report card... or finally an an answer to the age old question...

... "what did Emilia inherit from her Papa." :)

Monday was conference day for Emilia's class. The wonderful Ms. Phyllis spent some time with me talking about Emilia's development and achievements in her class. She had a checklist of "skills" - benchmarks that 2 year olds should be reaching/should have reached by this point in the school year.

Of note:
* Emilia loves being outside on the playground.
* She's VERY in to imaginative play - all about babydolls, playhouses, doll houses, etc.
* Gets the "wiggles" when it comes to circle time... Ms. Phyllis pointed out that sometimes Emilia has a hard time sitting when it's circle time and has to be redirected.
* She's a grunter... she'll grunt sometimes instead of "using her words" to express what she wants/needs. Something we're working on.
* She doesn't really talk much to Ms. Phyllis/Ms. Susan - this was a surprise as she talks about them and what they've said/what she's done with them ALL THE TIME. Hilarious. I guess she saves up all her talking for home. Of course, it's one of the few "all-English" environments she's in - so it may be that she's just spending so much time processing everything that's coming at her she just can't get that much out.
* Her "favorite" (hate that word) friends at school are Robert, Betsy, Ginna, and Jackson J. (total cutie - can't blame her one bit!)

*She could say what her first name is, but not her last. She also said that she's a boy instead of a girl (not words we've practiced at home). Colors and shapes we need to work on - some of them she knew in English, some in Spanish which is fine.

*Can be stubborn (NO WAY!!!) - don't know where she could have gotten that trait from.

* Doesn't like to clean up after herself (!!!!) - I don't know anyone else who fits that bill! :)

All in all, it was reassuring to hear that our girlie is tracking right along with her peers and doing what she should be doing. She's a happy happy girlie who loves her class, her friends, and her teachers. Ms. Phyllis said she could go 4 days/week next year, but in my opinion, she'll be in school for a LOOONNNGGG time, so we'll stick with 3 days/week.

navidad, part 3 and the rest...

Christmas Day morning (sorry - no fam pics of us in our matching jammies, but you get the idea) we woke at Nana and Richard's house for some yummy breakfast and present opening. (Gnomo made the trip to DC with us, as did our stockings, so all was as it should be).

In the afternoon we went to Gapa's (my dad's) house for our traditional Christmas dinner. Emilia entertained us by playing a little piano.

I recognize her outfit isn't all that fancy considering it was Christmas Day, but she selected it herself, so there you go.

making silly faces with Gapa.

Gapa ordered a delish pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. He put a couple of candles on it so she could blow them out for her 1/2 birthday.

The following are not really all that interesting, but here they are. The day after Christmas we went downtown hoping to get in to a museum. Of course parking was a nightmare and Emilia fell asleep in the car. I tried to take a couple pics of things I love in one of the cities I love.

lincoln memorial - i have always loved it because it's the first monument you come to when you cross over the bridge.

the hirschorn museum - site of our first date. i don't really like the art in there, but if a boy takes you to a museum for a date you've got a live one!

Once back in the Queen City we celebrated A's birthday. It was the least we could do since she'd done so much for us during her stay with us. Her birthday isn't until February, but all she really wanted was a good cake.

ina garten's recipe - beatty's chocolate cake with chocolate/coffee frosting.

official taste-tester and candle-licker

a little 'happy birthday' singing...

um, i don't really like cake all that much, but we pretty much inhaled this sucker in about 2 1/2 seconds.

really, is there any other way to eat frosting than with your fingers?

Ok, we're done with the Christmas portion of the show... I know I didn't put any of my funny pictures of Gnomo (the Elf), family pics, etc... but whatev... it's mid-january already!

Navidad, Part 2

El 24 we celebrated, as is our tradition at Tia Marga and Jacksito's house with our traditional beef tenderloin, cardiac potatoes (so named because really, you need to see a cardiologist after eating them), creamed onions and all sorts of delicious-ness. I made dessert as usual (Buche Noel - one of my best) as well as one of our apps (cha gios - little vietnamese spring rolls that make you just swoon when you eat them. The food (and drink) were spectacular as always and the company could not be beat.

emilia sporting a's glasses - she was in rare form. note - yes, she's wearing the same xmas dress from last year. it fit her TONS better than it did last year and was so gorgeous, we decided to recycle it - won't be able to do that again!

she was pretty enamored with everyone's nativity scenes - taking them apart, naming each person/animal and putting them together. this little silver one of tia marga's was no exception.

the menfolk in the kitchen.

As usual, the nenas, (Nena Marga and Emilia) were thick as thieves the whole night....

um, nena... i'm kinda watching a little george here.

not sure who's enjoying the george episode more.

mi familia querida....

javi, a, marga & nana.

the bug (laura)

a sad attempt at a semi-group shot - bug, a, javi, nana, marga, emilia and i. you can tell it was L-A-T-E at this point. missing: jacksito, tio richard, marcus, and cutter.

so about 10 minutes after getting to their house Emilia had stripped off her tights, undershirt, and shoes. every once in a while she'd just disappear to stand at the entryway of the family room where we left curious george playing. she'd just stand there for a little while and then come back. i have expected her to fall asleep in there, but she never did. trooper.

rare mother-daughter shot. side note, i knit my sweater!

finally present time - emilia got a cool new puzzle....

