Christmas Morning

 The girls had two big boxes waiting on Christmas morning: Barbie doll house and Razor big wheel scooters. And we woke up to a white Christmas! 

Christmas Eve

 

Merry Christmas!

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior. Which is Christ the Lord. -  Luke 2:11

We will forever be grateful for the baby that was laid in a manger.  Without the manger, there is no Calvary, no death on the Cross, no Gospel, no salvation.

Merry Christmas 

 

Air Force Museum

 On Monday we visited the Air Force Museum. Our neighbors asked if their boys could hang out with us for the day and since it was cold and rain, we de to go to the Air Force Museum. We had the entire place to ourselves! We’ve been there many times but every visit we discover something g new that we hadn’t seen before. And of course we always have to take a picture in front of “Gramp’s” plane.

We had lunch outside. The kids played on the playground and it was fun listening to their conversations as their imaginations took them up to space. 

Tamales!

 Since my parents weren’t able to come over for Christmas due to the El Paso /Juárez border being closed, we had to make the tamales without them. As the girls get older, they get more and more involved in the process. This was the first year my mother-in-law offered her help. She said that now she has more appreciation for them because she knows how much work goes into them.

There were one hundred and twenty six tamales in the first batch before we ran out of meat. Today we will finish the second batch which should go a lot smoother because we already have the masa ready (leftover from yesterday).

Baking Esponjas

 I’ve tried many times to make esponjas; that’s the Mexican sweet bread that I miss the most. Last Friday we FaceTime with our friends that just moved to San Diego and we baked the esponjas together. Before they moved from Ohio to California, we would get together cook every Friday. Each week we tried a new Mexican recipe and it was so much fun. 

The esponjas came out perfect. They were soft and spongy. 

Christmas Attire

 Last Friday was the last day of school before Christmas break. The girls were allowed to wear Christmas attire. 

Deer Meat | Mexican Style Birria

  We met Karla and Brian earlier this year. Even though we have only seen each other a handful of times, we have a nice friendship. The other day she texted me and asked if I was interested is cooking deer meat with her. I’ve never made deer meat but I was interested. Our mutual friend, Ivette, send us three recipes that we could try. We opted for birria. The recipe called for dried chiles that are not used in her native Peruvian cuisine. I was familiar with all the ingredients since it was a Mexican recipe. We got together a day before we had dinner to marinate the deer meat and to make Mexican flan. Karla then cooked the deer meat in the marinade all day and we enjoyed an amazing deer birria with the rest of our family.  We did have to FaceTime our friend Ivette, who recently moved to San Diego, to show us exactly how to make the salsa (basically re-hydrated chile de árbol, blended with water and salt then strained). The end result was a super spicy salsa that went well with the birria.