. Apparently the pizza tasted terrible.

And now for the star...Chuck E. Cheese!

And the guest of honor...Chickie!

M&L Letters to Santa

This is definitely the year of reading and writing for Mateo and with that he was in charge of writing his own letter to Santa and helping Lucia with hers as well. And since he wanted everything that popped up on a commercial, he got in a lot of practice.

Due to his rather large handwriting, his list spanned several pages

I helped Lucia a little with her letter...all she really wanted was a Barbie. The remainder of the letter was dedicated to stuff Mateo wanted.

This little post-it was Mateo's "downstairs" list (i.e. if he happened to be downstairs and think of something there was a paper for him to write on so he wouldn't forget)

Lucia Goes to Baxter's 4th Birthday Party

Before Lucia was in school we only had to worry about Mateo's schedule and the rounds of birthday parties that come along with being a young child. Well now that she has joined that world we have a whole new slew of parties to add to the calendar. Today's party was for 4-year old Baxter from her class.

The party was held at the Children's Museum of Art in New York a very cool place.

Lucia and Alessia with their balloon animals were happy to stand a head above the rest

The king of the day Baxter

One of the more creative activities involved molding mini clay cakes...

...which they then painted

While the sculptures were in the kiln, the kids enjoyed real birthday cake

And played in the ball pit (As you can see by Lucia's worried face and the mom in the background rescuing her daughter, it was an aggressive pit)

M&L Get a Christmas Tree - 2012

So for the past  couple of weeks we have been harassed by the kids about getting a tree and at last the time had come. Today we headed to the local church to pick out the perfect tree for our pad.

"Pleeeease this one is perfect!"

Once the tree was home, the kids got busy decorating. 

Mateo was especially focused on the task at hand. They did everything, but the lights and garland.

Christmas card 2012, 

My how they have grown. Check out the past tree moments

Christmas Card  2011

Christmas Card 2010

M&L See Papi Santa

Today the family went to HFA's Holiday Party. The kids normally don't get to go because it has traditionally been held on a weekday, but this year they decided to switch it to the weekend. I think crowd was a little young and Mateo didn't really get excited until a special visitor came in...hmmm?

Lucia and Mateo were a little bored until...

"Santa came to town!"

All of the kids were so excited to see Santa

Hmmm...something is very familiar about Santa. 

Lucia normally prefers the idea of Santa rather than the actual physical being, but this Santa didn't scare her

As a matter of fact, she willingly sat on his lap

Mommy also really liked this Santa

(As a side we explained to Mateo before this that Santa was not able to make the party so Papi had to fill in for him. He was told that this was a big secret and he needed to make sure he didn't let the little kids know or they would be disappointed. He was so proud to be "in the know")

M&L Hang Out with L&A

So today there was a random holiday party thrown in the housing authority that Papi wanted to attend and since it was geared towards kids/families we all joined him. And since it was right after soccer practice, we invited Lucas and Alma to come along. The more the merrier!

Lucas and Mateo hung out...

...which meant so did Lucia and Alma...

...and of course Mateo and Lucia also had some sibling hang time.

M&L Get a Visit from Madrina

More weekends, more visitors and today's visitor was Jess (aka Madrina)...yah!

The kids were extra excited because they got early Christmas gifts. Mateo was psyched about his cool remote control helicopter. It took a little while to master (and to wrangle away from Papi), but he eventually got the hang of it.

And Miss Lucia got a My Little Pony Castle

Later the kids and I worked on gingerbread houses

They were really pleased with the outcome

Literally, a sweet gingerbread village