And life goes on...

We left Mexico on the 22th of December, 2009.
We spend Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma in Houston, TX.
We left Grandpa and Grandma and got sep up the 1st of January, 2010.
What a great way to kick of the New Year!!!.

Moving and Packing.

Moving and having to pack or some of the most unfun things, specially when I have to fit the enormous task of packing six people's things in little undefined brackets of time. It's exhausting!. The rooms are a mess. Laundry piles. Toys are everywhere. Papers stack. Nick Nacks are too many. Forsake-all grows. Who knew I could collect so much stuff in 5 years!!.I'm sure you can do without a visual image of my messy mess right now. Quick sleep kids ... so mommy can do a bit more of that unfun stuff called packing. The good news .. we are spending Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma..the kids are so excited!!

Everything that matters.

These past weeks have been some of the hardest in my life, it seamed the whole world crumbled around me, at least my world, my little bubble of a world; my dreams, expectations, years of sacrifices, when all was said and done, it was worth nothing.

It’s an indescribable feeling to see your dreams shatter into a thousand peaces and an even worse one to realize that you’ve wasted time on something that was a mistake even if the Lord tries to recycle the situation to bring some good out of it . It’s a form of death which comes along with a grieving process while you bury your dreams and dare to hope that one day soon you’ll have the strength to dream new dreams.

Life lesson , the ones that mark your life, your thinking and behavior usually come at a pretty high personal cost, maybe that’s what it takes to make them stick . I’ve learned the hard way that trust is earned not handed to anyone, and that seeing the good in people even when there’s none is not a virtue. Real friends are few and it’s in the difficult times that you find out who they are.

We’ve had to make some of the most difficult decision in our lives, and let me tell you, having four little kids makes me desperate in praying to get it right

There’s nothing left to do but to start over, so we’re starting over, the winds of change are moving and so are we. After being in Mexico for ten years it’s hard to say goodbye, it’s felt like home for a long time now. I may not have much and I’m certainly leaving behind a lot, I may have lost some things but I have Him and everything that truly matters …..if you don't believe me , check it out for yourself:

A wonderful husband

Bright kid 1

Bright kid 2

Bright kid 3


Bright kid 4.

I told you so.

Back to School!!

The official Mexican school year started on the 24th of August. One of the changes for this year is that Alex will be going to a nice private, christian, bilingual school for first grade. My baby is all grown up!!
He's been very excited about it and today he did his first homework. Today I met his teacher and it turned out I had already worked with her a few years ago, so that was really nice.
I will continue to home school Benji, which will have a mixed bilingual curriculum and Ayleen, and take care of the "new arrival" ready to pop out at any time now at an official 37 weeks old.
I haven't gotten a picture of Alex in his uniform yet but I'll post one, once I get the chance, here is a few of all of them doing some painting on Sunday on some coloring books Grandma Heidi sent them a while back. Thank you grandma!!
And on a side note: I'm driving almost everyday ... so good to be out of the house!!

Goodbye.

Phil, Angie, Ashley and Sarah left today for Leon, Gto. after almost five years of working together.... and thus starts a new chapter in our lives..... exciting!!
We love you and will definitely be missing those two cutie pies. Praying that everything works out great for you guys.

Change

Change...
It can be a scary word or sweet relief to ones ears. It really is a matter of perspective.
Change...
It comes into our life, sometimes invited but mostly like an uninvited and unexpected guest that turns out to have the answer to a problem and impeccable timing.
Change...
Difficult to face but in the end so much happier for it.

Here is to change... Cheers!!

Kings day

Every King's Day ( 6 of January) for the past few years we've organiced a big CTP , in other words something for the poor.
This year we put together a lot of clothes, shoes, toys that friends sponsored, aguinaldos(sweets) and a nice puppet show with the story of Chrsitmas and a message of salvation,for the event.
All the homes in the area participated, which was nice, it can sometimes get a little confusing with so many people but that's just how it usually goes. Hah! We picked a neighborhood that had 150 single moms and worked with the coordinater of the neighbourhood. One thing that cought my atention was that there were quite a few Down Sindrome kids in the whole bunch.. which sure made me thankfull for the health our kids usually have.

Posada

On September 7th we did a Posada all our friends and contacts, the idea was to do something nice for them in appreciation for their faithful support throughout the year, with this in mind, we made some special ¨Thank You¨diplomas to give out, put together a nice meal etc. It was a joint effort from the three homes here in our city. Lots of work to plan, GB the organizing commite made up of some home members and a few active members . The Lord really did lots of miracles and supplied above what we needed for this special event.
Between the three homes there was a puppet show with the Christmas Story, live music and face painting for all the little ones.

The little guys in our home worked hard for a few weeks to put together some songs, here they are performing "I'd like to be a Christmas tree", sang by Janine (5).
Their little singing troop is called "Campanitas".

Some of the attendees.

Singing "What can I give him"... ( sorry about the poor pic cuality)

Some more attendees

Micks and Lalo(AM) got to do all the talking.:D

The tech man. Phil did a very nice power point presentation of our work in Morelia for this year.

"Campanitas" and "Luna Azul" performing, singing "Burrito Sabanero".

Cristal, which did a big part of the organizing, and a dear friend.

Reception Committe; Liz and Ester (AM's)

Alex (5) all handsome before the show.

