Pictures in the Park

A professional photographer was here in November visiting her sister and offered to take pictures for other missionary families one day. It was such a kind gesture and I was praying that Ally would behave. She was in quite the crying stage at this point, but it went really well. We met at Parque Bosque close to our house and she snapped a few that turned out great. I wanted to capture the dynamic of the 3 of them in the beginning stages of this new life together as a family of 5. We are very blessed.

Emma - 8 years old

Jack - 5 years old

Ally - 1 month old

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Night to Remember

The month of December was insane with fireworks. I'm talking, like every single night for hours and hours. And these aren't measly little bottle rockets. These are the mega mumbo jumbo ones! Our house would shake, dogs would bark, babies would cry...you know how it goes. And it was every night. And we had a frightened boy who has a teacher who told him fireworks are dangerous, a daughter who is a light sleeper, and a one month old baby...enough said. At least once the baby is asleep, she's asleep. What a different kind of experience the month of December was for us!

For starters, the weather turns very nice. It's a bit windy, but the rain has finally stopped and it's sunny and 80 degrees every day. It really is amazing. Next there is no Santa Claus here so the malls look a little different. (Baby Jesus is the one who brings a gift for each child.) And then the fireworks are just hard to describe. We had heard that New Years Eve will be unlike anything we've ever seen, and we just weren't sure what to expect. We had a low-key New Year's Eve day watching a Duck Dynasty and Billy the Exterminator marathon on tv and playing Wii games. We had barbecue for dinner and put the baby to bed. Will and the kids went to the park to shoot fireworks with the Gault's and this freaked Jack a little too much. He was really serious about people getting hurt from fireworks and a few got a little too close to Danny. Jack was pretty upset. So we gave Jack the option to go to bed early so he wouldn't be terrified at midnight. He took us up on that offer and went to bed at 10:00.

Then, around 11:45, it started. There were huge major fireworks going off from every household as far as you could see. We have an awesome balcony where we shot off some of our own and watched the skies explode. It was indescribable! So so beautiful! Even in the background you could see fireworks going off on the mountains all around us. People were honking, cheering, yelling and happy as could be. There were even Chinese lanterns being released all over the city and it looked like something from the movie Tangled. Emma was thrilled! It lasted for about an hour and we were frantically calling people to try to give others a glimpse of the awesomeness.

It was truly a night to remember.

Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

Jack Turns 6

Our handsome Jack My Man turned 6 on December 26th. I have always wanted to feel sorry for the boy having a birthday the day after Christmas, but he actually loves it. There's so much excitement going on anyway during this time, and then there's an entire day devoted just to him right after the holidays. He thinks it's great! When we lived in the States I had birthday parties for him in the summer on his half birthday, but he has always been confused about this. He says "but Mom, it's not my birthday". So, we're switching it back to when his real birthday is. It may drive me crazy having all of that going on at one time, but my boy is worth it. We always let him pick whatever he wants to do on the day of his birthday, and then we had a little party with some friends a few weeks later. This is all about his fun day he picked out.


We went to see "Wreck-It Ralph" at the movie theater. It was a really cute movie! All cartoons are dubbed in Spanish here, so that was a bit challenging but we got most of it. And at one point Ally woke up and just sat in my lap and watched the rest of the movie. It was really funny!

Then we went to the Zapote fair that was next door to the mall. During the month of December, we have a fair and nightly bull fights down the street complete with fireworks and lots of traffic. The kids begged to go last year but we never did, so we offered that to Jack for his birthday and he was pumped! It's definitely a whole lot cheaper than the fair in the States. First of all, it's free to get in. They had police checking everyone's bags as we walked in though, so of course the women's line was super long.

Can you find me? And no, I'm not the girl with the cell phone in her pants.

Yep, I'm the glowing white girl completely disgusted with how long I had to stand there...and I didn't even have a purse with me

Here's my birthday boy!

Typical fair...with stray dogs and port-a-potties you had to pay to use. At least that keeps them clean though!

Fair food...quite different

You could pay to have your picture taken with random characters...there was even Barney the dinosaur walking around. Does anyone even watch that anymore?

Will talked Emma into riding her first upside down roller coaster

Will made her ride in the last seat because that's the fastest...poor girl

She did come off with a headache, but she loved it

Sweet kids

Jack wanted to ride a roller coaster too, but something a little smaller.

They had fun

Old-school bumper cars

The kids loved this random spinny fun house thingy. There was a ticket booth at each individual ride you chose. At least that keeps you from having to buy tons of tickets for no reason. And each ride was about a dollar or less. Like I said, WAY cheaper than the fair in the States.

Worn out after fun fair time

Jack's favorite thing in the world

And he wanted to go to dinner at Denny's after because they sing to you. They actually forgot to sing, but I don't think he remembered. He got the huge baseball pancakes and coke. He was a happy guy.

