The Archery

Extreme Home Makeover-Archer Edition

2012-01-01T19:52:00.004+02:00

Ok so it's not extreme, but it is a bit of a makeover :)

Our red curtains in our livingroom had started going pink at the edges from the sun...

So we spent Thanksgiving day, and night, painting the whole wall a bit darker, and the insides of the windowsills white.

These pics aren't the best...but yay! Pretty blinds! A friend of ours does them and he framed the windows as well, so cute! Tada!

It makes our whole room feel so much bigger...and brighter. Yay!

Advent

2011-12-23T21:17:00.005+02:00

I was so excited when I found this advent calendar, I'd been looking for one for years that didn't have Santa and candy canes as the main theme, that was wooden. Isn't it cute? It even came with little chocolates inside.

I also did an advent calendar craft this year every day (well, ideally every day) with our kids that went through the Bible telling the story leading up to Christ's birth. I was going to make my own but it just took too much time so I went with the online one.... www.theadventevent.com

Each day we would read through the Bible and make an ornament that related to the story, and then sing Christmas songs. I'd like to say it went perfect every day and that the kids learned SO much...but there were days where we had to do like 3 ornaments to catch up, and the amount of crayons everywhere and cut paper etc was a little overwhelming for me sometimes, and with a newborn it didn't go perfectly cause I'd have to sometimes feed/burp in the middle of it all. BUT the kids were learning about the true meaning of Christmas, and that's what mattered to me.

My prayer is that each year we go through the advent calendar my kiddos would see the beauty of the Messiah coming. How the people LONGED for a rescuer from their sin, and how amazing and exciting it must have been for Him to be announced, and born. And THAT'S what we are celebrating. The long awaited rescuer. The only one who can forgive us.

Christmas Card

2011-12-19T13:59:00.003+02:00

This year I didn't mail out any Christmas cards...I had planned to do it, even from South Africa but found it wouldn't arrive to anyone before Christmas, so here it is! Merry Christmas from all of us!

"It's just a season"

2011-12-17T21:24:00.008+02:00

I was so thankful that Clint looked after the kiddos so I could go to our church's women's conference a couple of weeks ago. The lady who taught at the conference really encouraged us to LOVE Christ more, even in the little moments; those mommy-frustrated moments, those moments where the juice spills on your freshly mopped floor and you can't find the pink sandals that were there just a minute ago so you can leave for church on time. Or when you find out that your daughter took off her underwear to use the loo, and didn't put them back on, and you find this out AT church when she's wearing JUST A DRESS! Yikes. Oh yes, this did happen to me, TWICE.

But that it's more important to LOVE Christ in that moment than to give into the sigh, even the inward sigh when your situation tests your limits. The joy of loving Christ should outshine your desire to sin by complaining in your heart, or externally to your kids.

It was really awesome.

But there was one thing she said that I couldn't get over.

She said that the phrase "It's just a season" should never be used by mommies. This hit me like a brick out of nowhere. Really? I thought. I use that all the time! She mentioned that a husband she knew once told his wife to never use that phrase because it was like she was complaining that she really didn't like where she was, and she just wasn't happy with what the Lord had given her, and wanted another season life. A different season to come, and she was just enduring this one.
It made me think hard about how and why I use the phrase "It's just a season." And I discovered that I think it's not always wrong to use it. I use it to help myself gain perspective. It's not complaining, it's just me trying to see the place that I'm in, with three small children, and know that "this is the season" for me to be fully devoted to child-rearing. I have 3 children who are not in school, who need me the whole day. Thinking about the season I'm in helps me to not be discontent at all the other things I could be doing. That because my children are small this is the season that I must choose to say no to alot of things that pull me away from my home, to say yes to raising our kiddos the way we think God would call us to.
My husband is a pastor, so I often feel like I'm not the typical "pastor's wife" who plays piano, serves tea, teaches all the ladies, hosts elegant dinners, does door-to-door missions, sews quilts, visits widows. etc. etc. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough for the Kingdom because I'm "just" changing diapers, doing laundry etc. My husband has to often remind me that my ministry is right in front of my nose. If I'm so focused on "ministry" but forget my real ministry...(my home and family) that this is the SEASON (yes, I said season!) that I must be fully devoted to raising these little guys in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Lately I've run into alot of women in their 40s where their kids are grown, at school, or out of the house. They are in the season with more time on their hands to do ministry or go to gym or to the mall or have a cup of hot coffee, or go out with their husband more than twice a year for a date. But they look at my small children and say, "They grow up so fast, enjoy every moment." And a few have told me how they wished that they had had more babies, and now it's too late.
It is the season where I don't fit into my skinny jeans, and my coffee is normally luke warm by the time I get to it, and I can't do a lot of ministry alongside my husband... but that's OK! It's GOOD for me to remind myself it's just a season, a short while where my priorities aren't jeans and a cup of joe. But rather my priority is the three little faces that look at me everyday, knowing that I'm the one showing them what it looks like to walk with my Savior, whether by good or bad example. So the convenience and coffee pale in comparison.

Jude

2011-12-07T21:51:00.011+02:00

When I asked alot of moms with 3 children how it is with three when I was pregnant, I heard most often "oh they just slot in to the family" and "you don't have three hands, that's the hardest part!" Both are very true.

There are days where I wish I could just put my other two children on hold so I could just ENJOY Jude, love him, watch him breath while he sleeps. See every smile. But I snatch small times. Some kisses here, a bath with just the two of us there.

My special time (3-5 stolen minutes) is when I put him to sleep. My new rule is when I put Jude down for a sleep N&A aren't allowed to talk to me. I found myself yelling down the hall to my other two kids who are saying "MOM! I'm thirsty" or "MOM! (fill in the blank!)" and I'd call back "JUST a minute I'm changing Jude's diaper" or "Wait, Jude is trying to fall asleep" and I'd feel all anxious, and torn between grown kid needs and baby needs. And then Jude would start crying more than normal to sleep. I realized he thought I was yelling at HIM, or maybe he was feeling me be all tense. Then I'd remember that I'm not glorifying the Lord by being all tense with my kids...who wants a frazzled "anxious for everything" mommy?

So now I tell my kiddos "ok, Jude needs me now, I'll be 5 minutes, remember no calling me unless it's an emergency, God wants me to take care of Jude too!"

And whew, 5 minutes of just us. Quiet. Change diaper, a few cozies, and bed! That's when I get to sing a little, play with the new little soft toes, and just WATCH him. Then back to the tornado of legos, dollies, crumbs, juice, and funny conversations.
I remember with Noah AND Autumn having all this time to just fall in love...quiet moments. Noah still slept twice a day when Autumn was born, so I had some Autumn wakey time when Noah was sleeping. Now I feel like I have to fight for that time, but it's so sweet when I get it!
But I'm learning to tell my kids that I just want a few minutes to ENJOY Jude while he's so small, and THEN I'll make them lunch, get their toy, or juice. And then we enjoy him together, usually it's trying to instigate a smile.
2 months have soared by at rocket speed, and I wish as if I could just slow down the clock. But with my floor most of the time looking like the crumb monster had a party, and endless juice cups to be filled, laundry folded, and sweet teaching moments (sometimes discipline ones) it makes it fly by even faster.
So I'll slow down the clock right now and write about Jude....

