Floorplans, Legos and Wood Blocks

Ever since I can remember, my son Aaron, has been a builder. First I noticed he had a knack for drawing floorplans. That's right, floorplans ! My toddler wasn't drawing the sun and the flowers and cars, he drew our house floorplan! I couldn't believe it! He continued with this little talent of his and soon started building bridges out of his cardboard "bricks". One day when he was about 3, I walked into my bathroom and there was this cardboard brick bridge that spanned about  6 feet, with columns at just the right places for support. I couldn't believe it! I thought someone helped him. When I asked he said "just me mama". I wish I took a picture of that. Well then he entered kindergarten. And one night, at meet the teacher night, I sat down at his little desk to see what they had been working on. Lo and behold I opened up his sketch book to find the floorplan of the school!! Complete with fire escapes, everything! Again I asked if this was some sor

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Christmas Lights

On Christmas Day our family usually has a very laid back and easy day. After all the festivities of the previous night, the Martinezes just chill on Dec. 25th. So after waking up around 9ish we eat whatever there is left over from the night before, cake pops, tamales, pozole, cupcakes--it's an all you can eat smorgasborg of food ;) and my kids love it! We always go watch a fun new movie and this year it happened to be the new Tron movie in 3D. I have to say the special effects were awesome but the story...meh..not so much. The kids enjoyed it (including Sergio hee hee) and that's what matters. After that we came home and I made some hot chocolate while the guys watched Sergio's new AVATAR DVD. Then we went for a drive around town to look at the Christmas lights. We ended up in a nearby town shopping center where they have cool lights and a water light show! We arrived just in the nick of time to see it. It was awesome. If you haven't been, you must!! It will be going

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Christmas Eve Fun, Friends and Food 2010

Our tradition is to make some good ole fashioned Mexican food such as pozole, tamales (that we ordered from a local lady) and lots of good dessert! We invite friends (old and new ;)) and family and have a great time. At midnight we open presents. The next day we usually just open up our stocking presents. We give the kids one stocking present from Santa to open on Christmas day. Soooo, at exactly 6:30 our first guests arrived! The Randalls! They are so much fun and they have the cutest kids! And I tell you that 2 year old Kenzie is the most adorable toddler I have seen in a loooong time. I bet she could dictate to me whatever she wanted and I.WOULD.GIVE.IN. I am not kidding, she's THAT cute! Anyway, after  a prayer we got to eatin' then we had some more friends and our church missionaries show up. I have such a good time when we have people over who provide good conversation. It's like I never want the night to end! Do you feel that way too? Especially when you are just g

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Christmas Eve Party Ideas

The day is finally here, December 24th! Our tradition is to have friends and family over for a good meal and fun and laughter. We usually break open a piñata, but this year it rained and it was pretty muddy out so we'll have to invite friends over later on to break it open :D Hey, another reason to party. So anyway, I stayed up really late making up a fun new banner, some appetizers and a cool cupcake holder. So here they are {you can probably do these with your kids for new year's eve} You'll need : foam cones fruit cheese lettuce toothpicks gummy candies Basically you take the foam cone and wrap it in lettuce leaves (washed and dried). You simply stick the lettuce leaves with toothpicks. Then you can put grapes and other fruits and cheeses with toothpicks onto the foam cone. Continue until you cover the entire toothpick. My little guy did not do that, and that's ok, but on the cheese and fruit tree I made sure to cover the entire pick with cheeses. The idea is

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