A Caroling We Will Go...

Christmas Eve...2009. The Cruz house. There was lots of excitement, beginning with morcilla, known in English as blood sausage. Basically it's pig intestine stuffed with rice and pigs blood and boiled. Believe it or not, its actually pretty tasty.

There was also traditional roasted pig and, of course, rice and beans. The traditional Puerto Rican fare was wonderful.
The kids weren't so interested in the traditional food though. It was all about the presents!
The do-it-yourself Build A Bear. This was a very cute idea. Unfortunately for Siena, she has me for a mother. I am sewing challenged. I spent over an hour on Christmas day trying to properly sew and assemble this for Siena. Supposidly this is something a 7 year old can do. In the end, the poor bear's arms and legs were arched behind him and his back stitching looked like he had undergone a major operation. My profound apologies Siena. However, there is no one else on earth I would have gone through the planet for.

Presents for Mason! More train tracks! These are a hit. He is super good at putting these together.

And a new fleese...

The cousins and tia. Andre has a matching fleese.

Luis may have been the Transformer master as a kid, but these new fandangled Transformers are a totally baffling breed. He spent a lot of time trying to help Andre transform a car we had given him.

Christmas Day we went to Yaya and Papa Ron's house. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera. However, most of the present opening looks like many of the above pictures. We had a wonderful time all playing with the kids and their new toys. They're of an age where their toys are fun for all. We played Lite Bright, helped Mason paint his cars, and played with Siena's new game.

The highlight of the day for everyone though was when Mason requested that we all go outside and sing Christmas carols (a family did that in one of his Christmas movies). For those of you that know this crowd, we're not much of singers, at least not voluntarily, but Mason was adament. I don't know if there is anyone on the planet that could get Papa Ron outside in the cold singing Christmas carols but we all did it. Afterword, we all agreed it was the highlight of the holidays.

Saturday...Boxing Day...we didn't box much. The kids got to play with their new toys. I also took the kids to lunch to meet my friends Sarah and Laura. It's always nice to hang out with my fellow sandwich ingredients. We were supposed to go see Grandma Bessie after that but due to an infection following a cat bite, she wasn't up to it. Next weekend.

Today, Sunday, was pretty low key. After a busy few days we were feeling lazy. The kids had a soccer game which Yaya and Papa Ron came to watch. After that we went to Gustavs for some German dinner.

In all, it was a nice Christmas.

Dance Fever!

Friday afternoon was Mason's big holiday concert at school. He and the kids in his class worked really hard learning a Mexican folk dance to perform in front of fellow classmates and parents. Mason is below, center, waiting to take the floor.

The video clip of the dance is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWA7wcyZ5ow

In the video, Mason is the short little boy with his back to the camera to start.

Yes, this is the very camera you all have been complaining about for 2 weeks. I'd say the clip came out very good. And Luis has the distinction of being the only dad there with a camera...on a tripod.

After the dance, we went to Mason's classroom to enjoy tamales that the kids had made the day before. Siena found some bean bags and made one into a sleeping bag for herself.

Here's me and my little cowboy after his big performance.

Mason did great. We were very proud.

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. Luis took the kids to the Blount Christmas Party, where Jose works. They got to see Santa and eat a lot of candy. While they were off working up their sugar high, I wrapped Christmas presents. Unfortunately, I didn't think to give Siena a talking to about not opening presents. When we weren't looking, she opened one of her gifts and had it in the dvd player before we knew what was happening.

We went out to breakfast at Sanborns this morning with Jose and Gloria. Sanborns is own and run by the parents of my gradeschool friend Rebecca Sanborn, who also works there. It was a great breakfast and it was nice to see Rebecca.

The kids are counting down the days for Christmas. There is a lot of excitement around our house right now.

Binkiepalooza!!!

After freezing our baguette's off all week in weather more akin to North Dakota than Oregon, we braved the elements for a busy but fun-filled weekend.

Saturday started off in grand fashion with ROCKAPALOOZA 2009 at Heidi and Dan's house.
We gathered with the Evanses, and Jay B., Chandra, and family for an afternoon of Guitar Hero heroics. We rocked for a good 5 hours! We also enjoyed some pizza and Mason was introduced to Krispie Kream's, which he called bagels. According to him, he ate 5 of them. Clearly we weren't doing much parenting in this regard since we were busy rocking. We did let the kids on the Wii for a spell though. Below is a clip of us trying to help the kids row the canoe on some new resort game Heidi and Dan just got. Note Chandra in the background with frozen peas on her face after her loving husband accidently clocked her with a Wii controller helping Ellia paddle.

