Post-Christmas

The couple of days after Christmas were a bit of a blur. JuanFe and RC left early on the morning of December 26th - much to every one's sadness (especially Luis!). I'm not really sure what we did in the days that follow. I'm pretty sure there was a trip to the zoo, some post-Christmas sale shopping, lots of left-over eating and general togetherness. Jules was a bit under the weather, but managed to participate in much of what we did. Liz, Jules, and Diego went to see Avatar - in 3-D on an IMAX screen. They come home in complete awe of the movie-watching experience.

Diego and Luis enjoy sandwiches together

Luis enjoyed both coloring with the window crayons AND wearing his ear protection

Our friend, Heather, arrived from Richmond on New Year's Eve to spend a couple of days with us. Diego made an AMAZING paella for dinner. We all managed to stay up past midnight (barely). Liz, Jules and Heather participated in a few South American traditions (superstitions?) to ensure good things in the New Year - including running around the house with an empty suitcase (to bring travel) and with money in the pockets (to bring prosperity). It was a fun night.

[Though this post is being published in December, it was actually written in March.]

Christmas

Luis slipped in to our room about 6:30a in the morning saying, "Momma, it's time to go downstairs." Seeing the time, I told him it wasn't time yet. He said, "But Momma, I need to see if SANTA came!" We managed to keep him up in our room until 8a - the agreed upon meeting time for Christmas to start. In keeping with Coward family tradition, Mom had sent us a Kringle (coffee cake) to share and Jules made home-made cinnamon rolls. I (of course) made lots and lots of bacon to go with it all.

We enjoyed all of our stocking gifts - seeing what Santa had brought before enjoying breakfast. Though Luis new to ask if Santa had come, he clearly did not really have any idea what to expect after that. He spent several minutes looking at his stocking (and the unwrapped gifts on his chair) before digging in. Even then, he picked up one toy (the plastic black-and-decker tools) and basically played with that for the first 24 hours hours.

Liz and Jules had made home-made stockings for JF, RC and each other, so that everyone would have a personal stocking. Everyone contributed to the stocking stuffing, allowing each of us to find some surprises Christmas morning.

After that, there was present opening, and snow playing and more breakfast eating and coffee drinking and then more present opening and playing and left-over eating and relaxing and more eating. It was a great day. The snow from the night before stuck around most of the morning, giving me maybe the second or third White Christmas of my life, a special treat in itself.

Luis wanted to spend as much time as possible outside in the snow. And then, he was very bossy about exactly how each person was play in the snow.

JF & RC gave Luis some legos - a very big hit!

Luis loved loved loved the candy canes on the tree

Later that evening, we had a great Skype call with Diego's family in Tamesis (Colombia). We were able to share with them our exciting news: that we are expecting a second baby ~ July 1, 2010!

(This picture is actually from a Skype call on Christmas Eve. I didn't have a picture from Christmas Day, but it looked essentially the same)

[Though this post is being published in December, it was actually written in March.]

Christmas Eve

Starting about noon, a light dusting of snow started. Considering that neither Liz nor Jules had ever seen snow, and that this was the first Christmas that Luis may remember (though, of course, he may not), having snow on Christmas Eve was pretty magical.

The beginning of the snow

Three years ago (2006) when Luis was born, JuanFe and RC came over on Christmas and made us the most amazing feast. As I recall, they arrived about 10 a.m. with several bags of groceries and proceeded to cook for the next 8 hours (Diego and I were trying to figure out what in the world to do with the baby we'd brought home the day before). While there was course after course of delicious food, the thing that I remember most was this great chestnut soup that started from actual chestnuts.

This year, JF graciously agreed to make his soup again, but we decided to spread the rest of the responsibilities to the other adults here. Liz took charge of the turkey and decided to brine it - something no one in the house had ever done before. I made stuffing, mashed potatoes, and glazed carrots. JF made the soup, steamed asparagus and a homemade apple pie. There was also a salad walnut, goat cheese and cranberry salad (but I'm not sure how that made it to the table!)

Ta-da!!

JF works on the apple pie

Diego carves the turkey

The finished product

My very good friends Chris and Leah joined us and it was great. Everything turned out delicious (especially the brine turkey!!). Luis's interest in dinner was very short. Once she finished eating, Liz was kind enough to go outside with Luis to "play" in the snow.

Me and Leah, Leah and Luis

Luis was very excited about Christmas at bedtime (which was about 2 hours later than it normally is!). He wanted to read the Olivia Christmas book, and asked several times if Santa (and Rudolph!) were really coming. Surprisingly, he was asleep within minutes.

After he went to bed, the rest of us readied for the morning. When we were little, I remember Randolph being the most excited about Christmas morning, having a very tough time getting to sleep. As teenagers, and even into our early 20's, I have these same memories. This year, it was me who had a hard time going to sleep. I think it was after 1 a.m. by the time I dozed off.

[Though this post is being published in December, it was actually written in March.]