Then Will made him baseball cupcakes at home

And we sang really loud to him

But he really loved it. Haha see Will's mouth in the corner?

Happy 6th Birthday Jack!

Jack, you are such a joy in our lives. I love that I have one special boy that's my middle child who molds everything in our lives together perfectly. You are a kind-hearted boy who cares about others and loves to make others happy. You have a giving heart and I love to see you making things for your friends and family. You are a natural leader and everyone enjoys being around you and being your friend. You are very serious about rules and order and safety (you even opted out of New Year's Eve fireworks because you said they were too dangerous). You are very smart and eager to learn which has been fun to watch. You are such a kind and gentle spirit with your baby sister and she loves to just look at you and smile. Ally always looks for you when she hears you in the room. I love the kisses you blow to me at night and the sweet way you randomly tell me you love me. We have challenges as we strive to be the best parents we can be for you and help mold you into a strong man of God one day. Jack, we love you with all of our heart. There's only one Jack-my-man.

Family of Five Christmas

I'm not sure why this post has taken me so long to write. Maybe because I don't like the pressure of feeling like this is my first post of the New Year. Like there's some sort of expectation with that first post. I should be writing about my hopes and dreams for the new year, my goals, resolutions, how I'm going to be a better person, blah blah blah. Sorry, none of that here.

I want to share about our first Christmas as a family of five. And it was our first Christmas where it was just "us". I had so many mixed emotions about it, but it ended up being really really great. We did what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it. It was just about our little family and starting some traditions of our own. We love our extended families, but since we were married so young, we were quickly swooped up into the Christmas traditions and expectations of our parents and never really felt the freedom to create our own. Advice to young married couples? Put your foot down now or you will find yourself at age 30 still taking a Christmas morning picture on the stairs in matching pajamas with the other kids. Not a manly sight.

Anyway, back to our Christmas. I think what was so evident was how calm it was. We truly enjoyed the month of December. Everything slows down anyway and the weather was wonderful, so there was a lot of down time for us to just hang out together. We did go Christmas shopping for the kids one night when my parents were in town and that was a bit stressful. Everything costs double here, so this was probably the most we've ever spent on Christmas. Shocker. And of course there were fireworks every night in December that jolted the kids awake constantly, but we're over it now. And we really enjoyed Ally's first Christmas. I had to take a picture of her in her three Christmas outfits:

 

 

She was 2 months old on Christmas Day. It feels like that around 2 months old the newborn fog starts to lift. She's eating better, sleeping better, smiling, and just a lot of fun. What a difference a good night's sleep can make to a mama!

Now you won't see this on Pinterest, but I don't care. This is the Christmas Eve lunch I came up with for Emma & Jack. Coke in Christmas mugs, PB&J cut like trees, marshmallow snow, random candy cane tree, molasses cookie moon with chocolate chip smiley face.

What's hilarious is they were thrilled! Keepin' it simple

Then Jack helped me make a Cinnamon Roll cake for Christmas morning breakfast which was an epic fail. Let's just say I used waaaaaaaaaaay too much butter. I'll try again some other time, but he had so much fun helping me.

We wore pajamas for our Christmas Eve dinner and each of us got to pick a favorite food to have. This is what we came up with: rotisserie chicken from a man down the street, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans wrapped in bacon, corn, pineapple, and bread. It was a hit!

And Emma baked with me on Christmas Eve as well. We made a Mississippi Memories pie, sugar cookies and molasses cookies. Just making those 3 things took us all day, but it was fun.

Some of our decorations: Christmas cookie candle, stockings hung on the china cabinet

Little tree in the corner, paper snowflakes on the wall

Ready to wrap gifts

Looks like Santa is ready

And that night Santa came and filled the stockings

And left presents under the tree (each kid gets 3 presents each), ate his cookies, drank his milk, and left the kids a note. Jack's note said he needs to obey his dad more.

Christmas morning toy assembly

Can be confusing

Ally wiped out from too much excitement

Emma enjoying her bead making kit

Jack with his Thor hammer and sucker

Jack enjoying his new Lego Star Wars Wii game

Making Christmas morning breakfast

It was the way Christmas should be. Nice and calm, but full. We baked on Christmas Eve, skyped family, had a nice dinner, kids went to bed early, and the parents wrapped gifts together. Christmas Day started early, put together toys, played, ate Christmas breakfast (without cinnamon roll cake), and played some more. All with Christmas music softly playing in the background. We loved it. At breakfast Emma asked if we could have Christmas like this again next year. Probably not. But we soaked up the memories of this little "Costa Rica Savell Family of 5" Christmas we had. I'll never forget it and am so thankful the Lord showed us so much love through each other. I know we had many people thinking and praying for us far away this Christmas season. Just know that your prayers were felt and we appreciate you remembering us. We enjoyed it more than we could have imagined.