Family Fun Night

For the past few months we've been doing Family Movie Night.  Every Friday night, the boys are excited because they get to stay up a few extra minutes.  We eat dinner a little early, put on their pajamas and brush teeth, and then try to pick out a movie together (sometimes it is easier to come to an agreement than another times).


The boys also love reading books, playing board games and playing Wii.  We then decided that instead of just a movie night, we should change  it to Family Fun Night.


Enter the bucket!  We made a list of fun activities that we all like to do together. Some of these are specified, as in play a specific board game. Some just say pick a movie. Or read books together. Some cards have a snack of popcorn on it as well, for something extra special. 

A ton of ideas are printed on little cardstock cards.  Then, they are folded up and placed in our handy, dandy bucket.  (We buy honey in these little buckets, and so I have a ton of them, which I use for a variety of storage ideas).  

This past Friday was our first time to use the bucket for Family Fun Night. The boys rolled a die to see who would pick for the first time.  J. won, and he enjoyed picking.  S. enjoyed reading the card.


And the first ever Family Fun Night was…......

S. gets to pick a movie.  He was happy. :)

Mother's Day 2012

The "Huarichuros"

 Mother's Day is celebrated on the same day here, and so yes, this post is just a little bit late, but I still wanted to share.

J. in his frog costume

Most of the schools do a Mother's Day presentation, with the children doing traditional dances.  The parents go to local shops to rent the costumes for the children.  I was given a couple of days notice to rent 1 costume for each child, and then as soon as I got back from renting them, I went to pick the boys up from school and was told that S. was doing another dance and I needed to rent a 2nd costume.  Now, they don't cost that much to rent, but it is a PAIN to stand in the long, long line at the rental shop!!  I told his teacher that I had just rented the costumes and she said, "Well, he really likes to dance and he decided he was going to do another dance as well."  What could I say? I wasn't going to deny him the chance to dance if he liked it so much.

Pasacalle dance

 S. ended up doing 3 dances in total, and J. was supposed to do 2 dances, but most of the other kids in his class just didn't show up and so he ended up only doing the "Frog dance" all by himself. Well, he wanted big brother on the stage too, for moral support. :)

All the kids did a great job, and of course, it was fun to watch all of their cute performances!

Big brother providing moral support to little brother

Criollo Negro dance

The school did a good job of trying to make it a special presentation for the moms. There were a couple of special bands that came in to sing and to perform, and then they also did a drawing for one of the moms to win a prize.  A tasty meal was served at the end of it all.

The final group that came in while we were eating was....well....let me just say it was interesting.  Think men in tights--like from Shakespeare--coming to serenade everyone. They sang good. I have just never seen anything like them before here. They also invited people to come on the dance floor and they invited people to come dance with them. I was lucky enough to be pulled up there by the leader of the group and then he asked me where I was from. He then proceeded to thank all the moms for being there, especially the lovely lady from America. :)  *blush*  I was a little embarrassed. :)

Refried Beans

I've never really eaten refried beans before; maybe in some meals in a Mexican restaurant, but I never tried making them before.  That is until I saw this recipe from 100 days of real food. 

For some reason, this recipe looked good, and easy, and so I decided to try it.

Now, we can't get pinto beans here, but I've managed to find something that works anyways, and it is yummy!!

Yesterday I went out to lunch with a few ladies, and I wanted to have something easy ready for John and the boys. The day before I cooked this all day in the crock pot, and so they were able to heat up some beans and make bean and cheese quesadillas.

I missed out on having the refried beans yesterday, and so today I had some for lunch and dinner. And they were YUMMY! (and super easy to make!!!)