Tchau!!!

It is safe to say that Ceci has said her first word!! "Tchau." For those of you who do know, this is "bye" in Portuguese. She has said a couple of words before like "mama, dada" but not directly meaning me or Leto. About a week ago she started say "dow" and waving good-bye. Of course it is adorable! I cant wait to hear what her second word will be. I hope it is something in English. I have heard about the language delays of bilingual children, so we will see how Ceci progresses.

Ceci's Carnaval

 So as you can probably imagine a Carnaval for a kid is much different than Carnaval for an adult. We were invited to a kids Carnaval celebration at a Clube (kind of like a country club with pool, tennis, gym, club house, children's activities etc) by my new American friend, Laurie. (Yes, I finally have an American friend who, like me, married a Brazilian, lives in Sao Paulo and has kids!) It was great, and Ceci loved every second of it. Tons of kids, in costumes running around. Ceci didnt wear a costume because the only costume we have is a pumpkin from Halloween, and that is not a typical Carnaval costume. It was an exhausting afternoon running after Ceci, trying to stop her from eating confetti from the floor and balloons :-) But it was great fun! Here are some pics!

Carnaval!

So my New Year's resolution to blog more has failed. I have wanted and wanted to blog, but you know what, we really havent done anything blog worthy!
That is until Carnaval!
Ok we really didnt do anything exciting for Carnaval but I have to blog sometime, right??
This year, like every year, I vow to do fun and exciting things during Carnaval. But this year, like every year (except for my first year in Brazil, 2008) we didnt have the crazy Carnaval that I wanted. I think that Brazil is made up of two types of people. The people who love Carnaval and the people who hate, and I mean HATE Carnaval. Personally I dont know how people can "hate" a couple of days off of work and drinking in the streets, but these people swear up and down that they hate Carnaval.

 I can loosely compare Carnaval to Spring Break in the States. When you are a kid you like Spring Break because it is a week off of school in the middle of the semester, and usually includes Easter and all of the Easter festivities. Kids here in Brazil celebrate Carnaval with dressing up in costumes and having parties at their schools. When you get older in the US Spring Break means heavy drinking with your university buddies, and hooking up with random people. The same thing goes for Brazil. From the ages of about 17-25 Carnival means drinking heavily in the street and making out with as many random people as you can. Condoms are handed out freely at the street parties, and most partake. I have heard, "dont fall in love during Carnaval, because it never works out."  But it is good fun, as long as you are safe. Then from the ages of about 25 on, people in the US stop having Spring Break, and therefor dont like it anymore. The same thing goes for Brazil, but for different reasons, reasons that I experienced this Carnaval.

Two Friday's ago I went to a "bloco," (street party) with my friend Ligia. They usually start at about noon and last until pretty much "last man standing." We got there about 1 and it was already packed. We paid our $R5.00 for a beer (at the supermarket they are $R1.25) We tried to get as close as we could to the stage where a band was playing, but we didnt get far. We bought more beer, and did some people watching, which included looking for people kissing random people. We only found 1 couple and it was a pretty gross sigh to see!  Unfortunately after drinking a few beers I had to use the bathroom. So I got in line.... I waited for about 30 minutes under the brutal sun, and by the time I got to the front of the line I didnt really have to go anymore because the sun sucked all the moisture from my body! But i went anyway, and it was not pleasant to say the least. I got back to Ligia and we decided we had enough... By this time it was about 330. There was wall to wall people. It really reminded me of my concert festival days. It was hot and smelled like sweat, beer and pee. Once we broke free of the crowd we found a taxi and practically fell asleep on the metro home. So now i get it... People dont like Carnaval because they are old and cant hang like they used to. I have learned my lesson and will no longer look for the crazy Carnaval.... Until next year when I vow to have a crazy Carnaval!

Beach Day!

We finally made it to the beach! We decided to go to Santos on Sunday. Its not the most beautiful Brazilian beach, but it is the closest to us. The weather, which has been rainy and cold the last week, was good to us for a few hours. 
Ceci absolutely loved the beach, she is her mommy's daughter! She wanted to spend all day in the water but she was getting me dizzy running around so much! She drank a whole coconut and refused to take a nap, so she got grumpy. The rain came so we decided to head home. It was a nice day and I hope we can make it the beach a lot more this summer!

Happy New Year!

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions, at least not publicly, but blogging more is one of my goals for the new year! I have become a "follower" of quite a few blogs. My blogs of choice include epats living in Brazil and baking/cooking blogs. And i do get mad when they dont update their blog at least once a week, so i will try to do what i demand of my bloggers! Lets see how it goes!

Sadly the holidays are over. I love getting in the holiday spirit early, here in Brazil you can see Christmas decorations as early as October. But once they are over, I am over it! Our christmas decorations came down 2 days after the new year. Leto informed me that the "right" day to take down Christmas is Jan 6th... Oh well! Brazilians have a specific day to put up household decorations, and take them down. I believe the day to put them up is Dec 14 (but i am not 100% sure), and the day to take them down is Jan 6th. Too many rules! I put of decorations when I feel the holiday spirit coming on, and i take them down soon after the new year. Its very easy for it to stop feeling Christmasy here because it is summer and in the 90s as i write this. I feel sorry for the people of the southern hemisphere because the over indulgences of the holidays are right smack in the middle of summer! No hiding behind layers, sweaters and coats. And even worse, no ugly Christmas sweater holiday parties :-( But you cant be too sad when it is finally beach weather! Leto and I are planning a day trip to the beach this Sunday, and hopefully the weather will be on our side! My white legs are in desperate need of some sun. Although, I am sure they will be red before they are tan!

