Noah Reading

Noah has this great desire to learn how to read. This video was taken about a month or two ago. A lady in our church gave me a bunch of K-grade 1 readers. We've been working on basic phonics for a while, so he seemed ready for the readers, and off he went! Now whenever we are out he'll try and read restaurant names and anything he can see. AND I'm learning phonics too (like why the y makes so many different sounds etc.) There's nothing cooler than teaching your child how to read and seeing him do it on his own! His first word he read was "Ants" (we were working on A says "a" and he just read the word...I was so excited! So it's been a fun challenge for me everyday to come up with little activities to practice, I think I need a curriculum now.

Autumn Pa-tautum

One of her many nicknames. After church on Sun she LOVES to go on the jungle gym and says "watch me!" and she'll go all by herself down the very big slide. She's very brave.

She loves Sunday School and doesn't cry anymore when I leave her. She's gotten to know all the teachers and kids names by heart. She'll often be heard singing "Jesus loves me" and "I life my eyes up to the mountains." Yesterday she came to me saying "the big bad wolf, huff, puff, BLOW your house AWAY, the pigs said "NO!" I'd never read the story to her, but she was re-telling what "Aunty Sam" had read to her during fun story time at Nursery. She would puff and huff with all her might!

I recently sent the kids outside for some playtime so I could clean my kitchen, and I could hear Autumn TALKING away at her baby. I went outside to see what she was doing, and she'd turned her little house into a tent and was chatting away....then she discovered I was there and tried to turn it into a game of hide and seek....

And told me you must rock the baby "just like this ok?, you must hold her, and rock her so she goes to sleep. It's not wake time, it's sleepy time ok?"

She'd do BIG BIG rocks as you can see by the blurry baby. She calls this one "hosbibible baby" (hospital baby) cause it has a newborn tag on it. I love the way she says it cause her tongue goes in and out with all the "bibible's" in the word, I've tried getting it on video but to no avail. I think it might be her favorite and all the other babies have been neglected lately.

Then the other day she asked me to put "chords" in her hair. I had to figure out what she meant...but she was too excited when I put braids in. When I ask her to look at the camera now this is the face I always get.

I almost cried cause she looked like a little kindergartener!

Little Things

Now that we have another baby coming Noah and Autumn seem so OLD. I'm teaching Noah how to read, and he's getting the hang of it, and in only 18 months time he'll be in Grade R (Kindergarten! AHHHH!) So I'm holding on to the "little moments." Latley I've gotten nostalgic while packing away girl baby clothes and pulling out boy baby clothes for baby #3. But I was reminded the other day that they are still SO little, and have things about them that I'm sure they will give up pretty soon. Noah still LOVES his giraffe, and after his nap he'll come out holding it with his little blanket he's had since he was born. He loves giraffe so much he often asks if he can take it to heaven, and tells me he loves how soft it is. I keep wondering when this stage will go, but I just love it.

And if he get's sad about something he'll ask if he can cuddle with giraffe.

Autumn will wake up from her nap with her "dummy dummy" (South Africans call it that name, it still sounds funny to me!) But she's so cute and will laugh when I ask her if we can put it away. She's really only allowed to sleep with it.

It will be a sad day when she gives it up I think. She'll wake up making little sounds with it that sound like "lal, lal, lal" and it's really cute. She seems still baby when she has it. :)