Another Way to Keep Luis Busy

We have three native pecan trees in our backyard that have been dropping pecans for almost 3 months. And they are still dropping. Jules took Luis out to collect pecans on a number of occasions; it was an activity that never got old for him.

And did I mention that he was good at it??

Cookie Decorating

Over the holidays, we have made an obscene amount of sweets. To put it in perspective, we went through almost ten pounds of flour. We made from scratch: gingerbread men, sugar cookies, cinnamon rolls, bunuelos, arepas, waffles, and other goodies. And by "we" I mean mostly Jules with much help from Liz.

Jules, JF, Luis and Liz work on decorating the cookies. Luis found that he preferred to be the colorist - mixing the icing colors.

Both of them are wonderful bakers - but I was much more touched by how inclusive and patient they were with Luis. Luis helped with every step of the process from cracking the juevos to using the mixer to coloring the icing to decorating. And, of course, he helped with the eating. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I'd hoped to and find that I only really have pictures of the sugar cookies that were made the other day.

A whole tray of beautiful, sugary goodness!

Luis - His actual birthday

For Luis's actual birthday, we had a pretty low-key day. Diego, who was feeling terrible after a very hard rugby practice the week before (and by terrible I mean scary-high fever, lots of pain and a bad rash) and I spent most of the day at the hospital getting a diagnosis of cellulitis and making sure he didn't also have a blood clot (he didn't). And having had a great party at school and a great party with his friends, Diego and I didn't really think that Luis needed another big production.

So while JF and Jules made a run to Costco (someone went to the grocery store every. single. day), Diego, Liz and I took Luis out to a special birthday dinner at Hunkys. I have only one picture to commemorate the day - though I have no idea what is happening in it.

Happy Birthday Luis!

Chester Comes to Visit

Our next door neighbors (the other side from Kyle and Tim) have an Aussie named Rex and a guinea pig named Chester. Last summer we animal-sat for them for a week. This week, we had Chester stay with us for almost five days. Luis loves Chester, so I thought this would be a nice treat for him. Turns out that Diego liked Chester A WHOLE LOT, while Liz, Jules and JF also had fun with him.

Everyone was pretty concerned that Ashley would harm to Chester. She was very curious about him, sniffed him a lot, but was very kind to him. It looks like she's about to chomp him in half in this picture, but she's not.

Guinea pig in Spanish is "Cuy" (think "muy" in Spanish). Cuys show up in all sorts of places in hispanic culture: they roam free in the house (in packs) and act as guardians, swarming around and squeaking when a stranger comes, as part of some carnival game where a cuy is placed in the middle of a bunch of numbered boxes - when he runs for cover, the person who picked the number of the box he ended up in wins (apologies if I didn't get this game description just right), and on the table as a meal. I'm not kidding. At least once a day, someone (not me or Luis) would make a joke about at which meal the Cuy would be served.

Rincon Siblings

It's been a long time since all four Rincon siblings were together (2004). Though they spent seven days together, there were only pictures from this series that have all four of them in the same frame.

Liz, Juan Fe, Diego and Jules

Luis's Birthday - Phase II

On Sunday, we had five of Luis's closest friends over and one older sister (a girl, six, who Luis is crazy about). I was excited about the kids decorating gingerbread houses, and had made peace with the disaster that would over come the house.

Juan Fe, Liz and Jules generously and graciously spent much of Saturday constructing the gingerbread houses. It wasn't that hard, but required a sharp knife, icing "glue", patience and an hour between finishing the house and putting on the roof. This part would not have gone over well with 3-year olds.

After house construction was complete, Jules decorated another round of train cakes. This time, we put them on our big cutting board, adding green "grass" and a blue "lake" - both made from coconut - to simulate the look of a train table. This round of cakes was a bit different because one of Luis's friends is allergic to milk, butter and eggs. His mom made a batch of chocolate cakes that were "Elijah-friendly" and we made a batch of yellow cakes. It turns out that we needed two batches of trains to feed all the kids and adults.

Bravo Jules! The trains looked amazing!!

After about 3 weeks of unseasonably cool weather, Sunday turned out to be an unseasonably warm day. At the last minute, we decided to move the party outside. Besides saving my house from a thousand sticky, little-kid hand prints, it also allowed the kids to run off all of their post-nap energy, their ate-too-much-gingerbread-house-decorating-candy, and then their ate-too-much cake energy.

Kids started arriving about 3p and we went straight outside. There was almost enough outdoor toys to keep everyone happy. I say almost because unless I'd had SIX of every toy, it would have been impossible to avoid the occasional scuffle over a toy. I had been a little nervous about entertaining the kids until it was time to decorate, but they did a great job of entertaining themselves.

