Blessings

God has blessed me above and beyond anything I deserve. Sometimes I have days where I tend to forget those blessings. Today I have had a day where I have been able to reflect on and enjoy the blessings I have. I thought I would share a few of them.

1. I am blessed to have two beautiful and healthy daughters that are currently playing house under the dining room table and speaking Spanish to each other. Hannah calls Abigail "Mana" short for hermana.

2. I am blessed that my children can speak, hear, walk, are healthy etc.

3. I am blessed to have a husband that is sitting at Starbucks right now visiting with my handsome 6 year old son.

4. I am blessed to have to pick up toys all day - there are many kids that could only dream of having as many toys as we do.

5. I am blessed to get to go to the movies tonight with a really good friend of mine.

6. I am blessed to have a husband that will watch the kids for me so I can go to the movies.

7. I am blessed to be stressing over finding an elementary school for Josiah. The majority of children in Mexico that GET to go to school go to private schools. The ones in public school share the classroom with around 30 or more classmates. They only go to school for about 3 hours because they need the classroom for another class.

8. I am blessed that my parents came to see me a few weeks ago.

9. I am blessed that my in laws are coming to see me in a little over two months.

10. I am blessed to have a computer and be able to share my life with so many great friends and family literally all over the world.

Rosca de Reyes

A few days ago I decided to write our AIMers once a week with a cultural fact or cultural experience to help them get to know Mexico better. I have found that learning about the culture you are in is so important. Mexicans are very proud of their heritage and culture. My Mexican friends are always very honored to teach me about their culture. They like for us to take part in cultural experiences with them. I decided that instead of e-mailing our AIMers every week I would just make it a blog entry. That way the rest of you can also learn a little about Mexico.
Today I was going to write about Three King's Day (Jan 6th - Dia de los Reyes). I found a great article on line and decided to just cut and paste a section of the article for you.



Three Kings Day falls on January 6, day of the Epiphany.
In Mexico, it is traditionally on the 6th of January that children receive the majority of their gifts, rather than Christmas, although this unfortunately has been changing with the North American commercialization of the gift-giving process.
Three King's Day commemorates the Three Wise Men who followed the star to Bethlehem, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and the giving of gifts on this day is the re-enactment of this journey and their arrival in Bethlehem.
A special sweet bread, called the Rosca de Reyes, studded with bits of candied fruit, is baked and eaten on January 6. A small doll which represents the Christ child is baked into the dough. The figure symbolizes the hiding of the child from Herod's army. These tiny figurines were originally fashioned out of porcelain or glass and could come in many cute forms and colors; nowadays, again with the modernization of the ritual, the little dolls are much more likely to be mass-produced amorphous bits of plastic.
Whoever finds the figure in their slice of sweet bread on Three King's Day is supposed to give a party on February 2nd, Candlemas Day, or Día de la Candelaria, offering tamales and atole (a hot, sweet drink thickened with corn flour) to the guests.



We were invited to my friend Glenda's house (she is pictured in my entry of gingerbread houses). She was smart and hid 5 dolls in the bread so that all the children would be able to find one. Now its up to the kids to throw a party!! Let's see how that turns out!
Here are the kids in their Texas Tech outfits celebrating Tech's Bowl win.

AIM coordinators

We are so excited! We found out yesterday that we are getting AIMers in May.
We can't wait for them to get here. There are going to be 6 of them! Its a little bit bigger of a team then we were expecting but it will be great. Their names are Jessica Ford, Aaron McCall, Brian Hall, Dana Lester, Daniel Batten and Elizabeth Burow.

We know that they are going to be a big blessing to our family. My kids are excited. They have had a chance to spend a little time with AIMers in the past month and they think AIMers are really cool.
On a side note. Amy Jo Smith was a little girl when I went to the field (her parents were my coordinators) and she will be going to Albania as an AIMer in May. I am really excited for you Amy Jo! Her brother is in South Africa also as an AIMer.
On another side note one of our AIMers, Aaron McCall, is family. Well, his brother is married to my twin sister. I realize that isn't blood relatives, but I figure he is an uncle to my niece so we are family.
AIMers we are really excited about you guys. Enjoy the next few months in Mission term it is a lot of fun. We are praying for you and the work you will do here.

WARNING LOTS TO CATCH UP TO DO

Well, a lot has gone on since I last wrote. I will try to briefly catch you up on things.


One of the things that I love about Mexicans is their love for celebration! We have had many Christmas parties in the past few weeks. We have had parties for Little League, neighborhood, and school. Tomorrow we have our last party. It is with a group from a new neighborhood that we are targeting. Our family has gone into a new neighborhood the last month or so to make new contacts. It is about 25 minutes from our house which complicates things a little bit. Cory has started studying with the dad of the family that we have been in contact with. During one of his studies his wife asked us to come over for lunch. We went to lunch with them after church on Sunday and had a really good time. From there we planned another lunch and they invited us to the Christmas party that is at their house this Friday. It was actually the 15 year old daughter that invited us. It is a party with her friends. They are part of a "recovery" group. I don't really think that is the best translation for it but it will have to do for now. It is a group of people recovering from a life of abuse, alcoholism, traumas etc. We are excited to get to know this group but at the same time a little nervous. I will let you know how this party goes - I still don't have a babysitter.
Here us a picture of the ladies from our neighborhood party.



I had a great experience with two of my great friends and thier kids this week. We got together and made gingerbread houses. They had never done anything like it and they were really excited. After a few hours of working on them we were done. One of my neighbors, Roxanna, said to me "thanks for helping me have the best experience I have ever had with my daughter, I have never had this much fun with her." My other neighbor doesn't spend much quality time with her son either and I was really glad to see them get good time together. Here are a few picture of our time.




Here is a picture of the kids before their school program.


Abigail taking Hannah for a ride.

"Mom im sre"

Almost two years ago my teamate (Kim) and I wallpapered the kids rooms. The girls room is painted Pink on the bottom half and light green on the top with a boarder in the middle. Josiah's room is Yellow and Blue with a sports boarder in the middle. Josiah has a captain bed which sits higher than a normal bed. This makes it so he is right at the level of the boarder. It has been a real temptation for him to pick at it while trying to go to sleep. In the past he has done a pretty good job of not picking at it. The other day I walked into his room in the morning and he had pulled off the entire boarder of one side of the room. I was really frustrated with Josiah and he knew it. He came into my room a few minutes later and told me to come see what he had done to make things better. I went into his room and burst out laughing. He is in Kindergarten and loves learning how to read and write. Well, he had written me a note on the wall where he had torn off the wallpaper. It read "mom im sre". I had to compose myself and explain that it was not ok to write on the wall.