We walk past this little stand almost every day; it sits on the sidewalk between our home and the fruit and vegetable store on the corner.  

In keeping with my new year's proposition (because I'm a stickler like that), when the kids and I were out buying our day's vegetables yesterday,  we decided to take a seat and make our order.  I was glad we did.  We found out that the stand owner - Aida - has been serving up tlacoyos and quesadillas at this location for four years, that she has a daughter who is an architect and another who is an engineer - both of whom are looking to learn english, and that there is a great tamale stand just down the street.

huh.

good to know. 

We tried a new pastry shop today.
(it's just two streets down and one street over)

They had good coffee
and good pastries.
We'll go again
(if you come visit, we'll take you too!)

You'll be hard pressed to get new year's resolutions out of me
but,
sometimes I make new year's propositions.

Like - this year, I propose that it would be a pretty good idea to take the kids to lunch once a week to one of the street taco stands in our neighborhood (there are a billion of them). . .

(I'm thinking it will help us to get to know the rhythms and joys and hurts of our neighborhood, plus I'm pretty sure it will give us some serious street-cred)

We were so afraid to pass this nasty cold on to our friends that we turned down (an extremely attractive) invitation to spend New Year's Eve eating barbacoa with some of our favorite Mexicans.

Instead, we pulled out Risk and taught our children the fine art of world domination; and then we had banana splits. (FYI - I am waaaay better at making chocolate sauce than I am at world domination)

We  had planned to put the kids down to bed at 8:30pm and then wake them up right before midnight so that we could all go up on the rooftop and watch for the city fireworks,
but
world domination kept going on and oooooooon
and by the time our (weeping, hacking) children were brushing their teeth, we knew that the compassionate parenting choice was to let them sleep, undisturbed, into the new year.

Joshua and I did make it up to the rooftop though, where we ran into a couple of neighbors who poured us champagne, joined us in looking for fireworks, and confessed that they had liked our christmas cookies so much, that they had stollen a bag of cookies that we had tied to another (absent) neighbor's door. That was a serious - albeit shady - compliment.  And, I'm reminded why we pass out Christmas cookies:  because of the doors it opens and the conversations it starts.

So, happy new year, my friends.
if you haven't passed out cookies yet, it's not too late.