I love how you smile in the middle of a feed, looking up at me like we have some secret. I love how you lift your head up in your cot when you sleep to stare at your favorite car when you doze, and when I go in to check on you your head is still a little cocked up from staring at it. I love how you manage to get very icky stuff between your fingers and refuse to let me pry them open in the bath to get them clean. I love how you smell after a bath. I love how patient you are when I can't feed you right away. I love the soft coo sounds you make when your happy, and the times when I CAN just watch you sleep.

Ok, back to rocket speed!

It's a bird, it's a plane....

2011-12-01T11:07:00.008+02:00

It's SUPERNOAH! Noah got a shirt from the Niednagels that had a Superman symbol on it, he's worn it forever, but one day he asked....what does this mean on my shirt? So I told him about Clark Kent and how he changes into a superhero by taking off his glasses that is his disguise etc...well...the fact that Noah has glasses made this just way too easy. With a red shirt from daddy as a cape....this was HOURS of fun.

He'd say..."I'm just Clark Kent....I'm not Superman!"

And then the metamorphosis began...

Check the "I'm taking off my glasses and changing into Superman face" it cracks me up.

And we are flying!

Super face

He'd make the "shhhh" sound of an airplane, cause Superman can fly, and things that fly make that sound right? :)

I love that all boys want (long) to be a hero. It's way cute! In our house we kind of limit things that are quite magical or fairy tale like (not that we don't expose our kids to this stuff, we just don't OVER expose them with lots of it) because I feel it takes away the special-ness of the Bible especially for Noah. He'd often say "but only Jesus can heal, or only Jesus can raise people from the dead, why is (the character) able to do that?" and get a bit confused between fiction and the Bible. We watched a magic show at a fair one time and he said "he's doing MIRACLES mommy!" Anyways, I love love love that he likes to pretend to be superman, don't get me wrong, it's super cute. :) He now is able to "get it" and say "only Jesus can heal, I know that mommy" or whatever, so it's fun for him to pretend. :)

Jack Sparrow, number 1

2011-10-27T21:13:00.008+02:00

Noah and Auts and I went to a pet shop to get a ball for our dog Spurgeon, and we came back with...Jack Sparrow the fish. Noah and Autumn came up with the name, cause they reckoned a Japanese fighting fish fights just like a pirate. My kids have never seen the movie, they just somehow know that Jack Sparrow is REALLY cool, and a pirate :)

They often climb up on the counter with some kind of string and pretend to "fish" off the edge of the counter, and then talk about Jack Sparrow
Autumn will lie down and look at him and get excited when he moves

It's bonded their little friendship

The day we took these photos Jack Sparrow was found outside his bowl, he jumped out! Clint says he commited hari kiri. So we had to bury him and get another Jack Sparrow. It didn't seem to bother the kids too much they were excited to go back to the pet shop. Whew.

Preschool/Kindergarten

2011-10-18T13:31:00.010+02:00

So for the last year or so every day/other day I'd try and do something school-like for the kids. Either long story times or counting or learning our letters or memorizing bible verses or whatever. We tried to do it every morning at 10am...and after going through a few bible books and exhausting www.starfall.com, I started running out of ideas. So I ordered My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum to go through with Noah. He was totally ready for it, and the last few weeks we've been starting to go through it together!

Here's my little preschooler/kindergartener. I don't really know what to call it cause he's technically in preschool but we are going through K curriculum :) All of the preschool type curriculums I looked at were just a bunch of storybooks, which I can get at my local library anyway, so I thought we'd jump into a more fun/tactile one since he's reading first words already.

And I included this pic cause this is usually the perspective I see of him, looking up at me asking a question. His mind is quite inquisitive.

The first week was Ss is for Sun, and we learned all about the Sun and how it gives light and heat, and how the earth revolves around it, and how when it's light in SA it's dark in America, and tons mroe. He learned how to draw an S....

And we did experiments on how the sun gives heat. We put ice in the sun and in the shade to see whose would melt the fastest. The experiment had to be done over though cause they were both touching the ice when I went to settle Jude, so they both melted evenly at first :)

We are also trying to make grapes into raisins, but there haven't been enough sunny days for that yet! I also want to do a sundial, but we ran out of sunny days this week, we will do it next.

The curriculum is quite "tactile" which I love, so we made Snakes in the shape of an S.

Autumn got into this one too, she'd say "look at my baby snakes, ssssssss"

It comes with this cool puzzle thing too where you put these rods in the shape of an S or a Sun or a Snake or whatever starts with S. We are also learning how to count to 100, and go over a calendar every day. "Yesterday was, today is, tomorrow will be" etc. They also included this classical cd, and have ideas for kids to do to the music. (Dance with a beanbag on your head, etc etc). So one day we spent the whole morning "painting to Mozart"...although my kids called it "painting to milktart" (a South African dessert!) So I kinda go with the flow, if we don't get through that days curriculum, it's ok so long as the kids are learning and having fun.
Every week has a bible verse, and this one was "Jesus said I am the light of the world." That verse is on one of Noah's Seed's cd's so we just sing the song every day to review the concept that Jesus is the light of the world. We are also doing the children's catechism found in "Big truths for little kids." It's a great question and answer type way of learning great doctrines of the Bible, and I get quite a few interesting questions from him about it. It's fun!

Playball

2011-10-17T21:52:00.003+02:00

For the last year every Wednesday I would take Noah to playball where they learn "ball skills." It's really been great for him, cause he's not really the sporty type (I usually have to encourage him to go outside and play rather than be read to etc). But over the course of the year he's really grown to like it.

The coach behind Noah is Nick, and he would say things that at first were confusing to Noah, but now make him laugh. Like he'd say "if you don't get the ball in the goal I'll throw you in the trash bin" and Noah would look at me and say "really?" but now he just knows to laugh.

He's one of the youngest kids there, so it's cute to watch him learn new skills, and fun for me to learn what to teach him at home. Now we do hopscotch and jumping and hockey and other things outside every week.

We are taking a break till the new year cause I can't drive him to practice after my Ceasar for 6 weeks, but we will probably pick it up again in January. He's my cute superstar.

2 weeks

2011-10-13T14:30:00.006+02:00

At two weeks post Caesar I am still quite sore....I was fine with my other two at this point. Maybe it's cause I'm in my 30's now, or maybe its cause I have 2 older ones to take care of (and clean up after)...but I'm hoping I heal a bit faster than I am currently.

