We have a couple neighbors that like to go all out for Christmas. One guy owns a landscaping business so he uses his cherry picker to light up all his palm trees and the canopy of a large hardwood tree. I've been in the diet and exercise mode now since the beginning of November so I took Adri out every chance I got to see the Christmas lights. I had a lot of fun walking around with Lil Chub Butt hearing her yell out the colors of the lights, Santa, reindeer, snoopy, etc. She had a blast as well. She would yell "airplane" and want me to hold her like she's an airplane and fly her around the neighborhood doing random spins and hitting turbulence along the way.
Ever since she found out what Santa is she kept yelling Santa every morning and night because she wanted to walk around the neighborhood and see Santa. One morning I heard her saying Santa in her sleep. Most mornings she would wake up and the first thing she would say was Grinch. Yeah, she liked watching the Grinch every morning. Then she would go out of the room and yell "tree" and run over to the tree and then yell "Diego". We put some candy canes on the tree and we got some Diego candy canes for Adri. Every morning and night she wanted me to pull the Diego candy cane off the tree so she could look at it and give it a kiss.
Adri's idea of how a candy cane should be placed on the tree. She got better at it after a couple tries.
Adri's favorite spot on the tree. This is where her Diego candy cane was.
Decorating is hard work.
You can't really see it that great in this picture but the tree on the right has blue streaks running down it like falling rain.
We were going to take Adri to Bass Pro Shops for a free Santa picture but we got a nail in the tire. So I had to take the car to Sears to get it fixed up. So while we were waiting we ended up paying to have her picture taken with Santa in the Coral Springs Mall. Adri was very excited to see Santa. She was pointing and yelling when we put her down she ran right over to him. But then when taking her picture she got really shy for some reason. I told Santa to say "ho ho ho" to make her laugh but he didn't do it right. So here is the picture we got.
Christmas Eve was a busy day. Dominicans don't do things the American way for Christmas. They all get together on Christmas Eve and stay up late. At midnight they open presents and then everyone goes home an hour later. On Christmas day no one gets together. I don't understand why they do it that way because Santa comes Christmas morning, right? So needless to say this tradition of theirs led to a busy day and a tiring weekend.
I had a four day weekend and Friday was mostly working at home. Yard work and housework. In the afternoon I took Adri to the park while Natalie was out doing stuff but other than that all day was work. On Saturday it was the same thing. Work all morning and cooking in the afternoon. Natalie made a bunch of deserts and my mom's Christmas candies and I had a bird to cook. I should have taken a picture. I made the most epic turkey ever. It was amazing. We all ate around 8 and hung out until 11:15 when we had to open presents early due to Adri getting sleepy. Normally Christmas Eve is at one of Natalie's Aunt's houses and it feels like forever waiting to open the presents so we can go home. But I was so busy I had no idea it was already after 11.
This was taken in front of our house on Christmas Eve
Adri in the kitchen
Our tree. We got a Fraser Fir. I've never heard of that before so I'm guessing it's an East Coast thing. They come from the southern Appalachians.
Gotta love the S. Florida Christmas weather.
Preparing for the assualt.
Trying to get a normal family picture is not easy.
And I ruined this one...
We were having a difficult time getting Adri to open presents. She was tired and fussy.
Adri got a couple baby dolls. Here she is giving the baby her own binky and the baby's milk. Adri also tried to steal the baby's tiny binky and put it in her own mouth. Funny kid.
After going to bed around 3 am and not getting much sleep we were woken up around 6:30 by Adri. We let her out and she went running to her presents. I don't think she really knew what was going on and she was still really tired so it took a couple minutes for her to get with the system.
We made a big mistake and didn't save Adri's bubbles for last. Adri loves bubbles. As you can see in the videos below she had a really funny tantrum when we tried to take the bubbles and have her open more presents.
