Christmas in Costa Rica

Christmas in Costa Rica was great this year. On Christmas Eve we chilled at home, having a relaxing day and I made overnight monkey bread dough to use the next morning. That night we went to a friends house for dinner. We ended up playing Cranium, which is weird because John's a self proclaimed Cranium hater. His team won though, I think he was happy about that. Malachi found a friend there, they played together really well for the whole five hours we were there. John and I like his parents, so I think we might try to hang out with them - it would be a good match I think. We didn't get home until after 11:00 that night. We wrote a Thank You note to Santa and wished him a safe flight. We all opened our Christmas Eve pj's and then sent the kids to bed. I set out cookies and milk for Santa, got my first present (a new cell phone!) and then went to bed. John stayed up even later - crazy.

 

Saturday morning was great! I was so excited that I couldn't go back to sleep after I woke up at 6:00 a.m. Malachi was instructed to stay in his room until 7:00 am and we put a big digital clock on the floor by his door. I heard him playing but I snuck downstairs to enjoy the quiet of the room at about 6:20. At 7:00 I went upstairs to find that John had rescued Malachi out of his room because the clock had changed (well really, Malachi changed it). It wasn't going to be 7:00 for another seven hours! The baby wasn't awake, so we decided to leave him. We went downstairs, organized the presents and let Malachi dig in. Simon woke up at about 7:30 and I brought him down to start "ripping" into his presents. When the kids were done John and I got to start in on ours. John had mentioned after I got the phone the night before that he didn't have any big present for the next day. HA! After opening some great presents (maternity clothes mostly, but so needed and so appreciative, a few books, and other fun items) I opened my last present and found my old winter jacket. I gave a confused look to John who said it was creative wrapping. I pulled it out and couldn't find anything in the box and was even more confused. He said I had it in my hand, and sure enough I did. I pulled two "plane tickets" out of the pocket. One for me and one for Simon leaving for Minneapolis on Jan. 13th. I went to him on the floor by the kids and hugged and cried and squeezed him (hard) until Malachi asked why mommy was crying.

 

I've been missing the US so much for a while, and to be able to go there, and at the same time celebrate my mother's birthday (I won't say which, but it's a big one!) when I thought I wouldn't be able to, is quite possibly the best gift he's ever given me. After crating a giant mess of paper in our house, we all spent the rest of the day relaxing, resting, and enjoying our new loot.

 

I had expected it wouldn't be special because there were so many things was were "wrong." But we had a great holiday, and it will be memorable as Simon's first!

 

On other topics

 

Bidding starts soon. I'm excited to see the list. I think it's coming out in February. We have ideas about what we want to do, and I hope it works out.

 

I think Simon's 5th tooth finally popped out! We've been waiting for this one forever. If every tooth takes so long to come out, we're looking at years of teething. I think we have at least two more working their way out. Poor Simon - I remember teething because I got my wisdom teeth very late in life, and I feel so bad for him.

 

Malachi's excited about school starting. He starts on January 10th and we're going to have to figure out a way to get him there, especially while I'm in the States. It's another small school, it's actually the teachers that were fired from his last school. So they remember him, and will get him where he needs to be. I'm a little worried that he's so out of practice that he may not be able to go into 1st grade next year. We'll see...he started Kindergarten early, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if he had to do it again. I hate this stupid school situation that we've gone through. I feel really bad for Malachi, not because his education suffered, but because he misses his friends.

 

Today he went to a friends house for the whole day. He was so excited when we told him last night that he actually squeeled! The father of his friends took the day off to use some vacation time and they asked for Malachi to come over. We were excited for him, and this morning while we were getting ready we almost forgot to feed him breakfast in all the excitement. He had a wonderful day with his friends, he used their bounce house and their homemade zip-line. I'm so thankful that he was able to do that today.