At two weeks Jude sleeps and eats really well. He wakes up usually just once in the night for a feed if I give him a "dream feed" at 10pm, he'll wake at 2am, and then sleep again till 6 or 7am. This is totally do-able. Especially if I can make up that hour of sleep in the day, that is if my kids all nap at the same time.

I just love his little handies

His eyes seem like they might go blue, which is always a shocker to Clint and I that we might have 3 blue eyed kids since Clint's eyes are SO SO dark brown.

So far Jude is a super content little guy unless he's naked. He really really doesn't like his diaper being changed. I also took him for some newborn photos with my friend Hayley (hopefully I'll get those back soon!) And I wanted those super cute "sleepy newborn" shots where they are like lying in a basket or in a wagon all curled up naked. NOT HAPPENING with Jude. As soon as the clothes come off he cries, and wees. So...I had to apologize for my son weeing all over my friends studio and crying the whole time. I caught some today of him just lying on our bed. With clothes on of course.

Morning and Evening....

2011-10-11T20:16:00.003+02:00

In the morning when we eat breakfast I put Jude in his little doughnut, and afterwards Noah and Autumn curl up and get cozy cozy with him.

And at night, they each have to have him in bed with them to give him some little hugs and kisses.

They usually ask for just "a few more cozy minutes mommy." It's really so fun to see how much they both just love him :)

Noah is so so excited for the day when Jude outgrows his cot and he can have a big boy bed with Noah in the same room. Children really are a blessing from the Lord, and it's so fun to watch them interact every day.

1 week old

2011-10-07T20:51:00.006+02:00

In just one little week he's totally got our hearts captured :)

And he likes to listen to his daddy...and figure him out

from 2 to 3

2011-10-05T21:08:00.008+02:00

I was a little nervous about the transition from 2 to 3 kids, but the Lord has been SO SO good and its really gone super smooth, and even better than I could have imagined. Noah and Autumn REALLY LOVE Jude. Which is something I prayed the whole 9 months every night before they went to sleep, that they would love their brother....and the Lord has answered abundantly.

Autumn gets REALLY excited whenever Jude does anything (opens his eyes, moves his hands, makes a noise) she'll smile, clap her hands and say in her super excited voice "Look mom, he's opening his eyes" and then laugh really loud. She likes covering him in blankets when I feed him, and loves pushing him in his little swing. She keeps saying she wants to teach him how to clap his hands and wave goodbye.

Noah is quite protective and very gentle with him, he'll stroke him softly and say "it's ok" and gets very concerned when he cries. He often wants to get very cozy with him and will give him big hugs every time he sees him.
Granny came to visit and I moved the mattress she slept on in the living room for the kids to jump on, and then after I was done with a feed one day I put Jude down on the mattress so I could go make coffee...and when I came back this is what I saw.....
Jude FAST asleep, and Noah stroking him SO gently on his forehead and arms, and moving his little giraffe in and out of his hands. He looked up at me and said "Mommy I'm falling in love with him, I'm just MAD about him." And then he asked if he could shizzle him every day (our word for giving him little loves). It was one of my favorite mommy moments ever. He laid there for about an hour with Jude just LOVING him, so cute.

We were SO thankful to Granny Anne who came down to look after Noah and Autumn while I was in the hospital. I know how full time that job is :)

Jude's first wakey time play in his cot....

I just love newborn feet

He kept looking to the side at his little cars and helicopters on his bunting...I'm glad he likes it!

Introducing....

2011-10-02T21:44:00.010+02:00

Jude Hudson Archer

Born on September 29, 2011 at 9:01am

Weighing 3.64kgs, 8.25 pounds

55 cm long, 21 inches

Our latest addition

2011-09-25T13:58:00.009+02:00

No, our baby isn't born yet...but I'm 4 days away! This photo was taken at 37 weeks pregnant, and I must say it's been an awesome pregnancy, except some back pain issues. And the things you don't think about with 2 kids (like putting on 2 kids pairs of shoes while carrying a baby in your tummy, not an easy task!) We are so excited to meet this little guy....I'll do room pictures later. But I was actually talking about our new addition being...

A jungle gym! A deacon in our church builds them professionally! I found myself driving to a local jungle gym 2-4 times a week, and figured it would be great when baby is born and we are a little more "home bound" to have one of our own!

(See there is even a little red swing for baby boy!) The sand will go in the sand pit next week. (Below the slide)

I thought the kids would most like the slide cause they usually do at the park.

But their favorite thing to do together is go on the swings. They often run outside now and swing together.

They are so silly with being pushed on the swings. They both watched a bit of lady and the tramp recently and they say "We are sia" (From the song "We are Siamese if you please) if they want to be pushed. I have no idea where they came up with this, but it makes them laugh uncontrollably.

And I had to include this pic with one of their favorite people Taz. Autumn LOVES Taz and often says "Taz is my friend" and even asked if she could marry her. :) Cause of my answer she often tells people "Noah will marry a girl, and I will marry a boy" such a funny girl!

Feeling crafty...

2011-09-11T22:44:00.006+02:00

So I saw this super cute bible cover on ETSY...how cute is it hey?

And decided to make my own with this tutorial: http://parkcitygirl.blogspot.com/2009/05/tutorial-quilted-bible-cover_22.html

It's the first major sewing project I've accomplished! Yay!

I added a front pocket like the original....I couldn't find the same fabric but I found one with cutie apples :)

And a cute tie to keep it closed.

Yay for a fun project done!

For my dad...

2011-08-25T13:46:00.006+02:00

My dad sent presents for the kids in the mail, so I thought I'd post some pics for him to see.....

They opened the box right outside the post office, they were too excited!

When Autumn opened her doll she said "oh wow it's TANGLED!" She knew exactly who it was. When she got home she quickly found her purple little dolly blanket that matches the dress (also purple) and put her to sleep in the purple blanket. She spends the whole day brushing her hair.

Noah loves playing with his train from Granny in SA, and Grandpa in in America got him lots of tracks to go with it.

Now Noah builds all these bridges and fun things for the train to go on.

Autumn's baby obsession is (sadly) gone....I really can't believe this. She way prefers her dollies now and plays the whole day with "Tangled" and Ariel and her Barbie.

Noah will spend a few hours playing with his trains, he likes getting the track just perfect, and will sometimes build giant towers out of lego and call his city "Dubai" (very aptly!)

It's so fun having such a "boy" and such a "girl" and to see the differences between them!

HBC 50th Anniversary

2011-08-21T20:30:00.011+02:00

Hillcrest Baptist Church had our 50th anniversary this past month. Our church had a celebration weekend where the theme verse was Psalm 105:1 "Give thanks to the Lord call upon His name, make His name known amoung the peoples." Our church just built on to add more people, and was completed pretty much hours before the celebration!

