Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo

This year we were pretty busy through the Christmas season. I think I will always remember this year as the year of Posadas. Iv been in Mexico for four Christmas´s now and this year was the first time I ever saw people sing the Posada at a party. And the funny thing is I saw it twice in one day. We had two work parties one was on a Thursday and is when we had Pozole and they handed out the gifts from the hospital. The director of the hospital thought it was funny that they had a gringa their eating pozole with the rest of them. Seriously how can anyone not like pozole. I sometimes wonder what the heck is wrong with the gringas these people have meet. I received an awesome purse from work. One of the first weeks of Christmas I had told my husband  I wanted a purse for Christmas. The purse I had was a year old and I was ready for something new. Then a few days later at work they handed me a catalog and told me I could pick out a purse that was 790p Thats like 75usd, I have never owned a purse worth that much. I was super excited. The first one I picked was exactly that much but they were out of it. The other one I picked was 890p. So I paid 100p for a purse that was like 85usd. Its red and supper cute. When I first saw it I thought it was a little big but it has pull strings on the side that you can use to make it smaller. Anyway that was my perfect gift. Then on Friday they had the posada which included tacos. Some of us stood upstairs (inside) and others stood downstairs in the garden. This is hard to explain if you havent seen the hospital but more or less the hospital is set up like one of those hotels that is open in the middle, and where the pool usually is we have a beautiful garden and fountain. Anyway we (or they) sang all the way through the posada. They had one of the doctors dressed up as Joseph and one of the nurses who is about 7 or 8 months pregnant be Mary. One of the workers also brought a guitar. It was a lot of fun. Later everyone was wanting pictures with Mary so Joseph made a sign that said 10p for a foto with Mary. Everyone got quite a kick out of that. lol I left their right as the Mariachi showed up. I had to head over to the girls school for the posada there. I helped the teachers get everything set up and got me and the girls dressed up just in time. Once everyone arived we sang the Posada their. The kids loved it. I feel like its such a great way to remember what happened and why we celebrate Christmas as Christians. Then the kids broke like four piñatas. Thanks to all the christmas piñatas and birthday piñatas from this week we seriously had a bucket of candy. Issac and I had to bring bags of it to share at work in order to get rid of some of it. After all the fun of the piñatas we ate tamales. They had regular mole tamales for the kids but for the adults they had these amazing ones that were warped in banana leaves. This was also a first for me and if you have not had them you should find some. Seriously amazing. We were invited to another posada where they actually go house to house but we got so busy with just normal stuff here at home that we missed it. I really hope we get invited again next year because it sounds like so much fun. As far as Christmas we had to switch things up a bit this year because Issac and I didnt have a day off together. He had Sat off and since I get off earlier than him we decided Santa would visit that day during the girls nap. We ended up laying them down a bit later than expected because Issac had to help a friend with a flodded shop. But all went well. Instead of sleeping the girls ended up laying in bed playing but it gave Santa plenty of time to fill stockings and put out presents. We were so blessed this last year that we were able to find barbies and princess toys for 1/2 off. We pulled out all the stuff and got right to work. We had found an xbox on sale in October so that was Issacs present. We all were very happy with what we received and honestly although we spent less than 1000p (actually this was given to us by my mom thankfully) we had a wonderful Christmas. Issac and I have decided that from now on no matter how much money we have we will only buy the girls one "big" toy (the barbies) and a couple smaller things that dont cost much. We really want to be carefull not to make Christmas be only a day that they wait for just to get gifts. We buy them the things they want and need through out the year when they are good girls so this works out great for us.

We also got to go to a Christmas/Birthday party at church. Issac had to work that day so it was a bit difficult with the girls. But they had so much fun it was worth it. We had tacos, and cake. The follwoing sunday the girls received their gifts from their classes. Joslins teacher went above and beyond and made little houseshoes for each kid. They are so cute.  Christmas morning instead of a service they did skits. One of my favorite stories is of the candy maker and the candy cane. Every year (including this year) I print copies of the story and had it out with candy canes. That was actually our gift for the girls teachers, and we had no idea they would be doing the skit. I was able to leave the baby in the nursery and sit with the big girls and watch and explain the skits. It was a great day for us. And then after we came home Papi got off work early because there were no calls.

New Years was spent here at the apartment with Issacs mom. We all barely made it to midnight and when we did we randomly ate our grapes. But if its true that what you are doing on New Years represents your coming year Im happy with that. I love nothing more than hanging out here at home with my husband. Sure we like going out from time to time but we as well as our girls are quite home bodies. Oh I almost forgot that day we opened our time capsule from last year and redid it for the coming year. We also wrote out our resolutions. Alanas was so cute she wants to do her Dance stretches more at home. For Joslin we want her using English more easily. For lily it was for her to start walking, which she has done this week. lol Mine is to speak better in past and future in Spanish and to try and start my Yoga again. Issac wants to get some schooling which was his goal last year but with all the changes of jobs and such we just never got to it. His new job offers school aid so Im hoping he can get started this year some time, even if it is at the end of the year. Issacs moms was to finish her computer class well. We also talked about our favorite things from the past year. The funniest of these is that Alana said Lilys favorite thing over the past year was her milk. lol

Well that was my Christmas and New Years in a nut shell. Now I want to take some time to read about yours.