I got a cellphone sized,water proof hd recorder from Natalie and a gamer's seat which I finally got to try out 4-5 days later. A lot of fun feeling my body shake when I shoot people or grenades go off.
After opening presents we took Adri outside for a bit. I wanted to try out the recorder so I got some video of her naming all the plants and trees around the yard. The plan was to go to Shark Valley, Everglades that morning and pull her around in her new trailer but we forgot to get her a helmet. Luckily the neighbors had a helmet for her so we invited them to go with us. When I pulled the bike out of the garage I noticed that mine had four broken spokes. I figured no one would be there so I brought my roller blades instead of the spare bike. Well I was wrong. It was packed when we got there at 2:30.
So I had to rent a bike. Problem was the bike had to be back at 4 and Adri was not liking the trailer. We put her in the seat and she was start crying and screaming "no buckle". She did not want to be in there. The funny thing is once we started moving the crying stopped. But every time we stopped the crying started up again. I got a video of her pretending to give her baby doll a bottle of milk while we were riding. She is a really funny kid. We showed her the alligators and she kept saying "alligators, they're sleeping". She is completely fearless of alligators. She also would go back and forth from calling them alligators and crocodiles. She has a book that has a crocodile and the picture says "I learned to sleep from my friend the crocodile". I think that explains her confusion as well as her constantly saying "alligators, they're sleeping". Of course a lot of them were actually sleeping.
When we got about 1/3 of the way to the tower we decided to turn back because of Lil Chubs. I told our neighbors to go ahead and go to the tower without us. They had never been there and we've been there dozens of times so we just turned back and waited at the entrance for them. Adri needs to get used to that trailer before attempting a long ride like that. Of course I don't think the warm weather was helping either.
After a nice ride we stopped by The Pit for dinner and then headed home. I was so tired when I got home that after a shower I fell asleep on the couch trying to watch the short video clips I took at Shark Valley.
The bubble tantrum, part 1
Opening her blocks
She had a rough morning.
At Shark Valley.
Adri letting us know the alligators are sleeping
The next day we decided to go to the beach. We left a little late because we were still trying to cleanup from our party two days before and we were really tired. We finally got to Hollywood Beach after 2 and I wasn't expecting to go in the water for too long. We got some pizza and it was already 3 by the time we got to the sand. Adri was crying and throwing a fit in the restuarant and kept yelling "beach". I had to take her out and calm her down (Daddy has the magic touch). I tought her how to slurp her spegetti noodles that day and she was having fun trying to copy me doing it.
Once we got to the water I noticed there were a lot of jellyfish so I was a little scared to get in. But I noticed they were all close to shore and I could avoid them further out. Plus they were normal jellyfish not the Portuguese ManOWars so I decided I could risk it. Finally I decided to go for it and take what I thought would be a short swim. But after a 3 second shock getting adjusted to the water I decided it was actually even more comfortable than it is in the summer. The water was pretty close to 80 degrees. So I went back and got Adri so she could go in with me. By this time Suegrita and Tom were there so I ditched Natalie, since she was being a wimp, and took Chubs with me.
We probably got nearly a good hour of swimming time in. Adri had a lot of fun. Small airplanes and helicopters kept flying by so she kept pointing and telling me what they are. She's still working on how she says helicopter so it's one of her funnier words. She kept demanding that I jump and throw her too. Fearless little child. Once we got out of the water you could tell she was worn out. She had too much fun and she was ready for nap time. So we took her for some ice cream on the board walk and then headed home. My back started itching like crazy once we left so it's still a mystery if I got a small jellyfish sting.
The beach was packed.
Playing in the sand before I decided to get brave and go in.
And this is what a tired baby looks like.
2 comments:
I cannot believe how crowded the beach is in the winter!!
In the pic of Adri on Santa's lap, she looks EXACTLY like you!!
There's actually more people at the beach here during winter than in the summer. And half of these people are Canadians. Driving through the parking lot you see mostly Canadian license plates.
Post a Comment