I had told the parents in advance that we'd be decorating gingerbread houses and the parents were great sports about helping out. We had seven kids, eight parents, three aunts/uncles, and two adult friends - giving us almost a 2:1 adult to kid ratio. Thank goodness! Liz, Jules & JF worked hard to make sure that everyone had the supplies they needed - icing, candies, knives, napkins, etc. Attention spans varied greatly: Luka spent approximately 3 1/2 minutes on his house before going back to playing, while Logan put in close to 45 minutes. Luis didn't spend much time at all decorating, but was fastidious about eating as much icing as he could get into his mouth (which was a lot). As kids finished (or lost interest), they peeled off from the table and went back to running around the backyard. (It was at this moment that I was particularly glad that we were outside and not in the house!)

Thomas decorates. Luis eats. Caleb decorates. Elijah decorates (with help from his mom). Logan decorates. Which of these is not like the other?

Next was cake time. The train cakes were a HUGE success with the kids. In fact, each of them made sure to note which train he wanted by touching it. Repeatedly. In an effort to make sure Elijah felt part of the crowd (in terms of being able to eat the same cake as the other kids - something which never happens for him), I put the candles in one of the chocolate trains. The plan worked, and almost backfired. Almost all of the kids wanted chocolate trains.

It's hard to get six 3-year old boys in a single shot. Here is 5 of them

The one problem we had was that it was pretty windy: the three tiny candles we had wouldn't stay lit. Tim, our next door neighbor was sweet enough to hold something to block the wind so that Luis could fully enjoy blowing out the candles. And he did enjoy it!

After cake, it was time for more running around. One of the reasons we liked this house the first time we saw it was because of the big back yard. It was perfect for this party. And the fort that Diego and I built almost a year ago was a big hit. Kids were on the glider, the swings, and the slide, up in the fort and down in the sandbox almost all afternoon.

I imagine this picture being dug up and tagged on some one's Facebook account in 25 more years (or whatever thing has replaced Facebook).

Elijah, Luis, Alexandra, Logan and Thomas

It didn't surprise me that Luis cried at his party. It was a bit overwhelming - and required a whole lot of sharing of toys. Twice, he and Diego had a few quiet moments together so Luis could collect himself before rejoining the festivities.

In the end, the party was a great success. Kids had fun. Adults had fun. All of the cake was eaten. No blood was shed. And there was constant laughter from everyone. In the months leading up to Luis's birthday, I had been really nervous about what to do for his party. Though the sources were different, it wasn't too unlike how I felt about helping Luis with a Halloween costume: I both wanted it to be just right and I didn't want it to be my fault if it wasn't. When it was all said and done, I had this really wonderful feeling that I did, in fact, 'get it right'; that Luis had a great time, enjoyed his friends, and felt special (on his special day). I doubt that he'll actually remember this day, but I hope that I never forget.

Luis enjoys his gingerbread house. After this, no one else really wanted any.

Luis's Birthday - Phase I

Thursday (tomorrow) is Luis's last day of school before the winter break. I asked the teacher if I could bring in something for the class (she said, "Great!") and then I asked if there were any allergies (no - to which I said "Great!"). Apparently, no other parent's have brought in treats for their child's birthday. My number one memory of my birthday as a child was how special Mom made me feel on that day; not that she didn't make me feel special most days, but birthdays were different. I am eager to pass this same feeling/experience on to Luis. So I set out to bring a GOOD treat for Luis on his special day.

The next day at the mall, Jules and I found this really amazing 9 train-car cake mold at William Sonoma, which I couldn't quite resist.

This morning, we made the cake trains. Amazingly, they didn't stick at all - coming out looking like nine awesome trains. Predictably, I filled each mold WAY too full, so they were awesome trains on big blobs of platforms. Tonight, Jules took on the job of decorating trains, while I took on the job of wrapping a big box like a present and then lining the inside with foil - so Jules could paint a train track on the inside (and I could carry the trains to school in the morning). Let's just say we each had jobs well-matched to our talents...

The trains sat on the "over-flow blobs" for decorating, making it easier to get the sides and bottom. Then we just frosted the "blobs" to share with the teachers.

Jules continues the decorating the trains

I wrapped a hinged box with wrapping paper to look like a gift. Then inside are the trains on a track made of frosting.

They turned out A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

Engine, engine Number Nine; Going down Chicago line...

What's a train without freight cars? And what yummier freight is there than marshmallows and mini chocolate chips?

A head-on view of the train

We've been to a bunch of birthday parties this year all with delicious, beautiful store bought cakes. Growing up, we always had home made cakes. Home made sheet cakes because Mom said she couldn't make a "two-story" cake (our name for a layer cake). There were many, many, many years where all I really wanted was a store bought cake. But I always got home made. Then there was a year in my early twenties when I was home for my birthday. Mom "surprised" me by getting me a store bought cake. She was clearly very proud of herself. I appreciated her effort, but was in fact, completely disappointed that she hadn't made me a cake. My mom makes DELICIOUS cakes.

I imagine that Luis is going to have a similar experience - pining away for those store bought cakes where the cake to icing ratio is 1:1. But he'll be enjoying home made cakes. I just hope that some of Jules's creativity has worn off on me so that I can continue to make such beautiful, original, awesome cakes as he's going to have this year.