Monday, November 23, 2015

The Last "Happy Birthday" of 2015

Text and photos by Elizabeth Barnes unless otherwise noted

Thursday, November 12 we celebrated all the October, November, and December birthdays at the Family Support Center with a party!

Our fiesta de cumpleaños kicked off with piñatas. The youngest kid, Ximena, is two years old and was utterly disinterested


Immediately after this photo was taken, Ximena shook her head and handed the bat back to Gustavo.
Maybe next year. (Photo by Shanti Aguilar)

As the next youngest kid at the FSC, Emanuel had the first real go at the piñata.




We brought two piñatas to the FSC — one for los pequeños (the younger kids) and one for los medianos y grandes (the older ones). A piñata can only take so much abuse before it breaks!

Gustavo spins Evelyn ten times because she'll be turning ten in December..
...before letting her loose. No blindfold but no glasses, either!
Candy! After Anibal has broken the first piñata, Gustavo shakes it to get all the candy and peanuts out, and the younger kids scramble to fill their pockets and bags.
The older kids were just as aggressive when their teacher, Santos, broke the second piñata. (Photo by Shanti Aguilar) 
Once the floor had been picked clean of candy, we brought out cake.

I got to bake three cakes—French vanilla, chocolate, and funfetti.
Evelyn was the first of the birthday kids to come to the table for the birthday song.
We sang "Happy Birthday" in English and in Spanish, and all the kids blew out the candles together.

Yadira tucks into her chocolate cake.
Then we handed presents out to the birthday kids. 

Gustavo helps Emanuel, his son, open his birthday present.
Some of the older girls are camera shy! (Photo by Shanti Aguilar)
Finally we distributed bags of party favors to all the kids. Punch balloons were the premium item in the younger kids' bags.

Guayo wasted no time in blowing up his punch balloon.
Everyone ate entirely too much cake and enjoyed themselves immensely. Thanks to the Pop Wuj students who donated candy for the piñatas and who came out to the party with us.

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