Happy Reformation Day

Last year I was SOOO excited to find REAL orange pumpkins to take photos with Noah and carve with. This year, I went on a pumpkin hunt, but was unsuccessful. I only found squatty green ones, but I still carved one! I love Autumn and pumpkins and Reformation day and dressing up, its just too fun. I was super super sad to not find real pumpkins, and then Clint gave me a reality check and was like...."really? your sad cause you can't find ORANGE pumpkins?!?" And then I realized it didn't really matter. I can't take Noah to a pumpkin patch or anything fun like that, they just don't exist... so I dressed him up the same as last year just for fun. I can't believe looking at these photos how much Noah has grown in a year! Last year I had to prop him up against the pumpkins, and this year he was taking off his costume before I could even snap a photo! :)

Last year:


This year trying to take off the costume....

I love this little sweet smile

It was the perfect "fall" day to take photos, all warm and snuggly! (Even though its spring here!)

Something cracked him up!

It's raining its pouring

I think its been raining for 3 weeks straight. Noah and I usually go on daily walks outside so he can toddle around and look at all the doggies in our complex. It's been so cold and windy, the only day that seemed just cloudy we went for a walk. After not even getting out of our driveway Noah signed "all done!" It's just not fun walking in the cold wind.

So last Monday we headed for a restaurant with an indoor park. Noah loved it!

I love his face sliding down the slide:

Help! I'm too short to drive!

Noah started a peek a boo game with Daddy that he thought was hilarious

Hanging out in the clubhouse

More peek a boo

And they gave Noah a balloon! (Which he just thought was the best!)

We had a fun afternoon and Noah got all his outdoor energy out, and crashed for a almost three hour nap....whew! :)

Fly hunting video

Almost every night Noah asks for the fly swatter and goes around fly hunting. I caught this nights hunt on tape. He finally caught one this week, and was SO proud of his prey. He kept pointing at it with big smiles and sounds of jubilee

Disclaimer: No animals were harmed in this film (well, maybe one tiny one)

It's official:

IT'S A GIRL!
so we'll have what South African's call a "pigeon pair" a boy, then a girl. Pretty cool. We're excited :)
Any fun name suggestions? We have tons of boy names, but girl names are rather lacking!

Quilting...

I've been making a quilt for Noah's "big boy bed" which he'll move into when baby #2 comes....and now all the squares are finally cut, and most are sewn on! Now I just have to stitch it together, add a boarder, backing etc.....It'll go with his boat/beach themed room. I've been looking for a quilt like this forever, and if I see one its not quite right, and its a billion dollars, or its from like Pottery Barn Kids, and you can't ship it to SA. This is made from scraps from my mother-in-law's workroom (she does baby rooms!) so so far it hasn't cost a cent. Quilting fabric here is over 10 dollars a meter, cause its shipped from America. So I've been quite blessed to get all this fabric, and its perfect!

It's been fun making up the patterns and figuring out what goes where. Here's the bottom half. Its' alot more work than it looks actually!
I can't believe I'm already making a quilt for his big boy bed! He's been looking more and more like a "big boy" lately, and saying more words every day. His latest is "bye bye!" which he says when anyone leaves the room.
Maybe I'll be ambitious enough to make a quilt for baby #2, but I've gotta know if its a girl for sure first!

Spring is here

When we moved into our house a bunch of people from our church gave us pots with plants in them for our yard, and I just randomly planted them having no idea what they were. (Our apartment in the states didn't even have a patio, and the church's house was just to big to plant anything around it, so I'm basically clueless when it comes to plants). So its a surprise every day to discover what these plants actually are now that its raining. By my front porch this "Easter Lily" appeared, even though its no where near Easter...but it is Spring (it still baffles me this whole switch of season thing in the southern hemisphere).

And Noah helped me plant some flowers in my pots on our patio today. The rain finally stopped enough for us to plant them.

He had fun moving the dirt from the big pot into the little pot with his beach spade.

And then just poked at the flowers with his spade pointing at each flower and then looking at me as if to say "look what we did mommy!"

Church Picnic

Last Wednesday was a public holiday (Heritage Day, or National Braai Day) so our church got together for a picnic. Whats cool about our church being just over 200 people is that you can have all church events! The last two years picnics were canceled cause of rain, so we were so glad for a clear day. It was so much fun, we should do church fun things way more often.

Everyone braai-ing their meat (so much meat!)

Noah and Daddy by the fire.

Everyone enjoying some lunch & fellowship

Noah hanging out with Celia and Vicky

Our church picnic was at a nature reserve, and they had some cute animals. This one was Noah's favorite, a Dika (its a little deer that when fully grown comes to Noah's knees). This one was totally tame, and very cute!

And they had an bird conservatory. Noah loved looking at all the ducks

Checking out all the birdies with Liz (Liz is due the same day as me in Feb!)

Two of my favorite birds we saw, both with fohawks!

Noah and I looking at the birdies. When Lyle said "smile" Noah put on his silly scrunchy smile face. Silly guy.