Enterance into the church building from our new "lobby"

The feast for afterwards :)

The first pastor Don Hollgate of HBC gave a testimony of how Hillcrest was a little podunk town and they had to get hot water brought in from outside to take a bath 50 years ago. He was a really funny guy.

Mark Williamson, who's family has been in the church for 40 years (and is one of our elders) gave a testimony of God's faithfulness to 3 generations of his family.

Clint preached on the Psalm of thanksgiving I mentioned earlier. And that our new building is an opportunity to give thanks God AND reach the nations like Psalm 105 says.

Our worship was thanksgiving centered...

We've been a part of HBC 5 and a half years now, and Clint and I were chatting about how much the church has developed since our first service only 5 years ago, and how much the church has blessed us.

Noah and Autumn also love HBC and LOVE their Sunday School classes, and often talk about people in the church as if they are family. It's awesome being a part of such an amazing church! :)

Our church website has a new look if you want to check it out or get sermon downloads :) http://www.baptistchurchhillcrest.com/

Berg part 2 (finally!)

2011-08-08T20:26:00.010+02:00

I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted! Sorry! Anyways, this finshes up our time together in the berg, life in the minstry can be super busy, so it was SO nice for the kids and I to have a week with Clint with no sermons or counseling or anything! Clint calls it "unplugged Clint" and we loved every minute of it.

A couple in our church the Donkins came up to the cabin to visit for a few nights too. It was so fun having great fellowship with them!

Silly kiddos

And awesome views!

Noah and daddy had good bonding time playing lots of harmonica. Noah often says he's praising God with his harmonica, and asks Clint to play "then sings my soul" (How great thou art) and they'll play together.

And our kids were schooled in the art of making the perfect paper airplane

One day we ventured out and had waffles at the "Waffle house" where they make savoury waffles (we had chicken) and sweet (we had bar one chocolate and ice cream). They were so good I forgot to take a pic of them! But here's one of us at the restaurant :)

Drakensberg pt 1

2011-07-12T13:15:00.014+02:00

Someone in our church was kind enough to lend us their cabin in the mountains for a week! It was a school holiday weekend so they had tons of stuff at the local hotel (that the cabin had access to) for the kids to do! They had a little train.....

Which Noah said looked rather sad (and it did!)

Noah and Autumn tried their first shot at Teatherball. Noah is definitely left handed as we discovered with this game.

Autumn loved trying to hit it too

Every night the kids would roast marshmallows on the fire...a new favorite tradition

They loved going on the boats on the little lake

And they had a jumping castle. Whenever there is one of these at a fair or a birthday party my kids practically cry looking at it...it petrifies them. BUT we tried it this time with no other kids, and they discovered it's not scary to fall in one of these things, it's actually the funnest thing ever :)

Pretty soon they were TRYING to make each other fall, and were cracking up

Then daddy would tackle them and push them down

They had a huge volleyball court with tons of sand toys, the kids played in it for hours :)

Noah Reading

2011-06-27T15:35:00.002+02:00

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

2011-06-14T20:09:00.013+02:00

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

2011-06-02T13:09:00.005+02:00

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. :)

Little House

2011-05-31T20:06:00.006+02:00

Noah and Autumn have the best time playing in their little "tent house." Well, you can see by the colors that it's Autumn's house, but Noah will play along. Yesterday they played for 2 hours straight, , I didn't even need to interrupt them to remind them to be kind etc.

The first game they played was called "coffee shop" where they'd take turns making "cuppachinos." Then it would be too hot, or too cold, or need sugar and they'd "fix" it and pretend to drink.

Then the next game was "birthday party" where Autumn would make a "pink princeness" cake for her and "a blue one for Noah, cause he's a boy" and then offer me some pink one "cause I'm a girl." I think Autumn sang happy birthday like 20 times.

Then the last game was "go to sleep, OK?" where they'd take turns lying on a blanket on the floor of the tent, while the other one would go out of the tent and say "It's sleepy time, no waking up" and then "It's wake up time!" Followed by lots of giggles. Later that night I saw Noah give Autumn a hug (which is a very rare thing) and then he told Clint during family worship that he was thankful that we pray for him to love Autumn cause God has changed his heart. This really really was an answer to prayer, cause he usually tries to find ways to annoy her, and this last week they really have been laughing and having a good time together, and he noticed our answered prayer.

Noah's 4th Birthday

2011-05-28T21:42:00.022+02:00

My little guy is all grown up and FOUR! I really can't believe it! He wanted a bulldozer birthday (we pass bulldozers building every day in Hillcrest) so I created an invitation for him with bulldozers and dump trucks, and all things construction:

He was SO excited to wear his hard hat so everyone could see

All the decorations :) My favorite phrase on the cupcake toppers was "I dig being four!"

Me and my little guy

I saw an idea online to do a obstacle course made out of stuff lying around in your garage. Well Clint's a pastor, so we don't really have that kind of stuff, but our friend Duncan does, when I saw the big orange cones in his garage I think I literally jumped up and down cause they were just so big and PERFECT! Noah got WAY into the course, and liked showing all his friends how to do it.

We also did a bean bag toss into the bulldozer, which the kids did over and over again with lots of laughter

The girls were a bit shy to do the course (around the cones, walk a plank, through the box, over some tires, around some cones again, and over the yellow planks) but they finally got into it too.

We also filled a wheelbarrow full of real dirt and put a bunch of toy cars/dumptrucks in it. The "real dirt" aspect was pretty cool for Noah.

Kerry and Cait were GREAT helping me with games and making it so exciting for even the girls

For the cake this year I had lots of toys that worked, so we made "dirt" out of crushed cookies, and this cake recipe (oh my, it was sooooo good) thanks to Martha Stewart http://www.marthastewart.com/284894/chocolate-cake-with-milk-chocolate-crunc

Everyone singing happy birthday

Can you tell he's excited to eat that cake?

Family pic opp :)

And two weeks later, Noah got ANOTHER party at his Granny/Grandpa's place in Pretoria. They made cupcakes with toolbelts and icing tools that really go in and out (aren't they cute?!) Noah was really spoiled to have 2 parties and had fun with his cousin and grandparents & anties & uncles!

Boy oh Boy

2011-05-16T21:03:00.005+02:00

I think I haven't blogged about this but

IT'S A BOY!

Noah is SOOO excited to have a brother, and we are too! He said "I will love him and share my cars with him and I won't even sin or hit him, and I'll hug him and hold him when he comes out your tummy" he gets a cute smile on his face when he talks about him. He loves watching me move all the boy baby clothes into the nursery.

And here is a pic of the bedding I ordered, yay! After having the first boy I realized how much they LOVE all transporty things, so therefore the theme.....here there and everywhere!

