Every year my mom has a family dinner for Dia de los Muertos, but this year she skipped it because she had surgery on her foot last week.  So we decided to go have our own celebration at the Dia de los Muertos Festival in Canoga Park on Sunday morning.

Eleanor spent a lot of time behind the vendor booths up on the sidewalks. I assume she was trying to find some shade, it was super hot out.

They had some awesome street painting which my cousin Theresa (below) and her friend Susanne participated in.

You can see their finished product on Theresa’s blog here. It’s gorgeous!

They also had Aztec Dancers. Eleanor loved the drums and the peacock feathers.

Then we met some cops.

They let Eleanor drive their cop segway thingamajig. She was only interested in the soda in the cup holder though.

Did I mention it was hot?

Okay so remember how I talked about our food rules on Tuesday? Well, one of those rules is also no soda. Because, c’mon people it’s just colored sugar water! Kids don’t need sugar water! But we were waiting for our tamales to be ready AND it was hot AND I was still tired from Halloween AND I was still in a celebratory mood AND I just didn’t feel like putting up a fight against the whining. So I gave in and let Eleanor have some sips of my Strawberry Jarritos. It was her first soda ever! And hopefully last for a long long while.

We also shared a tortilla, Lady and the Tramp style.

Happy Dia de los Muertos!

Here’s what we did last year!