MERRY CHRISTMAS, FROM THE KOTA FAMILY!
We hope this season of joy brings Christ’s warmth to your
hearts and we wish you and your loved ones a very happy, holy Christmas and a
great new year ahead!
This year of 2021 brought us many things but our most joyful
news is that we are expecting child number 4, baby boy Giovanni Antonio, due
02/02/2022 (Dan’s birthday, by the way). As you can imagine, Nicholas is happy
to be a big brother to a little brother and finally tie the boys vs girls count in this house. Rebecca
and Vicky are as happy as they can be too, talking to Gio, praying for Gio,
waiting and waiting and waiting for Gio. Dan and I are also very excited with
the news. I think you can tell, but we all love Giovanni very much!
In other news, we continued to live in our beautiful rental
home – albeit a bit too far from everything – but we are now happy to share we have
found a house to buy, and counting on all your prayers, we’ll be closing by the
end of December. The new house is under a 5-min drive to school and that will
be a true God-sent blessing! When we will be moving is something we haven’t
quite figured it out yet since so many things are happening at the same time,
but we are glad to have the flexibility to move in a calm pace. We should
expect my mom’s and two sisters’ visit in mid January so we’ll be having family
support during the move and while we wait for baby Gio to arrive – hopefully
and prayfully, he’ll stay put until then.
After a low key 2020 and very few family encounters (all
before Feb. of 2020), we were finally able to visit my dear sister and
brother-in-law in California in early June and they just came to visit us for
Thanksgiving! We were so happy for these times together! The Kotas also took a
dreamy beach trip in end of May, a very fun cabin trip with good friends and
all of our kiddos in early November and just before that we were very blessed
to be able to visit Brazil in October for my brother’s wedding! We got see and
love on all of our families, their new babies’ additions, and we baptized our
sweet niece, Maria Sofia. A little before baptizing Maria Sofia, we first
became the godparents of sweet Genevieve Rose, daughter of some dear long
friends from Texas. We love and pray every day for our goddaughters!
We continued to love and cherish our great school, St
Theresa Catholic School in Sugar Land, TX, and this was Vicky’s first year ever
in a school setting, starting on preK-4! Boy, was she ready for it! She is pure
joy, full of emotions and another little smarty pants who will turn five in
just a few days. Vicky loves freely and is loved back. She loves God, her
family and friends, dirt in the yard, soap bubbles, learning, books and the
arts and crafts packages we get at the library monthly.
Nicholas is 8yo and in second grade. He continues to amaze
us at school and in sports! He is a natural boy who is showing lots of sense of
humor and creativity! He started formal
piano lessons at school and enjoys playing it very much. He showed a lot of
composure and confidence at his first piano recital as the first to play and he
did great! Nicholas also played in a soccer league for the first time and Dan
was the coach! They won the title undefeated and it was such a memorable experience
for the whole family. Nicholas is preparing beautifully for first communion. He
loves God, family, friends, video games, piano, writing stories, accompanying
daddy in everything, and playing every sport!
Our dear first born Rebecca is in fifth grade and turned 11
in late August. She has continued to mature beautifully both in body and soul.
She does well in school and quite impressive in piano for someone who has been
playing for only 1.5y . She is the best of friends and a good daughter. She
helps at home and with her siblings. She plays with children of all ages and is
loved by all. She is joyful, intelligent, always insightful and continues to
devour books. She has gained a true passion for all things space and dreams of
working for NASA one day. She continued to learn and love her faith and she
just.can’t.wait for Giovanni to arrive. She is caring of everyone and mostly
sweet (she is a pre-teen after all), intense too but able to hold everything in
a good balance! I want to be like Rebecca when I grow up.
Dan continues to work at the Houston Methodist. It was been
a great place to work for and he enjoys it. Dan is basically not remote anymore
since early this year and he is working very hard indeed, like it is in his
nature. I admire his work ethics and efforts and the fact that no matter how
busy his day was, he is always back home silly, happy and ready to help with
anything that is needed! We love our Dan!
Finally about me, even though the kids are all at school
since August, I’ve never been busier! But I am happy to be useful and I love
caring for my family’s physical and spiritual needs. I enjoy my good friends’
company very much and we are blessed to have found so many of them here where
we are! We have a very good support system in our school/parish community
between all the fun and the encouragement. Thank you, sincerely!
I hope you enjoyed receiving this letter and catching up
with us! I know I always say this, but it so happens to continue to be true: I
love catching up with all of you, friends and family, near or far, and I always
look forward to your pics and news!
And one more time,
Merry Christmas to you!
December, 9th, 2021
No comments:
Post a Comment