Unrequited Love

Noah and Tobi have a love/hate relationship.

It's the all too familiar plot:

Boy meets Tobi

Boy loves Tobi

(It starts out as loving pats, but ends up with fists full of fur)

Boy loses Tobi
Boy is rejected.

His first lesson in unrequited love.

(I'm so glad I'm a girl, I have no idea how you guys go through this! :)

Spring in Durbs

Durban sometimes reminds me of Hawaii, especially in the Spring/Summer when it rains almost every afternoon, making everything green with it. There won't be a cloud in the sky, and then all of a sudden great big thunderclaps and lightning appear from nowhere, and its POURING! Coming from LA where there is never any thunder, its quite breathtaking. Clint and I decided to go exploring last Monday...it was so beautiful, and HOT! Summer is definitely on its way!

Noah's not so interested in the view...

Thanksgiving

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to turn a real live pumpkin into 2 pumpkin pies made from scratch, tons of baby food, and my aunts famous "yams and apples" before Thanksgiving.

The gory pumpkin guts (my kitchen rarely looks like Martha Stewart's when I cook, it usually looks like a bomb went off, flour everywhere, sugar strewn across the counters, but it all gets cleaned up eventually!)

Tada!

So South Africans usually don't have a clue what Thanksgiving is. More often than not I hear "isn't Thanksgiving the same as Christmas?" So they don't sell things like pumpkin in a can, or frozen pumpkin pies, or anything of that nature. So I made my first pumpkin pie from scratch. Even the crust! I must admit, it was a heck of a lot of work...cutting up the pumpkin, boiling it, pureeing it, and making my own crust....but the results were amazing. I've never had pumpkin pie so good! So fresh tasting, yummy! I highly recommend trying it.

We went over to some American missionaries house for Thanksgiving this year. The Ferran's started coming to our church for a few months until they were moved to a more Zulu area to learn the language more efficiently. But we met up for Thanksgiving, along with their other American missionary friends, it was great fellowship! And together we made all the traditional food, Turkey, stuffing, the works!

I'm thankful for my family!

"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!" Psalm 107:1

Thanksgiving is still one of my favorite holidays cause there is no "confusion" with all the commercial-ness behind it. The true meaning of the holiday is still there. Thanking God for his good gifts, especially GREAT food and family.

Pearly Whites

This photo encapsulates the teething, and the teeth!

Mom, what are these funny pokey things?

African American

My little boy is now offically American! We got his baby passport and American birth certificate yesterday from the American consolate...so now he can travel with us to the States! Our little guy needs two passports (crazy huh?) One to enter America, and a South African one to enter SA. So my little guy is officially African American. At Cornerstone we were talking about how they won't let pregnant women fly when they are 8-9 months pregnant so they don't have the baby on the plane. We concluded that it was obviously because they wouldn't know what citizenship to give the baby :) tee hee. Like could you imagine if I flew over uh....like...Congo and gave birth to Noah and they declared him Congonize? (I have no idea what they call people from Congo!)

So Noah is definatley developing "favorite" toys. We can tell the pecking order by which one ends up on the floor first when he's in his high chair. His current favorite being his bath toy, and orange fishy, always first on the floor! He hasn't learned "object permanence" yet, so when its gone, its gone. He doesn't look for it, just moves on to the next toy. :) When he drops it we always yell "uh-oh" and he looks at us like we are crazy!


And another favorite is the kitten page on his new book. His face gets all excited when he sees the kittys, probably because he likes to reach out and pet Tobi our cat.

But the REAL reason for liking a good book....is if the pages can fit in his mouth!

Mist

In spring Hillcrest gets this really cool mist that comes in usually after a really hot day, and its really beautiful. It reminds me of what it must have been like on earth before the flood when a mist covered the earth in Genesis. A day can start off really really hot, and then end up cool as the mist rolls in in sheets of cloud, turning everything green in its path. Here are some photos of this morning in my back yard:

Sick Day

You know when you feel sick and all you want to do is lie on the couch and watch a movie...and just veg out? That's how Noah was today because of his teething. It was actually very cute. He was kinda moan-y today, and at one point he did have crocodile tears cause of how sore his teeth were (which was quickly solved by some teething gel!) But I thought it was so cute cause he was moaning cause of his teeth, so I put him in front of a baby DVD (Baby Praise...I highly recommend it! The songs are praise songs and the pictures are cute) Anyways, he loved it and just sat and sulked. Every once in a while you could hear a "sniff" from the room, like "it still hurts, but I'm loving my movie so everything is ok!"
Noah vegging out to his movie:

Putting his pacifier in his mouth the wrong way...it makes for something to chew! :)

And he was making these "mom I don't feel well" faces, so I turned the camera around and caught it! Awww. Poor baby!