Mother's Day....on Monday

2011-05-09T19:51:00.006+02:00

So we normally don't really celebrate Mother's day on a Sunday, cause it's Clint's major work day of the week, so we go out on his day off, on Monday. I just took a couple of pics of our kiddos in our new car (we got a Hyundai Tucson so it can fit baby boy in a few months time). It's SO great having more room!

We went to one of my favorite restaurants, Bellview, the food seems a little more American to me. Like they have fun salads with really yummy dressing (most salads here are tomatoes, salad, feta and cucumber, with no dressing, or mayo). And this place has ones with actual dressing, and fun things in it. :)

Me with my kiddos, they were really SO well behaved, Clint and I got to have some uninterrupted chats, which was so fun.

When the waiter came, Autumn said "I'd like a cappuccino please" it was so cute. She got a milkshake, but said "look mommy I'm drinking my cappuccino!"

SOOO Thankful for my husband and my kids, we had such a fun family day out!

Roomates

2011-05-09T15:35:00.010+02:00

I haven't blogged about this....but my kids have been roomies for about 4 months now! Once Autumn needed a big girl bed we moved them into bunks so that we could make her room the nursery for the baby. We got the bed just plain pine, and had it painted, and painted the room a cheery blue that wasn't too boy or too girl.

Under Autumn's bed is a shelf where she keeps all of her very special toys, I'm still looking for cute baskets that will fit, but she will play in her little "house" all by herself and I can often hear her talking to her babies, "shhh, go to sleep now" or "are you thirsty? Here's your milk" or whatever. It's super cute!

On the otherside I put all of their books and Noah's toys, and his toys are under the bed in baskets too. I tried to make a "girl space" and a "boy space"

Noah LOVES sleeping at the top, and in general....hates to "be alone" so he's very happy to have Autumn with him. I thought this would be a rough transition since he HATES pink (he really does) but when I moved her in he was excited. You can see in this pic he's got a bit of a "squint" cause he's not wearing his glasses before bedtime. I'm still working on getting bedding I like for him!

Autumn LOVES this little girl "princess" pillow and won't sleep on her normal pillow but sleeps ON the decorative princess one. So I put her normal one right next to her so she doesn't fall out :)

Noah still sleeps with his giraffe. He loves it SO much that he often asks me why he can't take it to heaven, he gives it big hugs and says "it's just so soft and I love him SO much"

Autumn will sleep with whatever doll fancies her the most for the day. It's usually Ariel though :)

I just spent the last two weeks shuffling everything around and moving all of Noah's old clothes into the baby's room to prepare for baby boy. Now I've got to make the room more "boy!"

The Hunt

2011-05-09T15:23:00.005+02:00

My kids were fortunate to have TWO hunts this year. My friend Sam had one for all the little kids in our church, and they had SO much fun looking for eggs.

And then Granny sent some "glow in the dark" eggs, which we did at home. I was going to do it outside, but it rained, and we did an indoor hunt with special flashlights that make the eggs glow :)

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T13:04:00.008+02:00

This year was our first Easter without Clint (he's in Egypt and we miss him like crazy!) But I took some photos of the kids right before we left for church, so here they are Clint, in their Sunday best....

This is Noah's "forced smile"

And this is what Autumn does if you ask her to smile, or change her heart to a happy one. The eyes close first, then comes the smile

Was it only a year ago that Autumn looked like SUCH a baby? She's wearing the same dress, last year it almost came to her toes :)

They are going on an egg hunt later today, but my favorite part of the day was when I was telling the Easter story to Noah and Autumn in the car as we were going to church. I was talking about what they saw when they came to the tomb... and Noah said "the door was open and it was empty cause He's alive!" And I said, well what WAS inside the tomb? And Autumn said "An ANGEL, he said Don't be afraid, he was VERY bright, and scary." --such a big sentence, I didn't know she had been paying attention so much to our story Bible. :) Then Noah said "why does God like everything to be bright in heaven?" And I said "because he LOVES light, and God is light and there is no darkness in Him cause there is no sin in heaven." And then he said "can you pray that WE get resurrected to heaven too?" We usually have the best talks in the car, but that was just a sample, I love how new everything is to children and what they ask!

A Easter-y day

2011-04-23T15:33:00.013+02:00

Today I went to a little Easter-y fair with the kids. They had swings, but Autumn started crying, and they stopped the whole ride just for her, which was really nice! But Noah loved it.

They had face painting too, Noah asked to be a pirate. I couldn't tell how she was painting a pirate face at this point:

Or this one....

But she made him into quite the grizzly pirate! He loved it.

Autumn said to her "I want flowers on my arm, pretty"

Showing off the face and arm

Her's turned out really sweet, she's stare at it and smile

We met their friend Evan at the fair and he got a shark!

They gave him a balloon sword, so he'd go around saying "AARGH!"

Autumn found a big easter egg, she kept asking me to "open please, chocolate inside?" but she didn't realize it was just for decoration

Then the Easter bunny came and my kids were VERY shy of him.

We got a little pic with him though

Afterwards they had a magic show to which Noah shouted "Look he did a MIRACLE!" It was quite funny. I had to tell him about the difference between a miracle and a trick. The magician made both my kids laugh out loud quite alot, so it was fun. :)

"Make my hair pretty"

2011-04-23T15:26:00.002+02:00

Autumn saw me straightening my hair with my straightener, and she asked me "Please make my hair straight, so pretty!" and so....I did! She was very patient, and kept saying "your making my hair look pretty mommy!" This is the straightest I could get it!

And a hug from Noah right before sleepy time :)

Spurgeon in the kitchen

2011-04-02T19:34:00.007+02:00

If it's a really hot day in Durbs the rain will come in like 4 or 5 ish in the afternoon. Then the kids ask for "Spurgeon in the kitchen" time. We are outside dog people. Especially since I'm SOO sensitive to smells with baby #3, and wet dog is about at the top of the list. But since he'd be out in the rain, and the kitchen is easy to sweep, we oblige. The kids LOVE this special time with their doggie.

He's usually pretty calm in the kitchen vs. on the grass, so they usually sit on him and hug him and give him lots of love. Autumn gave him about 30 hugs this afternoon.

Then there is usually the "report" to us about what happened "he lost his ball" or "he licked me"

After Autumn hugs him she gives us the report..."I give him a hug, he's happy!"

Baby #3

2011-03-27T20:19:00.007+02:00

Noah: "Is THIS what you will look like when your tummy gets bigger?"

It's so fun this time that the kids actually understand that we are having another baby. Autumn is the most "motherly" little girl I've ever met, she's ALWAYS taking care of her babies, or her little Minnie Mouse, putting medicine on them, feeding, bathing, changing etc. So I'm wondering what it will be like when her brother or sister enters the world, if she'll be the mommy, or if I will :)

Ever since we told Noah we are having another one, he's taken a tiny, short-lived interest in Autumn's "hospital baby" (she has one that looks just like newborn with a hospital tag).