This past New Year's Eve marked our 6th NYE together! Amazing! We started off the night at Leto's parents with a NYE dinner of lasagna. It is much more traditional to spend NYE with your family than in the US. I think i stopped spending NYE with my family as soon as i could! But here it is another holiday to have a late meal and spend time with family. We tried to do the countdown on Paulista Avenue with Leto's sisters and nephew.... Its the Times Square equivalent in Sao Paulo. We got there about 2 hours early, which was about 1 hour and 45 minutes too early. Leto is not big on crowds and it started to rain so we left at 1130, hopeful we would get home before the countdown. Ceci fell asleep in the car and we ran to the elevator and made it in our apartment just in time to hear Leto's watch beep midnight. We put Ceci in bed and headed to the balcony to see the fireworks. We live on the 16th floor with an unobstructed view of the south eastern part of the city. While the Brazilian obsession with fireworks normal annoys the heck out of me, on this night it was an amazing sight! Leto and I had some champagne and called it a night at about 1am. All in all it was a nice NYE!

We had a NYE "part deux" party at our friend Ligia's apartment yesterday. It was nice to see friends, and Ceci had a wonderful time being social. In Brazil almost everyone wears white on NYE. I asked Leto why, but of course he had no clue. A little googling reports that it " is traditionally believed to bring and sustain good luck for the rest of the year." It is a nice tradition, even though it rains most NYEs and it becomes a giant wet t-shirt contest! 
                                                Ceci, danceing to Gangnam Style, her favorite song!

Happy New Year!
Love, Kathy Leto and Ceci!

Merry Christmas!

So Christmas has come and gone! This was my third Christmas in a row, here in Brazil. It was another great holiday spent with wonderful people.

We took Ceci to see Santa a couple of days before Christmas. I was sure she would not have a problem with him, but she refused to sit on his lap! She waved at him and pointed before she got up to him, but when it came time to sit on his lap, she wanted nothing of it. I think it had more to do with her just not wanting to stop walking that it being Santa. We also visited Sao Paulo's giant tree and we tried to watch the 'water show" and tree lighting, but Ceci decided she was done, so we left early....

Christmas Eve is the big celebration here in Brazil. the family comes over and we eat a Christmas Eve dinner at about 1030pm, then wait for midnight to say "Merry Christmas" and open presents. I wondered how Ceci would do this year, as her normal bed time is about 930pm. She made it (grumpily) until about 1030pm then passed out, but not before a visit from Santa. I blame her not wanting Santa on her tiredness ;-). She took a little nap, then we woke her up for Merry Christmas and to open presents! it was a nice, and loooong night.

Christmas morning we all woke up at 10am! Thank goodness, it was a late night, i think we got home just before 2am! Ceci opened her presents from Santa with help from mommy and dadada. We had a nice breakfast of cinnamon rolls, breakfast burritos and mimosas. We got dressed and headed back to Leto's parents. We said hi, but we were still really tired so we decided to go back home. All 3 of us too a nice nap and then we decided to go to the park. Sadly we were not the only ones with this idea. The park was packed! But it was a beautiful day, and mommy and dadada worked off some of the overindulgences of Christmas. 

All in all it was a great 2 days. If all goes according to plan next year we will spend Christmas in California!
I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Have a safe and fun New Year!
See you next year! (i promises to blog more, i swear!!!!!)
Here is a video of Ceci opening presents Christmas Morning!

all our love
Kathy, Leto and Ceci

Ceci is 1!!!!

Well, we made it a year!!!! As cliche as it sounds, I cant believe I have a 1 year old! Time flies! It has been an amazing year filled with such joy and happiness! It is truly a blessing to see a person grow from a helpless tiny baby into a little person, complete with her own personality. I have really enjoyed every minute of it!
Ceci 1st birthday party was a great success! I decided that i would do it all myself, and maybe i took on a bit too much but it was well worth it and everything turned out perfectly! We had about 50 people come. It would have been a lot more, but it was a 6 day weekend so many people were traveling. Ceci was non-stop. All she wanted to do was run around, so it was a good thing we had 50 people to chase after her, or more likely be pulled by her!
Here is a time lapse of her party. We had so much fun!!! if you want to see the pictures slower, they are posted on my facebook page!







Here are just a couple of Ceci 1 year old pics by Leto's sister Sol.

Today is Thanksgiving in the US. We had our little Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. We had our friend Ligia over, as well as our American friend Anna and her colleague who are here doing research for 10 days. As much as I try to recreate the food and the feeling, there is nothing like being home on Thanksgiving and I truly miss my family and that indescribable feeling you have when you spend a great holiday together.
I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving with family!
Love, Kathy, Leto and Ceci!