After four years of saying "stinko de mayo" every time someone had a gross diaper, it's been hard to get the kids to understand that yesterday was called Cinco de Mayo instead of it's smelly counterpart.  To celebrate the day despite our non-Mexican heritage, we took on special names - Pancho (me), Nacho (Sophie), Ocho (Martin), and accepting the name we gave him... Refried Beans (Marty).  Only answering to these names, we made some tasty grilled chicken and vegetables, guacamole, rice, and pineapple (that's rice and pineapple separately, not combined with coolwhip and jello and treated as a Midwestern "salad" otherwise known as "Ambrosia").

Here is Sophie, enjoying some treats from the Mexican section of our grocery store (luckily, there are quite a few Mexican families in our community, so we're lucky enough to have a supply of imported items available).  I'm pretty sure she's also preparing for her future days on a Mexican Spring Break:


Martin selected this special shirt, saying "it's perfect for Cinco de Mayo", and also appears to be preparing for a future Mexican Spring Break by practicing his fingerprinting skills:


Maybe next year we'll get around to making these giant maracas.  Because nothing says "we're not Mexican" like giant maracas made out of paper mache and a toilet paper roll.