Attack of the Flying Ants

For the second time this week we came home at 7:30 tonight to find a MILLION flying ants in our house. I mean, no kidding, a million, and EVERYWHERE! Tobi our cat was the only one who was very entertained by the sight of them. They are about as big as dragonflies, and appear in swarms. They appear for like an hour, and then they die when their huge wings fall off, only to leave crawling bug things everywhere, with wings everywhere. It's really disgusting. They are super common in Durban, and they are attracted to light. So we immediately turned off all our lights, and they left for the outside ones, but they left their dying squirming friends with their left-over wings behind (ewww gross).

I googled it and found this interesting on a website in Hawaii:
"Flying Termites are a phenomenon that appear at about 7:30pm on most warm summer evenings. They are especially numerous if the day has been very hot. While a nuisance, you can count on them to be gone within a half-hour or so. Local folks can tell time by their appearance and disappearance."

and we got home at 7:30. So I'm typing this in the only room that doesn't have flying ants in it, my office (it was closed with the lights off!) while Clint wages war against all flying ant beings. Yuck! So tomorrow will be spent sweeping up icky wings and bugs out of my entire house!

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

On Sunday night I was feeding cereal to Noah in the cry room at church when I saw a little white thing emerging from his mouth. My eyes went wide with wonder...a tooth? The sharp substance popping out from his mouth confirmed it....yup, his first tooth! I felt this tender affection for him because I realized he was probably in pain, and I couldn't really help much! The most frequent comment I get about Noah is "I've never heard him cry...just wait till he starts teething!" So I've been waiting...but the tears aren't coming....he's a brave little guy! And today I found the second one emerging...still no tears!

So I gave him a cold teething ring for the first time (perfect hot Summer day for it!) It's amazing how God created their development so suited for their needs. Noah has been learning over the last couple of months to pick up an object off the ground with both hands all by himself, and he has definitely mastered this art...and now he's able to pick up anything to sooth his little teeth!

I tried getting photos of them, but they are too tiny even for my big camera!

Checking out the ring (I love his cheeks!)


Observing it with concentration...yikes, it's cold!

And like anything else, straight in the mouth! So now more than ever, he's chewing on everything!


My favorite thing to watch now is when I take out his pacifier and put it on a table in front of him, cause he gets so excited to see it, and pick it up, and often he puts it in his mouth the wrong way, and looks at it with wonder....like....this isn't right!! And then he finds the right way. It's like a puzzle :)

LOL

Just for an explanation of the video, Grandma Anne got Noah this spoon that makes the sound of a train. Its been great cause he gets distracted while he eats, so I just make the train noise and he knows to open his mouth....but tonight it struck him something funny. And yup, he's laughing not crying :) He did this for like a half an hour. Its moments like these that make being a mom the best job on earth.

Random stuff...

Last friday we had the annual Reformation party at our house for Cornerstone. This is my 6th one...and I am still reminded every year how awesome it is that we are saved by grace through faith...and it is Christ alone who redeems us, not our own works! We also had fun carving those pumpkins. For most it was the first time trying pumpkin pie...and apple cider, my favorite!

The pumpkin carving contest (the one on the left was the winner!)

And we still haven't sold our puppies yet! But one of the Sunday school classes last Sunday came to play with them. Hopefully this Saturday we will be successful at the local pet store :)

And today Noah had his 6 month checkup. Noah had a wrist wrattle on and the pediatrician said "Soon that will be replaced with an ipod on his wrist!" The Dr. said he's perfectly on the dot average for weight and height. I love our pediatrician. He made Noah laugh through the whole exam, gave him a HUGE hug afterwards, and declared him perfectly healthy!

Today he was given a high chair from IKEA of all places (sad to say we don't have IKEA here in SA!) A lady in our church lived in England and passed down hers to us. It's a really cool one. Noah played his whole playtime in it today, banging blocks on it and throwing toys on the floor!

He was enjoying looking out the window and exploring his toys one by one. He looked like such a little boy in a big chair!


His eyes were filled with such wonder at the world outside today...like he was really taking it all in.

6 months old!

Our little buddy is 6 months old! I can't believe a half a year has gone by with this little guy. He's starting to really discover the world around him. Like today I was feeding him cereal in his bumbo chair, and he looked at my candle on the table, leaned over, looked at me, and took the wood top right off! And if he's playing with any toys, or if I'm feeding him, and we turn on the TV, his eyes are instantly glued to the screen. He turns his head like he is in this photo just to get a closer look! He also smiles at familiar songs I sing, and doesn't smile if I sing a new one :) We love him to bits! Happy half year birthday Noah!

Our house....continued.

View through the livingroom window and patio:

Our house now has a roof! Photo from the back:

And the front

And now has tiles!

We probably won't move in until February or March, but we can't wait!

My favorite sound ever: