Lately

We went on a little 2 day vacation as a family up in the mountains, such an awesome little get away with just our family. I love Kindergarten cause you can just pull them out a few days and the teacher doesn't mind!

 When did my girl get so big?

 Jude in daddy's baseball hat, I just want to eat him most of the time!

Jude had his 2nd birthday on Sept 29th, we did a small cake time at home but he really got into it.....and totally understood that it was his party!

 Family shot on his birthday

Grandpa from Pretoria came down for his party!

 He loves airplanes so I made a little airplane theme for him, he's always saying "NNNNEEEOW" for the sound they make

 The best part was because it was just us he wanted to blow out the candle like 30 times, and of course we obliged! :)

 Jude got a bubble maker for his birthday, I think Autumn loves it more than he does!

 Noah's going to Grade 1 next year (First Grade) and has to wear a uniform, they came in the mail last week, it's so cute! I got teary when he tried it on!

 After school if it's sunny he usually rides his bike around our complex

 And the others join in ....

 It's a sweet time where they all enjoy the same thing!

 Halloween this year was pouring rain but we still went to the little houses in our complex and got candy

 Noah's pumpkin, he was pretty proud of it!

 And we are having another GIRL!!! In April, we are so so excited, Autumn has been praying for about a year for a girl, and she's just so amazed the Lord has answered her prayer!

 I take Autumn and Jude every week to a little music class, and one of the moms brought a little lamb that Autumn got to hold (5 days old) she loved it so much!

 Noah had a Karate competition where he won a gold medal :)

 And their favorite part of our little vacation, hands down, was letting them pick their own ice cream (this was Jude's first time)

 And Noah and Jude doing "swordfights" with sticks and baseball bats, they are getting pretty good :)

 Me and my little guy

 And Noah with a tooth missing after swimming.

Anyways just a brief catchup of the last month or so, these days fly by, sometimes each day is quite long and I think "how am I going to get through this day with these 3?" and then I realize it's just Grace Grace Grace, He pours on us every day! 

Growing up....

It's all just going to fast. I often tell my kids if we are playing rough and tumble on the bed "no turning 7" or whatever age they are turning, which always gets laughs and squeals and "but mom's!"

This little guy is almost 2....like next week. What?!?! How did that happen!? He's starting to talk a lot the last few months and it's so so fun to see what he has to say.  He loves naming anything in a book or anything in our house by our names. In a story he'll always find a "Daddy, Mommy, Noah, Nunna, and Jude"

 He also LOVES motorbikes...this morning he asked to wear daddies helmet, and then started putting on his gloves

 I've been feeling very nauseas with the pregnancy....which means I've had to be creative with dinnertime! We do make your own pizza nights where the kids make dinner. I have a bread maker which makes awesome dough...and we get all the toppings and there you go!

 A is getting pretty good at helping me in the kitchen. :)

 A&J are home with me in the mornings, and they have a very sweet relationship that I love watching. If A get's hurt J will come and hug her and say "aww, hug!" until she starts laughing.  The other day they wanted to hop in the boot (trunk) of my car and the library books were in there, and she read to him in the back for like an hour, so sweet.

 A practicing to be a makeup artist with some bath crayons on Jude...

 This little guy just like Noah at this age...loves to sit in the car and pretend to drive, it's his favorite thing to do!

 A&J helping me bake while N's at school.

 N had pajama day the other week. They were learning the letter P so they had a Pajama Picnic Party :)

So grateful for these little guys and that 2 are still home with me in the mornings. My favorite moments lately are when A dances ballet in the mornings to my Little Women soundtrack (I just love that music) and asks me to dance with her, and when Jude curls up on my lap and asks me to read a book. Love these years!

Baby #4!

Our family is happy to announce baby #4's arrival in April 2014! We are so excited! 

Lately

Lately....I haven't been blogging cause life has been so FULL! 

So here's a bit of a catch up

This month our Noah turned SIX! Six is SUCH a jump in age, I think all around. They are suddenly a "big kid!" He loves reading anything he can, riding his bike, anything Star Wars or Rocket related, and anything NON-fiction. He's loving school, and has made one really good friend. When that friend isn't there, I can tell right away when I pick him up because "it just isn't the same without him" He's lost 3 teeth in the last few months, and still loves Karate.

Autumn and Jude are home with me in the mornings, and we have fun together. Autumn and Jude have a very sweet relationship, I rarely have to interrupt their playtime, they play so nicely! 

One of Autumn's favorite things to do is wear my glasses

Autumn isn't in school yet but we try and make play dates and go to parks quite frequently so that she can have friendships her own age.

 There is this AWESOME place we go to often that is a indoor/outdoor playground with balls to jump in and jungle gyms and a restaurant, my kids just love it. So we sometimes go in the morning when Noah is at school.

 This is just a pic of Autumn SO excited to hold her first "real" baby

 And Noah having some friends over after school

 Everyday I try and do some 'school' with Autumn and Jude just for something to do in the day. We write our names and do playdough and color and try and memorize some Bible verses. It's a sweet time

Happy Easter!

I didn't get a pic of them on their Easter egg hunt....but I did in their Sunday best. My favorite part of Easter was the chat on the way to church about the real meaning of Easter, and when Autumn piped up and said it's important cause if Jesus didn't come alive then he couldn't forgive us. My other favorite moment was that night when I said "let's sing a Easter song (I was thinking like....a song about Jesus) Autumn got a glint in her eye and said I KNOW ONE! Then she sang (to the tune of Jingle Bells) "EASTER EGGS EASTER EGGS EASTER ALL THE WAY!" With HUGE giggles from my 3 very sugar loaded kids. Which has been sung the last 3 nights with glorious running and skipping and giggling. My sillies.

Seriously sometimes I wish I could EAT my kiddies I love them so. Jude is just at that age where I can't get enough of "flash over at me" smiles when he loves something. Eeek!

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 :)