Little House

Noah and Autumn have the best time playing in their little "tent house." Well, you can see by the colors that it's Autumn's house, but Noah will play along. Yesterday they played for 2 hours straight, , I didn't even need to interrupt them to remind them to be kind etc.

The first game they played was called "coffee shop" where they'd take turns making "cuppachinos." Then it would be too hot, or too cold, or need sugar and they'd "fix" it and pretend to drink.

Then the next game was "birthday party" where Autumn would make a "pink princeness" cake for her and "a blue one for Noah, cause he's a boy" and then offer me some pink one "cause I'm a girl." I think Autumn sang happy birthday like 20 times.

Then the last game was "go to sleep, OK?" where they'd take turns lying on a blanket on the floor of the tent, while the other one would go out of the tent and say "It's sleepy time, no waking up" and then "It's wake up time!" Followed by lots of giggles. Later that night I saw Noah give Autumn a hug (which is a very rare thing) and then he told Clint during family worship that he was thankful that we pray for him to love Autumn cause God has changed his heart. This really really was an answer to prayer, cause he usually tries to find ways to annoy her, and this last week they really have been laughing and having a good time together, and he noticed our answered prayer.

Noah's 4th Birthday

My little guy is all grown up and FOUR! I really can't believe it! He wanted a bulldozer birthday (we pass bulldozers building every day in Hillcrest) so I created an invitation for him with bulldozers and dump trucks, and all things construction:

He was SO excited to wear his hard hat so everyone could see

All the decorations :) My favorite phrase on the cupcake toppers was "I dig being four!"

Me and my little guy

I saw an idea online to do a obstacle course made out of stuff lying around in your garage. Well Clint's a pastor, so we don't really have that kind of stuff, but our friend Duncan does, when I saw the big orange cones in his garage I think I literally jumped up and down cause they were just so big and PERFECT! Noah got WAY into the course, and liked showing all his friends how to do it.

We also did a bean bag toss into the bulldozer, which the kids did over and over again with lots of laughter

The girls were a bit shy to do the course (around the cones, walk a plank, through the box, over some tires, around some cones again, and over the yellow planks) but they finally got into it too.

We also filled a wheelbarrow full of real dirt and put a bunch of toy cars/dumptrucks in it. The "real dirt" aspect was pretty cool for Noah.

Kerry and Cait were GREAT helping me with games and making it so exciting for even the girls

For the cake this year I had lots of toys that worked, so we made "dirt" out of crushed cookies, and this cake recipe (oh my, it was sooooo good) thanks to Martha Stewart http://www.marthastewart.com/284894/chocolate-cake-with-milk-chocolate-crunc

Everyone singing happy birthday

Can you tell he's excited to eat that cake?

Family pic opp :)

And two weeks later, Noah got ANOTHER party at his Granny/Grandpa's place in Pretoria. They made cupcakes with toolbelts and icing tools that really go in and out (aren't they cute?!) Noah was really spoiled to have 2 parties and had fun with his cousin and grandparents & anties & uncles!

Boy oh Boy

I think I haven't blogged about this but

IT'S A BOY!

Noah is SOOO excited to have a brother, and we are too! He said "I will love him and share my cars with him and I won't even sin or hit him, and I'll hug him and hold him when he comes out your tummy" he gets a cute smile on his face when he talks about him. He loves watching me move all the boy baby clothes into the nursery.

And here is a pic of the bedding I ordered, yay! After having the first boy I realized how much they LOVE all transporty things, so therefore the theme.....here there and everywhere!

Mother's Day....on Monday

So we normally don't really celebrate Mother's day on a Sunday, cause it's Clint's major work day of the week, so we go out on his day off, on Monday. I just took a couple of pics of our kiddos in our new car (we got a Hyundai Tucson so it can fit baby boy in a few months time). It's SO great having more room!

We went to one of my favorite restaurants, Bellview, the food seems a little more American to me. Like they have fun salads with really yummy dressing (most salads here are tomatoes, salad, feta and cucumber, with no dressing, or mayo). And this place has ones with actual dressing, and fun things in it. :)

Me with my kiddos, they were really SO well behaved, Clint and I got to have some uninterrupted chats, which was so fun.

When the waiter came, Autumn said "I'd like a cappuccino please" it was so cute. She got a milkshake, but said "look mommy I'm drinking my cappuccino!"

SOOO Thankful for my husband and my kids, we had such a fun family day out!

Roomates

I haven't blogged about this....but my kids have been roomies for about 4 months now! Once Autumn needed a big girl bed we moved them into bunks so that we could make her room the nursery for the baby. We got the bed just plain pine, and had it painted, and painted the room a cheery blue that wasn't too boy or too girl.

Under Autumn's bed is a shelf where she keeps all of her very special toys, I'm still looking for cute baskets that will fit, but she will play in her little "house" all by herself and I can often hear her talking to her babies, "shhh, go to sleep now" or "are you thirsty? Here's your milk" or whatever. It's super cute!

On the otherside I put all of their books and Noah's toys, and his toys are under the bed in baskets too. I tried to make a "girl space" and a "boy space"

Noah LOVES sleeping at the top, and in general....hates to "be alone" so he's very happy to have Autumn with him. I thought this would be a rough transition since he HATES pink (he really does) but when I moved her in he was excited. You can see in this pic he's got a bit of a "squint" cause he's not wearing his glasses before bedtime. I'm still working on getting bedding I like for him!

Autumn LOVES this little girl "princess" pillow and won't sleep on her normal pillow but sleeps ON the decorative princess one. So I put her normal one right next to her so she doesn't fall out :)

Noah still sleeps with his giraffe. He loves it SO much that he often asks me why he can't take it to heaven, he gives it big hugs and says "it's just so soft and I love him SO much"

Autumn will sleep with whatever doll fancies her the most for the day. It's usually Ariel though :)

I just spent the last two weeks shuffling everything around and moving all of Noah's old clothes into the baby's room to prepare for baby boy. Now I've got to make the room more "boy!"

The Hunt

My kids were fortunate to have TWO hunts this year. My friend Sam had one for all the little kids in our church, and they had SO much fun looking for eggs.

And then Granny sent some "glow in the dark" eggs, which we did at home. I was going to do it outside, but it rained, and we did an indoor hunt with special flashlights that make the eggs glow :)