...babydoll...

and gettysburg college t-shirt as just a couple of her gifts. she's now ready for her first college kegger. yikes.

LOVED the babydoll from tia marga and jacksito - started walking her around almost immediately.

done.

tradition... tradition... Navidad, Part 1

So this post is all about the winter traditions - both old and new.

To start, for the past 5 years I've held a Holiday Party for all my ladies at TES. This year we put a spin on it since one of my besties, Tracy, is expecting baby number 3 (just shows you, you think you're done and oops! you're not!!) so it was a Holiday Baby Shower Party. The ladies had a grand time and a thousand thanks to Mary and Ozlem for all the help. Awesomeness.


the gals - love them all! - think there were like 15 of us.

again this year emi was not invited to the party - she had her own social event to go to and enjoyed the fun from the stairs with a.

This year we started a new tradition with Emilia, the Elf on the Shelf. Our elf's name is "Gnomo" ("Elf" in Spanish - I know, super original). Basically, the elf's job is to 'spy' on Emi and report back to Santa on how well she's behaving. The added bonus is that Gnomo would bring Emi a little prize and leave it in her Advent calendar. He brought her all sorts of good stuff.


gnomo would show up in the most unusual places!

Another new tradition - Emilia got to pick a tree of her own for her bedroom for the holidays. She loved looking at the lights every night (and during the day too!)

of course it's purple - i tried to direct her to pretty much any other color/size/shape but this is the one she wanted.

Every year my Tia Lo makes matching pjs for her and her family. I've always loved the idea and decided to steal it. With help from my mom (and a super easy pattern) I made matching pjs for Marcus, Emilia and I for Christmas. Cheesy - yes. But it's Christmas. It's all about the cheese.

modeling her jammies and bedhead. note the eeyore slippers next to her - a present from Fafa and Abu Cesar (Marcus' parents).

gnomo came with his own book. poor nana had to read it about a million times during our visit.

The 'girls' used to be really good about having 'girls only' events. But then life got in the way, Nena went to college, Bug went overseas to school and we didn't have the chance to do these types of things. We decided to reinstate 'girls only' events and started off by having holiday tea at the Ritz.

buggie, nena, nana, a, and tia marga.

some of the delicious munchies... though we decided that next year we'd skip tea and stick with the bar!

Holidays mean eating TONS of yummy food at Gampa's house (my dad). Meals at his house can really be quite a show. Emilia got lots and LOTS of delicious stuff thanks to Gampa.

attacking a big old pile of delish cookies.

Finally, visits to DC would not be the same without our traditional stops at Firehook bakery in Old Town Alex. They have delicious pastries, the kind folks there don't mind if a certain someone runs around a bit, and the coffee is divine. We love having quiet breakfasts there just the 3 of us. It's a great way to slow down during our busy DC visits and enjoy the moment.

in a moving car - hence the blur... can you tell i still can't really work my camera?

look mama - chocolate donut!

Next up - Navidad, Part 2!

fighter

Go figure, A wasn't gone more than 24 hours and my Puchis gets injured.

So last night, during a rousing game of "keep away" in the playroom, Emilia lost her balance, tripped, smashing her face right on the corner of one of her baby beds. Ouch. At first it didn't look that bad, then the blood started coming out. Yikers. Thankfully, Marcus had the genius idea of giving her a popsicle as her 'ice' since the ice pack wasn't working out. Of coures this thrilled her, but it made it bleed even more. After a while though, it stopped bleeding and she was running around just fine as ever. Scary though.

photos of the walking wounded.

makes her look kinda tough, right? :)

story of my life/prima ballerina

Guess what, I'm behind in posting pictures. Sorry! In my defense (Dad), I took over 400 pics over the holidays - it'll take a while.

In the meantime (and starting with more recent events), Emilia had her first day of ballet class today. She is doing ballet through our local Y and has half-hour classes from now through the Spring. There's even a recital at the end of it all. Her pals Kyrie, Kate & Mia (from playgroup) are also doing ballet, however we couldn't be in the same class with them because of her school schedule. However, we did know that Emilia's friend/classmate from school, Ginna, signed up for her same class. Little did we know (and what a fortunate and wonderful surprise it was) that the other two girls from Emilia's preschool are ALSO in the SAME class! HURRAH! Emi was thrilled (especially since the nerves were starting to set in - performance anxiety perhaps?) to see some familiar faces.

tentative first steps in to the class.

pre-class photo shoot with A

still tentative - getting the lay of the land

nice face emi - the black smudge under her eye is not a result of a bar fight... someone got a hold of some mascara.

l to r - ginna, emi & betsy (all go to st. john's together along with natalie, not pictured). they are the only 4 girls in their class at school - how funny is that?!

doing a couple of laps around the room before class as a warm-up?

emi is, by far, the smallest/youngest in the class - technically not even old enough to be IN the class since she's not quite 2 1/2.

*i have no idea what's happening with the layout portion of the pics - am using a new program, so perhaps that's it? bear with me!*