Speaking of domestic violence, after Rockapalooza, we headed to Mississippi Pizza in N. Portland for a PWCL board fundraiser. Pizza #2 for the day! There was lots of pizza and some live acoustic music as well as some good mojo for PWCL. In all, over $500 was raised which was good. I also want to thank the many family members that have donated to PWCL in recent weeks. It will do a lot of good things.

Speaking of charity stuff, Sunday morning I took the kids with me to Fred Meyer to pick out some shoes for needy kids, the names of which I pulled off of our work's giving tree earlier in the week. This effort to teach them the value of giving may have been somewhat lost on them but they did do a good job of helping me pick out shoes for the kids, even if they didn't completely understand what was being done with them. Following that up with a trip to Trader Joes and PWCL for check signing, it was on to soccer!

There's soccer star #1...isn't she intimidating in her cute little uniform...she played a good game though and ran hard.
Mason was so active that this was the best still pic I could get of him (Mason's the little guy in the red shorts). We got some good video footage. I've tasked Luis with splicing together a kids soccer greatest hits clip, something akin to Sportcenter top 10 and set to a Queen song. So, footage to come. Mason probably played his best game to date. Its exciting for us to see how far he's come. He's running and playing with a lot of confidence these days.
From soccer it was on to Yaya and Papa Ron's house for cookie decorating, dinner, and watching of our favorite holiday movie - Christmas Vacation.

The kids whipped through the cookies and had them decorated in no time. They also managed to sneak their fair share of bites.

Daddy got into the mix as well, though that doesn't look so good...

Here's Mason's decorated candy cane...have a little cookie with that frosting Mason...

Luis shows off his sheep with a, uh, yellow crotch stain. Remind me not to let him near the frosting next year.

Even Papa Ron joined in the cookie decorating festivities. He and Siena had some nice cookie concoctions.

We are also pleased to announce that Siena is officially BINKIE FREE! She had been binkie free during the day for a long time now but we'd not make the nighttime binkie eradication. This was due to both her adament refusal to get rid of it and our lack of desire to engage in the battle that we were certain would ensue. Needless to say, this was about 2 years overdue.

I went to my usual resource for all parenting issues...Google...for some best practice ideas. I say that so you don't think this was all due to my brilliance. I just happen to follow instructions well.

1) Thursday night we informed Siena that on Sunday night, we were going to gather all of her binkies, put them in the mailbox, and Santa's elves would come and pick them up to give to needy babies. We didn't about it for a long time. We just informed her that this is what would happen.

2) Friday and Saturday we reminded her of what would happen but again tried not to make it seem like a big deal.

3) Sunday night after returning home from Yaya and Papa Ron's, I got a bag from the kitchen and Siena placed each of her binkies in the bag.

4) Siena and I both walked outside (Mason too because he wanted to watch), put the binkies in the mailbox, and flipped up the red flag so the elves would know the binkies were gone.

When we got inside, I asked Siena if she wanted me to get her blankie because she could still have that. She promptly stated that "blankies are for babies" and proceeded to bed without either.

I should mention that I was expecting quite the rough first night with Siena going binkie less. In reality, it was anything but. She went to bed great and hasn't expressed any remorse yet at the loss of her binkies. I guess the key is treating them as the people they are and letting them be a part of the separation of something that is important to them.

Cruz Chaos...in HD!

The biggest event in the Cruz family this week was the acquisition of our new HD camcorder, which also takes still photos. This purchase could not have been more timely given that Siena broke our old camera during the week. Not to worry though that the plethora of photo's will dwindle. We just didn't have a busy enough weekend to take a ton of pictures. There will be plenty of video and photos to come though.

We got out our Christmas decorations yesterday. The kids were thrilled to help! They took everything out of the boxes and found places to display them. Then I had to go behind them and move the items to the proper places.

Here's a clip of us decorating the tree. What didn't get captured on film were the multiple broken ornaments, my frustration at tangled Christmas lights and kids hanging ornaments while I was putting lights on, and the overall chaos of the moment. That's probably for the best. We have the Currier and Ives version captured on film instead, aside from me in my PSU t-shirt looking like a hag.

The Tukumla Fairy Comes to Town!

Somehow, in all of the college football and Civil war hullabaloo last week, I forgot to give a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to YAYA! Yes, I am a terrible daughter. We did have a nice Spaghetti Factory dinner to celebrate though. Below photo courtesy of Siena who is an aspiring photographer.

Speaking of photographs, Luis ordered our family Christmas gift this weekend which is an HD video camera. The camera also takes still photos. These blurry mostrosoties will soon be coming to a hi-def end.

