¿Te gusta Perote?

One of the most frequent questions I get asked here is if I like Perote, our hometown.  I have never been sure how to answer.  Like any place it has its pros and cons.  If you want to, you can see more of the pros, or vice-versa.   If I had just come here as a tourist, I don’t believe it would have made onto my list of “Places to Live.”  

Whenever I first came here to live fulltime, I kept thinking, “I’m just so glad to finally be here!”  After almost a year of a long-distance relationship with Rafa, it was so nice to wake up next to him each day.  I didn’t care where we were.

But people continue to ask and seemed surprised that we are creating a life here….not just waiting for the first opportunity to hop on a U.S. bound plane. And that I not only live with that fact, I genuinely enjoy being here and am proud of the life we have. 

What I usually say when people ask now a days: “My husband was born here and now my son as well.  How can I not love a town that has given me the two people I love most in the world?” 

Home is where the heart is and those two are it!

Christmas-The Plan

There are 91 days till Christmas.  3 months from today it will be Christmas Eve.  That’s still a quarter of a year. 

I love making plans for the sake of making plans.  This year my thoughts have turned to Christmas earlier than normal.  But not because I plan on doing anything spectacular, quite the contrary.  This Christmas, Lord willing, we will see it all through the eyes of two little ones.  Job will be a year and a half, and we will have a newborn little girl.  Things will not be fancy, but having those two here will have us singing, “What a wonderful world!” 

Establishing family traditions, some old and some new, is important to us.  Besides that, the Christmas season is plain fun and the birth of our Savior worth celebrating to the fullest. 

But as said before, we will have a 19-month-old and a newborn. Things need to stay simple.  Very simple.   So a few weeks ago, I took a calendar and mapped out some Christmas activities for December. 

Each week will have one activity from the following categories- Movie. Making. Baking. 

-----Mondays will be Movie day.  On the list are Elf, Charlie Brown, Frosty, and Rudolf. 

----- Thursdays are for Making.  Starting with a day to put our home’s decorations and moving on to paper snowflakes and oranges with cloves. 

----- Saturdays will be for Baking (to be able to share with extended family over the weekend) We have English Toffee, Oreo Truffles, and Peppermint Sugar Cookies on the list.

I have a short list of things to buy for the above activities.  These items will be purchased in the next few weeks, before a little girl makes her arrival. 

Thanks to other commitments (work for Rafa and naps for the wee lass)  I think most of these activities will be carried out by Job and myself.   But with having a new little sibling around and the world changing that can do to a little boy, I think some one-on-one special time will be just what we both need. 

We will also continue our tradition of reading through the advent calendar daily.  Traditionally, Job and I (since he was in the womb) read out loud in English in the morning and then in the afternoon, we read the same passage as a family after the main meal, but in Spanish. 

So there you have it.  I’m “putting this out there” to have another level of accountability.  I mean how embarrassing will it be, to have to admit come January, that we did nothing of the above, after I published it on the blog for the world to see?!  In all seriousness, I plan to be prepared to make lots of sweet memories, but if we make it to January and have only “survived” with smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts, I’ll be okay with that too…even if it means no oreo truffles! 

A New Favorite.

I know, I know.  From bath time, to our main meal, to second breakfast, or the few minutes we find to putter in the garden each day, it seems like every part of the day is my favorite.  I understand that that’s logically not possible, but when life is full and spent with two of the handsomest guys around, what’s not to like? 

And now, I have a new one.  And oh is it a good one. 

I finish teaching English at 8 p.m.  I quickly straighten up the classroom, grab my bag, sign out, and hurry down the stairs.  Once outside I scan the far side of the street.  Without fail, he’s there.  Orange work coveralls and all.  He pushes his bike across the street and smiles.   We steal a short kiss and we both smile again.   He’s only gotten off work a few minutes earlier and has been waiting for me. 

He continues to push his bike, and takes one of my hands in his free hand. We talk about our afternoons, or our son, or the little girl on the way.  Sometimes we don’t say very much at all.  He passes over the many puddles and reaches back to help me hop across.  Sometimes we stop at a tendita to pick up a few breakfast items for him to take to work the next morning.  Most evenings, however, we walk the seven or so blocks straight home. 

The whole time maybe lasts fifteen minutes.   But its our time.  Just us.  And its good.

So yes, its a favorite. 

Rain, rain.

It’s an overcast Saturday afternoon and I can hear both my men breathing heavy as they sleep.  I’ve been a mom long enough to learn to enjoy the stillness while it lasts….and enjoy the crazy once it begins again! 

I, too, was blessed with an afternoon nap, but the wee little lass decided it was time to be on the move again.  I can’t help but smile each time she starts flopping around.  It takes my breath away to think of the wonder of a little life inside my belly.  Sometimes that breath being taken away is only figurative, but most of these days, its quite literal too! 

Our days have been rainy of late.  Tis’ the season.   They mean more time at home, cooler days, and a lot more togetherness.  I love it!  It does make shopping and outings a bit more complicated though.  We are high enough in elevation that flooding and other nasty side affects, really don’t reach  us.  I wish I could say the same for our neighbors across the state and country.  

Another wonderful affect of all the rain is the GREEN.  My garden looks more like a jungle.  And it makes the rest of the world think I have a green thumb. You and I know better, but we’ll just keep that our little secret, okay? 

The days come with patches of sunshine and we’ll drop most anything to get outside to enjoy it, cause we know it won’t last too long.  Below are some pictures Job and I took a few days ago….

The side of the garden where the chickens were at.  Besides the rain, I believe the extra fertilizer has done wonders in helping this side grow up so quickly. 

Grass, in desperate need of a hair cut.  The roses behind it are in five gallon buckets, just to give you an idea of how tall it is.  Once its dry! Squash beginning to blossom.

Morning glories, not yet flowering, but beginning their clime up our 15ft walls.  I dream of the day they will spill over!Tomatoes.  Both the green and red varieties.  

Beans, cilantro, and cucumbers. 

Cilantro, thyme, and lettuce are the only things in harvest at the moment, but it looks like it won’t be long till we bring in a few other things as well! 

New {to us} PJ's

Its always so sweet but it stings a little too.  Every few months we pull out the the next size up clothing.  I love watching him grow, but its all happening a bit too fast for *my* liking.  

There are things you forget

{There are things you forget as you grow older.  Then you welcome your very own little one into the world and you begin to remember.  One of those things?  Finger puppets are *so* cool.  Another thing?  A morning spent playing with said finger puppets is a morning very well spent!}