Birthday Bash!

How is it that my two oldest kidlets are turning 5 and 7?!  What precious, fun, and loving little people they are! I am so blessed to get to be their mom.

We kicked off the celebrations with afternoon tea at their favorite tea shop.  They oohed and ahhed over the lavender-honey spoons and fancy china.  It was hard to decide on the perfect cuppa, but they went with a lovely Lavender Earl Grey and a Swiss White Truffle Rooibos.  Joel was fascinated by the tea light candles under the tea pots.  Then they brought out the tiered tea tray with fancy little sandwiches, scones with Devonshire cream and apricot jam, biscuits (cookies) and tarts.  Their favorites were the little butterfly sandwiches of pumpkin bread with a mascarpone filling, although the curried chicken salad was a big hit with Ariana.  We savored each crumb!  At the end, they brought out special dark-chocolate dipped gingerbread men.

The next day, Carlos surprised us all with a little getaway using our hotel points.  The weather has been cold and gray here, and the indoor pool was the best present the kidlets could have gotten!  They had a marvelous time swimming, and since Amaya considers herself allergic to water, she and I snuggled in bed and watched Food Network.  (She is the only one of the kidlets who hates baths.  The others have always enjoyed it, and Elena begs me to wash her hair every day!).

The next day we enjoyed a delicious breakfast and another splash in the pool until check out time, then we bundled up and went to the Natural History Museum.  Joel was fascinated by every little thing!  He was absorbed with every exhibit there, opening drawers, examining every detail.  The woolly mammoth replica was fun, and the dinosaur bones even better, but Ariana was most interested in the rattlesnake exhibits, complete with noisy, shaking rattles.  Elena loved the canoe and wolf exhibit.  When we left, she kept calling sadly, "Good bye, Werewolf.  I come see you soon!" and letting out little howls.  Umm, yeah, Ariana and Joel are very into lycanthropes and apparently Elena considers all wolves to be werewolves.  At least she isn't scared of them?

Ariana

The birthday kids

Today was the actual celebration with family.  Carlos grilled carne asada for tacos, there was a ton of guacamole, gringas (sort of like quesadillas with flour tortillas, carne, melted white cheese, grilled onions and grilled pineapple).  Joel had a little Spongebob cake that was perfect for him, and Ariana made the yummiest strawberry cupcakes I have ever had.  I'll share the recipe in a separate post soon.  The kidlets had a lot of fun, and we all enjoyed the day.    I got a few pics with my phone, but they were all blurry.  :(  Here they are, anyway:

Joelito