Jude 18 months

18 months is really my favorite. I know they start rebelling at this age..and I know you have to watch them every minute. BUT you really get to see what they are like, and everything is JUST SO EXCITING! Butterflies, music, dancing, a dog, a fun car, anything just lights up his face with pure JOY and just makes me want to hop inside him and remember what it was like to be little again.

But the favorite of all favorite things...is his motorbike 

 So I decided to do his little 18 month photoshoot with him on his bike, cause nothing quite lights him up like these moments, see?

 He always sticks his tongue out when he rides and makes "vroom vroom bbbbbbrrrrrr" sounds so he's like really riding a motorbike. This usually ends up with lots of spit all over his shirt, but it's just too cute.

 My favorite pic of the day, I love how his eyes just light up when he smiles.

 And THIS FACE is the one he shoots me whenever he's got that pure JOY I was talking about earlier. I mean don't you just want to be HIM at that moment? Here he saw my neighbors (fake) frog on a rock, and turned to me with this shout of joy. I only caught half his face cause I had to whip up my camera to catch it.

At 18 months Jude loves animals more than my other kids did at this age. He makes these excited/cute sounds whenever he sees any animal. He's got most of his animal sounds down pat. My favorite one he makes is of a cat.

His favorite favorite thing to do is ride bikes. Yesterday he CRIED AT THE DOOR because it was raining and he couldn't ride. He'd make the tongue out "brrrrr" sound of a motorbike and just cried.

He's learning...to sign please instead of fussing (this one has taken crazy crazy practice!) to not pull his sisters hair, and to sign "all done" and "uppies"  instead of just jumping out of his high chair.  His first two word sentence was yesterday "bum...yuck!" when he had a stinky bum! His favorite word is "yuck" he uses it for everything (if his hands are dirty or if he sees a pile of ants or whatever).

His words are "juice, down, dum (for pacifier), da, ma, "go" for dog, car, yuck, bum, uh oh" He doesn't use many words compared to Autumn who was totally talking by now, but he manages to communicate quite well with signs and non verbal noises.

His brother and sister generally love him, he does get in their "big kid fun" sometimes, but they realize he's not meaning to ruin it.

We love him to bits!

BLAST FROM THE PAST This is Noah, 18 months in the same sweater :)

Summertime

Durban is hot and humid in Summer...like really humid. We've been housesitting for friends who have a pool so after school off we go to stay cool!

 And I've been teaching Autumn every day how to swim so we don't have to pay for swim lessons for her...she's now swimming across the whole pool taking breaths, yay!!!

 They play this fun game with Jude where they pop up and surprise him from under the water, he loves it

 And Noah just learned how to ride with no training wheels, so he rides almost every day, and Jude keeps up on his pushbike.

 And of course hours of swinging

 (Proud face with no training wheels!)

 Off he goes!

 He just needs help up big hills but he's totally riding!

Love these special times with my kiddies and I'm SO SO thankful I get to be at home with them!