The beautiful girls of "Luna Azul".
Stephani, Mari and Teresa.(They are all young and pretty ...no need to put ages.:D)

Yumm........working on those manners.:D

T´s Done.

As a fun Word time and devotions project the children in the home took the Activated 12 Foundation Stone´s course. God bless their teacher, Cristal, that made it fun and inspiring by making them look up verses in their Bibles, using Power Points for the classes, songs and even skits.
After their test, they each got a diploma, a little surprise and special activity night that included home made Pizza.

Girls Night Out!

We all got to go out and enjoy some nice mexican beer and chavindecas, which is made out of two corn tortillas, grilled steack and cheese. Delicious!! It was fun!!

Enlarging the tents.

Highlights of our little town here are that our home population increased.
We are now 10 adults and 12 kids, wich bring our numbers up to 22 members in our home, the biggest we've been in a while. In one word, exciting! Changes are so good, and also so much fun, a bit scary sometimes, specially if I think double the milk, more dishes, bigger meals etc..but Nothing is impossible to Jesus, right? Prayers, please?

Home improvements.

Since the kids are out of school, they've been going out more on follow up, market , etc and we've also been focusing on some major home projects, like fixing up our school room, ( I'll post a picture when it's all nice) and painting the house and rooms. Yesterday I worked on the kids and my room, did more painting then I've done in a long while, but I'm satisfied with the results. I also changed all the furniture and beds around, as much as "space" allowed me too. Muscles I didn't know I had are sore. I have to change things around once in a while if not it gets too boring. Since in the home, we have twice the amount of kids then we do adults, well... the kids just had to help too... the up side is they have fun and learn, the down side is everything takes twice as long and it's just a wee bit messier. But it's good , it teaches you patience... and lots of other things too.

End of the Year.

We finally did it. They say it's better late then never. I would have liked to do this little end of the school year celebration a month ago when school finished but we did it today, for one reason or another it just kept on getting postpone. It was nice. The whole home was together , which to be perfectly honest, is quite rare, I think the last time it happened was during Christmas.
Don't judge me wrong. It's only for a time.

Back to our graduation party, I got to lead the whole things, felt a little nervous at the beginning but actually the Lord did it, even though I don't particularly like standing in front of people with a microphone in hand it came out fine, I read a little prophecy for the kids and they all got bands and a diploma. It was very cute how they all threw their little wanna be hats up in the air when it was done. We had a special snack and dinner; home made pizza, apple crumble and ice-cream. They've definetely earned it.

Special thanks to the wonderful teacher of my kids, Angelina, they've done amazing progress this year, and I know it's because of her faith and consistency. Love you Ang.

On other news; daddy is visiting us for a week. I'm praying to be able to slot in some family vacations time. Families are important, it takes time to nurture them.

Small Beginnings, greater ends.

A little bit of everything.

I wanted to blog on Thursday, but the day quickly passed by; too busy to sit down for a few minutes, and then Friday rolled around and I just couldn't fit it in...oh the weekend, that was another story in itself. Monday and Tuesday were full days as well...so here I am Wednesday, finally trying to catch up on things. The truth is that each of the days I mentioned deserve a post in itself but ... I'll have to do a lame substitute and just record a few highlights.

I love living.

On Friday the Lord did something very neat. I'll try to keep it short since I don't want to bore anyone.
The realator lady that helped us find this house, presently our home, showed up at our door a couple months ago, no call, no meeting just out of the blue, a year an half after we had met her for the first and only time. She couldn't talk, only whisper; she had cancer in her throught and wanted us to pray for her, since we weren't expecting any visitors that morning, only me and Cristal were home. We put our hands on top of her and prayed. She's completely healed.
She's started to come for Bible classes and wants to help and do more for the Lord.

Over the weekend we had a visit from an AM couple from Toluca, it was a little bit of a forsaking for everybody in the home since that ment no family day or freeday, because we would have to be tunning in to the visitors. Sacrifices for the Lord sure pay in the end though, since freeday was out of the question we organized a felloship for the closer friends of the home on Saturday evening, turned out to be lots of fun, we had home made pizza and just enjoyed the get together.

We had to go to Mexico City for the baby's paperwork and the Lord so sweetly timed it perfectly so we could attend a party there. I really personally enjoyed the felloship, got to catch up and spend time with good old friends , it was simply NICE.

We spend Monday and Tuesday in embassys and there's nothing interesting about running around in hot stuffy metros and buses, standing in lines and filling forms so I'll skip all that part. TTL everything went well. I'm glad it's over with.

Oh and I almost forgot, my other kids, did really well in their final school test. I'm so proud of them. They can't wait for school to end and vacations to start, I don't blame them, they've worked hard and I have to admit I'm feeling a little claustrophobic myself, can't wait to get out of the classroom. I'll leave you with some pictures of the party, everyone had to wear a mask.



Unique and original



And I got to see Joy...yay!! Love you girl. Don't mind my scary mask.


And turns out a few people didn't have masks on, so I ended up doing some face paints.It was fun, hadn't done it in years.



Francesco...from Lithuania, poor thing I kept on thinking he was from Latvia.


And this is Tuesday ..I was tired.

Pirates of the...

As a home activy we all went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Ricardo and his wife ( AM's) also came along. The theater was packed, the movie was alright, Nathan really liked it. I confess for me the best part was this:

Simply hot!