Playing at Abuelito's House

Tristan is having a great time in Mexico and a great time playing outside Abuelito's and Abuelita's house. They have a slide AND a trampoline! What fun.









Tristan is having a great time in Mexico and a great time playing outside Abuelito's and Abuelita's house. They have a slide AND a trampoline! What fun.

Preparing Christmas Dinner

We spent this Christmas in Mexico with Edgar's parents. Edgar's mother starts preparing dinner the 23rd by cleaning (by hand) the romeritos. They are a very small leafy vegetable. Then on the morning of the 24th the cooking begins. Kata cooks two main dishes plus a turkey. She cooks Revoltijo, which is the romeritos, mole, shrimp, nopales and potatoes. She also cooks cod in a tomato chile sauce with almond and shrimp.
This is the cook book the recipes come from. Kata has hand written recipes in it that she has learned over the years from other women in her family.


First she fries peeled potatoes. Both dishes are cooked on the grill to conserve gas since the dishes require so much cooking.


Then she cooks cut up nopales,

and quickly fries the romeritos.

Next she cleans the chile and leaves it soaking in water,


While she mixes spices,
and mixing them in a blender.

Then she separately mixes the chile in the blender and


The chile mixture is strained.
Meanwhile the spice mixture is cooked,

As is the chile mixture.

Then the potatoes, nopales, chiles, spices and romeritos are all mixed together.



While the Revoltijo is cooking the almonds are peeled and

cut is strips.

And the cod is boiled.


After the cod is cooked it is pulled apart into small chucks.
The spices for the cod are ground and

added to tomatoes, chiles, and onion and blended together.

Then the cod is added to the sauce and cooked some more.

Favorite Face of 2010

I took this picture of Tristan this summer. I think that it is my favorite of the year. It was one of those rare quiet moments with a toddler.

Cousins Meet

In October Tristan and Noah's first cousin, Ana Maria, was born. But it wasn't until just last week when we arrived in Mexico that the cousin's met. Noah loves Ana Maria's toys and tries to steal her "mimi" (pacifier) and Tristan is already calling her HIS baby.

Look who found Santa's stash!

I was never one of those kids who looked for their Christmas presents before Christmas so it didn't occur to me to hide my 2 year old's presents well. I just put them in the back of Abuelita's pantry. But sure enough, yesterday I hear, "Look mommy, look!" and see Tristan coming out of the pantry with a car in his hand like he just won the lottery. Oh well, at least he only saw one of his presents!

The Boys First Posada

The night after we arrived in Mexico we attended the boys first posada. There wer introduced Noah to Edgar's extended family for the first time. Tristan was enthralled with the candles and sparklers and the fact that we let him hold them. Noah even stayed awake for the event. After we sang the kids got to hit TWO pinatas and even little kids like Tristan got to give them a whack. Tristan was too shy to run for the candy after fell but his second cousin, Emiliano, got some for him -so sweet!

Early Christmas in Denver

This year we will be in Mexico for Christmas, and my cousin Joanna will be in Venezuela, so a few weekends ago celebrated Christmas early at my mom's house in Denver. We had a day full of Christmas activities. We decorated sugar cookies. Joanna and Tristan decorate a gingerbread house. We played board games and exchanged gifts. The boys were really spoiled and got a ton of gifts. I think the favorite of the day was the BIG red fire engine my aunt gave Tristan. He is in LOVE with it and even slept with it that night.
Noah really loves his Great-grandma!

I think more candy and frosting made it into Tristan's stomach than onto the cookies.



Joanna showed a lot of patience working with Tristan on the gingerbread house.







Look at all those gifts!

Noah got this adorable outfit from my grandparents and we had to put it on him for the day.