He got all excited one day and asked me if he could learn how to change a diaper. He says he'll only touch it if its "not wearing pink"

He tried pretty hard, but needed lots of help :) He likes to pretend to be the daddy.

Autumn learned that you have to "burp the baby" as well to take care of it.

I've been having quite alot of "afternoon sickness" where I just feel super urpy and tired after lunch, so I usually rest when my kids do. Noah's been super compassionate with me and asks me all the time how I'm feeling. He's had some really good questions and always says "tell me more about the baby in your tummy." He's fascinated by little things like when the baby's born it can't hold up it's head, and that its attached in your tummy by a cord and that's how it gets fed through the belly button etc. He always asks when I'm eating if I'm chewing it enough so the baby can swallow it ok. And he still talks through my mouth to the baby.....REALLY loud. Autumn will pray every night for "mommy's baby in the tummy" and will sometimes lift my shirt and say "where's the baby?" It's been fun watching their reaction to it all!

Baker Baker

2011-03-17T20:39:00.008+02:00

Today's menu: Muffins

Taking turns pouring and mixing

Stirring is kinda hard when your just 2

The taste test:

I think we have a winner!

And the aftermath. I didn't take one of my floor lest you gasp. :)

My 2 year old

2011-03-17T20:07:00.009+02:00

I know this is a little overdue, but I have a 2 year old, I just can't believe it! It REALLY seems like just a few months ago we were bringing her home:

And now this party-haired spunky little girl is in our lives. By the time she turned two there were no more diapers, woo hooo! It was SO quick with her I really didn't even have to train her! She's so proud to wear her little "prince-ness pants"

We threw a "girly safari" theme cause she LOVES Lions and Crocs and Elephants. If I tell a story it must have one of those in it.

Her cake! I was SO pleased with how it turned out, and it was my 1st time making 3d characters, so fun!

Family pic

Singing to her, she loved this

And she knew just what to do!

We had some friends over for her party, as well as her Grandpa from Pretoria, she had alot of fun! Her favorite was playing with her babies with all the girls, and how the older girls in our Young Adults read her new books to her.
Autumn at 2 is the girliest girl I've ever met. She LOVES babies and dollies, she spends much of every day putting them to sleep, wrapping and unwrapping them until it's just perfect, and rocking them in her pram. She is quite the independent girl, she'll often just sneek off to her room to make a pretend cup of tea for her dollies, and you find her there an hour later still happily playing. She loves to be read to and will ask for more stories after reading for over an hour (Noah's the same!) Her favorite Bible story is with Moses because there is a mommy, a baby, and a princess who comes to take care of the baby in the basket. She asks to read that one every day. She's often found saying "I'm a ballerina" and will dance around on her toes. She loves going on walks and will stop and talk about every bug and every flower. Since she's been out of diapers and moved into her big girl bed, Noah's been MUCH more interested in playing with her, since she's now a "big girl" and they will play chase and draw together. He's still confused why she needs a pacifier though (we'll work on that one later!) She's my super brave girl and will try anything daring, jumping off high rocks and no matter how high you swing her she'll say "higher" or "faster". We love her to bits!

Dubai

2011-03-15T21:20:00.015+02:00

On the way back to SA we stopped off for a few days in Dubai to break up the crazy 16 hour, 8 hour flight sequence. AND to visit our friends who live there the Penny's. I was amazed at how it was just DESERT with TONS of buildings everywhere, and crazy big malls. It was so cool seeing the church there as well and how multi-cultural everything is.

Noah and Autumn made very very good friends with Donna and Hannah while we were there. They talk about them all the time and ask if they are going to live in South Africa.

It was hot even in winter (it's the desert!) so we rode little bikes to the pool every day.

And had tons of fun swimming!

Walking hand in hand to the pool

It was fun to have some "daddy time" since his studies were all done!

Noah took some swimming tips from Donna, he's getting better!

The beaches are beautiful, and the kids had lots of fun

The city is really beautiful at night!

Thanks Penny's for hosting us, we had so much fun with you!

And we saw the tallest building in the world, it makes you dizzy when you look up at it. It's the Burj Khalifa standing at 2717 feet tall. My camera had a close zoom lens so you can't get the full effect, but it was pretty stunning!

Catching Up!

2011-03-06T19:16:00.013+02:00

Wow I haven't caught up blogging about our time in LA! Well the best part about LA are the people, and that's what we miss the most, so I'll blog about that! And the BEST part about going this time was seeing our kids absolutely LOVE the same people we love!

Noah and Autumn LOVED going on the train with Grandma and Grandpa!

And we even went to train town (I think that's what its called?) where they got to see real trains and climb in them and everything. Noah talks about this trip all the time and says "Can we go see the REAL trains with Grandma and Grandpa again, right now?"

Autumn loved playing Mr. Potato head with my dad and would often put the parts in HIS mouth or ears, it was really funny

And Autumn loved being pushed in the swings by Grandma!

It was awesome catching up with SCV our old Bible study, and the best part was seeing ALL the new kiddos and how they all loved each other too!

Noah and Autumn made really good friends with all of our friends children. They talk about them by name all the time even now that we are home and Noah will ask "Where do they live, in America or South Africa?" and I'll have to tell him America and he gets very sad. And Autumn will just ask "Where's Kali May, or Where's Annie?" So we are thankful for the time they had together!

Autumn even formed a little relationship with "Baby Olbive" (baby Olive) in "Caities Tummy" and would hug and kiss the "baby in the tummy" It was a great transition for when we told her that WE also have a baby in the tummy, (Yes baby #3 is due Sept 30th!) We loved hanging out with the Taylor sisters too :)

Clint and Austin....I think they both morph into other crazy people when they are together, but its fun to watch :)

And me and Steph, thanks for always opening your home for us!

2011-02-23T13:35:00.015+02:00

In LA our family took a little family day at Disneyland, I'd been there tons of times, but it was totally different to go with kids. First of all you don't ride any big rides, and you even don't go on alot of the kids rides cause they are scary! After riding Pirates of the Caribbean Noah kept singing "yo ho yo ho a PEOPLE's life for me" cause he said pirates were not nice, and he'd rather be people! So funny. But the kids loved meeting all the characters, and had fun.

They loved the teacups, I think we went on 3x! The great part about January is there are no lines, although the hours are way shorter!

Autumn would say "weeee!"

Noah's favorite ride was Autopia where he got to drive a real car. He drove and I pushed the gas, it was quite a bumpy ride since he's still learning how to steer, but we had fun!

Noah loved the Jungle Cruise, while Clint and I endured the cheesy jokes, my favorite is still "look its the backside of water!" Autumn loved seeing elephants, her favorite.

Noah & Clint tried on real Indiana Jones hats. Poor little Autumn in the back had a 102 fever from her 2 year molars poor thing, you can see her pinky cheeks!