On to Thanksgiving...

We hosted the Cruz clan as well as Yaya and Papa Ron this year for Thanksgiving. The kids were excited to see the abuelos...

Siena started in early on the food. No keeping a growing girls hunger at bay.

Yaya was a big help. She has a better idea than I do how to organize these affairs. I was only in charge of the bird which was responsibility enough.

I take my responsibilities very seriously. There was brine. There were aromatics. There was juicy, tasty bird. And there were no leftovers for us.

Papa Ron, as family patriarch, was the designated turkey carver.

Yaya divulged the secrets to making gravey to me. There's flour, turkey juice...

A dancing Siena...

And some other tasty stuff.

Mason shows off his loose lower tooth.

Luis and his honeybaked ham.

Papa Ron and Luis, in dinner table pose.

Another Siena photo special. The many faces of Papa Ron.

Cruz cousins - from left Mason, Siena, Kendra, Trystin, and Andre.

Do these boys have fun together?!?

Siena photo special - Tio Joel with baby Trystin.

While its hard to top Turkey Day, the Torlands gave it a good go on Saturday with a big kumla dinner! The official kumla recipe comes from the blue Grandma Torland cookbook. There's even a shot of a big bowl of kumla on the cover!

The recipe book may be dated 1978 but the recipe dates back closer to the depression era. Last night though, it was a 2009 edition, course with very few changes.

Potatoes are the key kumla ingredient. Auntie Joanne tackles the grinding duties.

The bowl of ground up potatoes.

We only had to add 26 cups of flour to this mixture. Plus a little salt.

There's some good starch. Apparently this is dad's duty to dispose of.

Nevermind. Its a joint scraping effort. Who knew that potatoes could be such a chore when ground.

The other key component to kumla...suet. If you don't know what that is, look it up. We do pick out the chunks before taking a bite though.

Filling the bags...scoop kumla...scoop kumla plus suet...scoop kumla...etc. Note that the family vegetarians eat a kumla version with butter instead of suet.

Siena's big appetite precludes her from being able to wait until dinner to start eating. Nuts are needed.

Checking on the boiling product...

Mason may be more interested in getting his finger in the cake frosting.

Another Siena shot. Just be happy I didn't include the other 100 pictures she took of things like shoes, chairs, ceilings, herself...

Luis sneaks a slice of pizza before dinner. He did try a thin slice of kumla and apparently didn't hate it.

Yaya and the kids play some games before the hungry group arrives.

Waiting for kumla...Tyson, Amanda, Travis, and Luis. For those who may not be from this side of the family, Amanda and Travis are my cousins. Tyson is Amanda's boyfriend. If you don't know who Luis is, this may not be the blog for you.

The Grandparents...Bessie and Art.

And the youngest of the family...little Aurora (Rory). Rory is my cousin Jay B's daughter.

Chelsey may hire one of the inmates she's currently teaching to bust my kneecaps for posting this picture. I blame the camera. At least she and her hubby Matt were able to come to this kumla gathering.

Here's Heidi with Mr. Berren and Pops Bruce.

A kumla log is born.

The newly birthed log. Its a big one!

Even the kids are on board with the feast! They love kumla!

A Siena self-portrait.

We also celebrated Grandpa Art's 93rd birthday. Note the candles...30 + 3 + 60... Siena helped with the candle blowing duties.

After dinner was a serious game with Texas Hold-em. The stakes...cheez its and pretzels.

Tyson came close to cleaning me out. I staged a nice comeback until my husband called by bluff and cleaned me out. Never play poker with your spouse. They know all of your tells.Saturday was a big day for another reason...Mason lost his first tooth!!! Its been loose for a while now, with the new tooth trying to push the old one out of the way. With one easy tug from dad though, out it finally came!

Last night, the Tooth Fairy paid Mason a visit - taking his tooth and leaving him $$ under his pillow. The Tooth Fairy did have to make an unplanned trip to the local mini-mart to make change first though. Mason quickly spent his precious $5 on 4 special cars that he picked out this afternoon. Maybe this losing tooth thing isn't so bad.

We had a family art project to work on this afternoon for Mason's school. A snowman was sorely in need of decorations and we were just the family to help!

Here's us with the finished product. The ribbon hair is a little rasta and some of the glue on the candy decor still needs to dry, but we're proud of our efforts. Note that we had to include our name on it as it is to be displayed outside of Mason's classroom.

And here, for the first time, exclusive video coverage of a kumla birthing. A tough one at that.