On the road again

Although the trip between AZ and NOLA is never enjoyable (24 hours straight with only a few stops for gas), this was the first time David and I never feared falling asleep at the wheel. We had a secret weapon named Iris' jaws. That girl should win an Olympic medal for teeth grinding. Claire chimed in every once in a while. But Iris' grinding is so horrifically loud and painful that it's difficult to be anywhere near her at night. Think nails on chalkboard times infinity.

On the way home, we stopped to visit a few cousins. The adults went out for pupusas and when we came back the kids had created 2 ginormous forts, divided by gender territory, of course.



They fit a whole lot of fun into less than 24 hours.

When we got home we had a small birthday celebration for my mom. David brought her a half-chocolate/ half-lemon doberge birthday cake from Haydel's Bakery with the following frosting message on top: "David is King."

This year I have descended to the worst depths of anti-gift-giving: no Christmas presents. Actually, they all got an envelope with coupons--remember when you used to give those to your parents b/c you didn't want to spend your hard-earned cash? Anyway, one of the coupons was for lazer-tag. Another was for a ride on the Polar Express. A few days after we got home, we drove up to Flagstaff where we took a train that recreated a Polar Express experience. They had the ticket-stamping man, caroling contests, hot chocolate and cookies, and Santa, of course. Elijah drilled Santa's helpers on the logistics of Santa's world. I gave in this Christmas and bought an "Elf on the Shelf" for our house. Santa's spy definitely didn't help the kids behave better, but hopefully it created a little more magic for what I predict is Elijah's last magical Christmas.

There was a North Pole at the end of the line and then Santa came on the train and gave away bells. Can you tell which child was sick that night?

Finally, we came back to Fall in January. The kids have had a great time with the leaves which makes it entirely too easy for me to not rake them.

 

Christmas in NOLA

Pregnancy has enhanced my lethargy, or at least now I have a widely acceptable excuse. Therefore, my camera remained largely in its bag over the break because even snapping a picture was beyond my capabilities. I think even Marcus took pictures of us decorating our tree. I’ll have to get them from him…someday when I’m cured. My favorite tradition this season was that on both the Udall and Garcia sides we caroled to family members. In Arizona we went with my parents and Hunt and Sarah’s clan and sang to my grandpa’s remaining 3 siblings (1 has since passed on) and briefly visited with them in their homes. In NOLA, we went to about 6 family members. A few of them said it was the best Christmas present they had ever gotten. Here we are caroling to the abuelos. Polito, their loved, but mostly hated dog, gave abuela a Christmas present on Christmas morning to the tune of 10 stitches. That was the 5th time the dog had sent one of them to the ER. As usual, various types of clandestine euthany/murder were discussed for that canine. 

The traditional manger scene. I think we got it pretty close to reality. Mary and Joseph (Claire and Aaron) are apparently actually betrothed, but according to David, all is pending Aaron's graduation from Harvard with Honors. I'm sure Joseph had a similar pact.

 Elijah was the narrator wearing a Grace King graduation gown and Iris was whatever the heck she wanted to be, wearing whatever the heck she wanted to wear. Bottom-right: a very traditional look from David to his grandma. She is one of the women he loves most in his life. He gets his Spanish potty-mouth from her and a lot of his spice too. During "Feliz Navidad," David did the token Mexican laugh at such a high volume (all for her benefit of course) that she got up and moved across the room.

My girls, and especially Iris, were enchanted by the newest Garcia: Roxy. Iris even formed her own language for the babe. It was high-pitched, very high-pitched. Iris also got pretty attached to her cousin Josh. They held hands and rode together the whole caroling night. I heard Iris tell Josh, "I'm so beautiful. I'm so cute."

Ashley made shortcake for the kids to decorate houses.

The boys collaborated on one since they had visited the WW2 museum with their dads while the rest of us decorated/ate the rest.

The fireworks are always at the Ortiz house.

These 2 girls were besties for the night.

It was a very rainy/windy night. Some party-goers preferred staying indoors.

A mystery luchador made several appearances, always flexing and showing off his body. That doesn't sound like anybody I know. Nope, I don't know anybody I live with who flexes, shirtless in front of a mirror daily. Wait, what is David hiding under his sweater?

 

Announcement

I wasn’t going to publicize my pregnancy until Christmas: I like time to process the info before I have to talk about it with everyone. But when the children saw me have a violent fit of sickness (Iris even started crying), I didn’t want to lie to them, so I told them what was up, but that they couldn’t tell anyone for a week. They all swore secrecy, Iris was the most fervent. She kept her promise for about 5 seconds (that’s rounding up). The good news is that she told my mom that Baby Jesus was in my belly, so the news was dismissed as fable. And come to think of it, Iris promised me in double negative: “Mom, I promise I won’t tell nobody.” So grammatically speaking, she did exactly what she said she would, that sly little devil. The bad news for Iris is that she will discover that although she has a strong gravitational pull, the world does not, in fact, revolve around her. This is especially considering the due date is on her 4th birthday.