Autumn got to meet the "real" princesses, although she was quite bashful to meet them

The kids loved the big "castle" and Noah kept saying "Is THAT where Mickey and Minnie live?" Noah had been begging us for a pirate scope for a while, and when we were in Adventure land we found an awesome one for like $3, and he LOVES it. He's holding it in this pic, and kept asking us "Is this a REAL one?"

It was fun to see it through there eyes.

By far Noah and Autumn loved toontown the best. Noah got to ride in Mickeys car. He was also super brave and rode the Mickey's rollercoaster! I couldn't believe it!

And we walked through Mickey's house and met Mickey! Noah was SO not afraid of Mickey and even said "Hi we are from South Africa, I'm Noah"

He said his favorite part of the day was that Mickey looked through his pirate telescope

And Pluto did too!

Pluto gave Noah the biggest hug ever

Snail

2011-01-26T00:21:00.006+02:00

So one of my favorite times in the day is after the kids have their bath, they like to cuddle up into two little balls and pretend they are "snails" and the towel is their shell. It started with Noah, and Autumn now grabs a towel and says "I a snail too!"

There is lots and lots of giggling when they "appear from their shells"

And some severe protesting that snails must NOT come out of their shells, but they MUST hide.

And then back to giggling wiggling little snails. Clint and I sometimes will "walk" on the snails to crush them, which leads to more giggling :) Silly kiddos

Napa

2011-01-20T00:01:00.023+02:00

Over New Years our whole family went up to visit Anton & Marietjie. We thought 6 hours in the car with 2 kids would be hard, but it was actually so fun! And totally worth the drive. My kids grew to love Naomi and Olivia ....

They built a giant gingerbread house together, which they slowly ate after every dinner.

This was Noah's first time building one, and he couldn't figure out why you had to put the candy ON the house instead of just eating it all.

Naomi and Olivia spent countless hours dragging my kids on a blanket for a "choo choo train" they had a blast.

We went to San Francisco where we saw a giant Nutcracker that Noah thought was a little bit scary, but Marietjie convinced him otherwise.

We went to San Francisco and rode on the trolley (Noah & Autumn's favorite thing about SF)

Noah also LOVED watching all the ice skaters, and kept saying "when I'm a daddy I can ice skate too"

The Golden Gate Bridge

It was so great to spend so much time with my friend!

Friends of Anton & Marietjie took us on a boat ride through Napa, it's really so beautiful there.

Noah got to drive the boat

Marietjie took us to Sanoma which is a cute town, but it was FREEZING cold. We went to the park (and yes the kid in the background is some random kid!)

The kids had lots of fun at the park

Love the little sheep on the hills

While I was there I helped Marietjie set up an ETSY store for jewelry http://www.etsy.com/shop/pureandsimpledesigns

We spent a few hours in the bead shop and the kids played outside in the park

Noah wanted to take a picture of us, he's becoming quite the little photographer

And every night Noah & Auty got a story from Anton. It was such a fun time thanks guys for hosting us!

Christmas

2010-12-31T09:05:00.004+02:00

I just have time for a few of my favorites, but this is Autumn's precious face when she opened her gift from Grandma & Grandpa, a new baby :)

In front of the Christmas trees at Grace

Grace all decked out!

My kiddos. I love how they both understand this year more then ever about baby Jesus coming to earth to take away our sins!

Lambardi Ranch

2010-12-15T07:03:00.015+02:00

So ever since I had kids I always wanted to take them to a pumpkin farm like Lambardi Ranch. And since we are in America in Fall I thought....perfect, I get to take them! I pictured tractor rides and face painting and petting zoo and lots of fun for the kids!

Well it turns out that Lombardi Ranch shuts down the day after Halloween, oops! So no pony rides or face painting or petting zoo or corn maze or fun food. And it looks like this: But the kids had fun and didn't really know the difference.

But the disgusting smelly pumpkins kept looming as we walked
But Clint and I coudn't stop laughing cause it reminded us of the joke from "Deep Thoughts" where a guy tells his nephew he's going to take him to Disneyland, but instead for a joke takes him to a burnt down wherehouse and the kid cries and cries, and it gets pretty late so he never actually takes him to Disneyland. For example here's Autumn saying "Baaa baaaaa" to a farm with NO animals.

And we told them we could pick out fun pumpkins and this is what we saw rotting in the sun....

But the kids had a super fun time cause they didn't really know what they were missing. They pretended to be "dirt in the bulldozer"

And they found the two pumpkins left that weren't rotting in the sun.

And Noah and Autumn had tons of fun making faces in the Giant Pumpkin

Noah's absolute favorite was driving the ancient firetruck

Autumn got into it too

There were some bigger pumpkins for sale at the actual farmers market part of the farm. Noah said...look HERE's all the pumpkins we were looking for momma"

And Autumn got confused and thought a pumpkin was for throwing like a ball, silly girl.

So even though Lambardi Ranch gave us smashed smelly pumpkins, we made pumpkin pie and still had a blast.

Peter Rabbit with Grandpa

2010-12-15T06:23:00.004+02:00

So every night now Noah asks for Grandpa to read Peter Rabbit to him. He somehow finds it facinating that a bunny could be naughty. :)

Autumn likes to hold her own one
Noah pays close attention

And Autumn loves to kick up her feet and read her own story to herself. It usually includes the words "bunny jump"

Cookin and feeding my babies

2010-11-13T14:38:00.005+02:00

That's what Autumn loves to do every day. I've semi-permanently set up her kitchen and her babies high chair near my kitchen so when I cook she can cook. Here she is pretending to eat her fake hamburger :)

And cutting it up for her babies

Gotta put the oven mit on, the oven is hot!

Borrowing Noah's car to sit to feed her babies cause cooking is SUCH hard work

I think her babies are full now

Pumpkins Princesses & Pirates

2010-11-05T13:30:00.015+02:00

So this year I was SO excited to find orange pumpkins. I know, I know, its way cheesy. But the green pumpkins just don't really do it for me...and I'm usually quite sad when I can't find orange ones for fall :) I was SUPER sick on Halloween day, so I'm so glad I dressed up the kids for our annual reformation party at our house. They had SO much fun running around in their costumes. These pics are mainly for the grandparents, but have fun!

Noah pretending to "arrgh" like a pirate

Someone at church gave her this princess dress the day before. She couldn't stop saying "pretty" and she found my wedding headband the day of, and had to put it on!

Noah kept picking up the pumpkins so I could see how strong he is. He's such a boy!

Autumn just liked exploring them

The sword is Aluminum foil and a toilet roll covered in red paper, he loved helping me make it for his costume.

Berg part 3

2010-10-23T13:45:00.012+02:00

Alot of our time at the Berg was at the pool. Noah and Autumn loved sitting on the chairs under the umbrellas. They sat together and "chatted" for a while like a big boy and girl.

