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.

Baptism Service

I just love Baptism services at our church. After the morning service today 2 people gave their testimonies and got baptized, its just so awesome to hear how God calls different people into His kingdom.

Singing

Listening to Taz's testimony

Richard's Baptism

And Taz's. Sorry these photos aren't great but I had Noah on my hip saying "Taz go under da water mommy?"

Before Evening Service Clint goes to prayer meeting at 5:45, so I go outside on the playground at church and play with the kids for 45 minutes before the evening service at 6:30. I love this time with them, they really have so much fun with each other.

Noah climbing up the ladder to the slide

Autumn soon got the hang of what to do and would climb up to the top with no fear. Noah would never do this at this age, she's quite the brave one...

She'd climb all the way to the top and try and slide down head first if I didn't stop her :)

That night we played "train slide" which Noah loves, where Autumn sits ahead of me and he grabs on and sits behind me and we go down like a train down the slide. I had to pry him away go to church that night, he kept asking for more train slides!

We moved the cry room out of the church to seat more people, so now we've got video feed of the service in a classroom which I watch with my kiddos. It's actually great and I can pay attention way more for some reason, and where the cry room used to be in the service is already filled with people (crazy!) There have been alot of returning visitors to our church lately, which is so exciting because we as a church have been praying for revival in Hillcrest for the last 6 months or so, and the Lord is starting to answer! We can't wait for our new church building in a few years time!

Driveway

My kids love to hang out in our driveway. I don't what it is with kids and driveways, but we often wait for Clint to come home in the afternoon on the driveway. We have our snacks, and play with Spurg and the kids just have SO SO MUCH FUN. I can't describe how fun it is for them.

Reading books

The only shot of them both looking my way :)

Silly smile on his bike

I love this look she's giving him. Later on he bumped his head on something and she came and patted him on the back and gave him a hug and a real kiss, smacked her lips and everything. She really loves him alot.

Eating their snack

Playing what we call "chase you hug you" which is basically tag.

Making sure I'm still there

Laughing at her brother riding up and down

Noah plays this game where he'll hold on to Spurg's tail and try not to let go

Playing fetch

Yay daddy came home!