Cup a Joe

Second best to training in righteousness is training in coffee making. If only training in righteousness were as simple! Noah is now the expert barista. First thing in the morning he gets his little chair and grinds the beans, puts in one teaspoon of sugar each, pours in just the right amount of milk, waits till I pour in the hot coffee, and he stirs it to perfection.

A great Starbucks barista in the making. Wanna come have a Noahchinno?

Taming the Beast

My daughter has what we affectionately call "party hair" cause her hair since birth has always thrown a bit of a party on her head. Every time she wakes up I have to somehow tame the beast, usually involving spray conditioner to get her curls to go back to they way they should be.

Post nap hair....throwin its little party.

First piggy tails! (I know its not super neat, but you try putting pigtails on a 13 month old!)

I think she likes them

Whenever she tries on her bracelets she gives me this "I feel pretty" look

My baby looks like she's ready to go to college with her ponytail, man its going too quick!

Smooth moves

Noah wants to listen to music pretty much the whole day, and will often dance around the house to kiddies praise. A few nights ago he got a hold of my ipod and was listening to some Taylor Swift. Her song "Hey Stephen" is normally what we call "Autumn's song" cause whenever it comes on she'll smile, start bopping her little head and trying to hum with it. Anyway, here's a video of him dancing along with my ipod to "Hey Stephen". I think he's got some smooth moves. Oh, and I guess I'm not a closet Taylor Swift fan anymore :) But, hey. It's the closest thing you get to Country music in SA.

No pics

My blog is usually picture driven, cause I love photos, but my card reader isn't working....so no pics this time, sorry!

I'm really loving this stage of mommy-hood, where both my kids can enjoy the same thing at the same time because Autumn is old enough to "get it" when it comes to playing with Noah, and I love having "grown up" conversations with Noah throughout the day. We chose to have our kids close so they could play together, and despite the hard work at the beginning of 2 in diapers etc, its beginning to show its benefit now. It's a daily sanctifying thing having 2 young children, and sometimes there are days that are quite trying, but there are so many joys watching 2 tiny ones grow.

Autumn's little personality is coming out. She's WAY more adventurous than Noah. If the door is open, she's the type that will toddle out and walk down the street no problem, where with Noah I knew he'd always just stay in the room that I'm in. But Noah is super safety conscious, so you'll often hear in our house him warning Autumn to be careful. So they balance each other out I think. I love her spunky adventurous side because she's way independent, so she'll go and do whatever her little heart has set on all by herself, so it's amusing to me to see what she'll get into. She'll often toddle and get a bottle all by herself to feed her babies, or wander off to find a certain book and bring it for me to read. With Noah I have to find a toy and start playing with it before he'll get interested.

Noah is a "big boy" now and no longer sleeps with a pacifier. It was a big day and we went to the toy store and traded it in for a "big boy" water gun. He handed the paci in to the lady at the till and everything. He has "big boy" conversations about the Bible, and often will grab a piece of paper and a pen and say he's writing a sermon. He saw a friend of ours kill a really big spider, which has since lead to lots of conversations about what its "ok to kill" and not ok. For example we got an ant trap, and he was so worried that we were killing the ants. So...we started teaching him the 10 commandments, and his favorite one is "love God with all your heart" and "don't kill people" but it gets confusing when you get to the story of David and Goliath, hmm. He's always always wanting kid praise music on, and pretty much knows the words to all the cd's and will sing along.

Autumn is transitioning to 1 nap, which is quite hard for me because during her morning nap Noah had an hour "room time" where he'd play by himself listening to music, and I would shower and start laundry, and make the bed, and whatever to start the day. And it came upon me quite suddenly cause Noah had two naps till he turned 2, but Autumn is only 13 months. Now that they both go down at 12 or 1, I'm struggling in the morning because they can't have room time together, Noah is still learning to play with her without hurting her and to be kind etc. So showering, and keeping my house respectably clean is a bit more of a struggle. I don't want to resort to a video every morning, and Autumn is too little for room time for that long, so....enter the question mark. :)

I've been reading a book on Christology that has been so awesome, there is a whole part where it takes all the promises about Jesus in the OT, and shows the fulfillment in the NT. There are SO MANY, and to see them side by side like that is just amazing. And he has a whole section showing all the verses and arguments that proves that Jesus is God. I've had some conversations with Jehovah's Witnesses who come to our door, and its always hard for me to remember all the verses that show Jesus as God. Noah's favorite story in his little Bible is where Jesus calms the storm, and he'll shout "BE STILL WIND!" and then I'll always ask him..."can you calm the wind?" and he'll say "noooooo" and I'll say "can you make the waves still?" and he'll say "nooooo" and then I'll say, "how come Jesus can do that?" and he'll say "cause Jesus is God!" and he'll say it with such enthusiasm, I love it.

And thats the end of my random ravings for now :)

Nigh nigh

Reading a good bedtime "boog" (book). She loves "boogs" and will often toddle over with one in her hands for me to read to her

All cozy in pajamas, but uh oh, doesn't seem too sleepy

Drinking her bottle

She always puts her feet up in her cot while she's sleeping. The bumpers are always half down the cot cause of her silly feet.

I always find them like this when she's sleeping, and move them only to find them right back where they were.

All cozy with her paci and blankie, nigh nigh!

Easter

I didn't get any photos of our church on Easter cause I forgot my camera, but Clint preached an awesome sermon from Revelation about what the risen Christ is like, and that we shouldn't think of Him as just a baby in a manger, but the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

After church we did a Easter egg hunt with Autumn and Noah in our back yard, its the first one that either of them have done. I loved that Autumn is walking so she could join in the fun!

Finding her first egg...

Noah's first find

She knew exactly what to do and would put them in her little bucket

Noah kept saying "where's more daddy? oh, der's one, Noah find it, YAY!"

When Autumn found 2, she was happy and didn't want any more and ditched her pail

And just toddled after Noah finding all of his eggs

She loved shaking them cause the treat inside made them rattle

It's still funny to me with the seasons being switched in SA, that we still have "Spring" eggs and bunnies and stuff, but its actually Fall, maybe some day I'll get over this :) There are no Easter dresses in ANY store, but all winter clothes and stuff, but a friend happened to give me a hand me down dress that looked like an Easter one to me, YAY! ;) And Noah's little shirts were also hand me downs, I love love love getting those! Anyway, it was a great day celebrating our risen Lord, He is Risen, He is Risen indeed.