Me and Auty after a swim

Noah gets to take off his glasses when he swims (of course) and takes SUCH good care of them. He goes a little squint without his glasses on. I think its cute :)

Noah would walk along the stones and say "paddle paddle paddle" pretending he was in a boat on top of the water.

Autumn couldn't stop laughing in the water. Part of the reason I think is because it was FREEZING!

Noah's favorite part about swimming was his "special chair" that he sat in. He LOVED that they played "leaving on a jet plane" on the music that was playing in the background. His daddy always sings that song if he goes away but changes the words to "I'm leaving on an airplane, but I am coming back again" so that Noah knows it's not "forever". But it's the first time he heard the actual song. :) He even asks me to play it on my computer now "like at camp"

Noah and Auty's affection for one another is rather funny. Noah will suddenly feel affection, and hug Autumn and Autumn will not think its cool, or the other way around. It's rare where one will give a hug and the other one will smile. We are working on that one!

On the jungle gym

And paddling for real like a big boy on the boat with daddy

That Saturday we got home we went to a party with Noah's friends, he just loves these kids!

Drakensberg

2010-10-17T21:19:00.015+02:00

Some more of our trip to the Drakensburg mountains! Autumn LOVED the swings (of course!)

Noah looked at the fish for like a half an hour, he loves them!

My two bumps on a log:

They had lots of Autumn's favorite (favorite) animal....horsies! But there was no way she was going to ride on it.

But when they got close she was super scared. She started crying. But then when it walked away she started crying and said "come, horsie, come here."

Noah was more brave this time and loved touching his nose. I love Clint's face here cause he's putting on his "animal talk" voice where he pretends he's the horse.

It's Clint's horsie voice here making Noah laugh :)

The awesome scenery from our cabin. Noah the WHOLE time kept thanking God for all the things at camp. Even his bed and our microwave and fridge. So cute. He loved the mountains

But his favorite thing was braaing with daddy.

And I had to include a photo of Autumn's morning party hair

Row Row Row your Boat

2010-10-06T20:26:00.011+02:00

This past week a friend of ours let us use their cabin in the Drakensburg Mountains for a few nights, it was SO fun! The first thing we did is take a boat ride on the little lake just below the cabin....here are the kids expectantly waiting for the boat ride. Noah kept asking "Can we get on the boat NOW?"

My cute hubby the faithful rower

Autumn was not impressed with her life jacked that was WAY to big, and she kept saying "pees off?"

We decided to just keep a super close eye on her, and she was SO happy to have it off

The first day was rather cloudy, so you couldn't see the BIG mountains, but still pretty

My cute kiddos. Autumn started singing "row row row" when we were on the boat. Silly girl!

Noah LOVED LOVED the boat

And wanted to help daddy row it

Then Autumn wanted a turn...

After rowing the boat back to shore my kiddos decided that rolling down a grassy hill was just as fun as rowing in a boat. Here are their smiling faces after rolling down :)

Coloring Time

2010-10-01T20:45:00.006+02:00

So over the last few weeks I've been going through this book with my kids. Noah LOVES it and asks every day for the "attentive book." It teaches different Christian character traits and defines them so that a kid can understand it, and then gives 4 different stories to go with each theme. One example in the Bible, one at home, school, and play. So far we've done "attentive, patient, creative, and diligent. Noah TOTALLY remembers these things and will say "look mommy I'm being diligent" if he picks up ALL his toys etc. It's really awesome.

And each story comes with a coloring page, which both my kids love to color in! They sit in their little chairs and will color away.

Autumn showing me her work of art

"Beach, AHHHHHH Booom!"

2010-09-26T14:36:00.006+02:00

So, often Autumn will look at me with a BIG face and say "Beach... AAAAHHHHH, BOOM!" with a big grin.......she's referring to the moment on this video. :) It's been like 3 weeks, and she still remembers it!

Swimming Lessons

2010-09-17T20:20:00.009+02:00

Every Tuesday and Thurs I take Noah to his 1/2 hour swimming lesson. He's just starting to learn how swim quite properly. He'll jump off, swim for a little, then the teacher will bring him up for a breath, and he'll swim to the other edge of the pool.

Jumping off all by himself

Diving for toys under the water

Practicing "paddle paddle, kick kick!"

My little fish. Could they make swimming gear any MORE unattractive?

While Noah swims it's my "special" alone time with Autumn. I don't get this, well, ever, so its quite special for me. We'll go around looking at all the "purple's" together (that's what she calls flowers that are purple). And she'll pick flowers for me.

She'll give her baby LOTS of loves, and try and get the baby to hold the "purple's fowers" (purple flowers)

She's my super silly girl!

Let's Go Fly a Kite

2010-09-16T13:21:00.015+02:00

Over the past few weeks its been 2 days of rain, followed by 4 days of hot sun, so we've been to the beach a few times. Autumn and Noah LOVE running up and down trying not to get their feet wet from the waves....

They both run up and down screaming with delight

The next few times we went, there were these nasty bluebottle jellyfish on the sand. The first time we didn't notice them right away and we were SO thankful that Noah obeyed when Clint said "STOP!" because he would have stepped RIGHT on them, and they are quite nasty

Autumn would run and then "fall" into the sand

She'd run away from us with glee, we chased her all around the beach playing "I'm gonna get ya!"

And Noah was SO excited to fly his new kite that his Uncle Donovan got for him. He did a pretty good job all by himself

The next time we went there were bluebottles again, and Noah had MASTERED the art of flying his kite "All by myself"

Glasses, part 2

2010-09-12T21:41:00.002+02:00

So my hubby liked Noah's glasses SO much, that he decided that after 6 years he should "upgrade" his.....so, like father, like son. Noah is VERY proud that his daddy has glasses "just like mine"

And I like my hubby's new look :)

I look just like Buddy Holly

2010-09-01T19:35:00.002+02:00

So Noah has had a lazy eye for the past year or so. He'll look at you and one eye is IN while the other one is looking at you. So I took him to the optometrist, who said his vision is fine, but to take him to ophthalmologist just to be sure. The optha. put crazy drops in his eyes that made his muscles relax, and he's 2.25 farsighted. So yay for no surgery! But farsightedness means...glasses.

The Doc said the best place to get kiddies glasses was an hour away, but they had only THREE pairs to pick from (huh?) of plastic ones (apparently the metal ones aren't as comfy for this age).

So we went to our local glasses shop and they had like 20 to pick from.

We went with the Emergent Buddy Holly look....... :)

Here he is trying them on at the shop.

He excitedly waited "2 sleeps" to bring them home....and got them today!
I have to say he just LOVES them (I really mean it) and takes good care of them. Its amazing how the Lord prepared him because he wears his sunglasses ALL THE TIME, he'd wear them indoors if I let him, and now he's got his own special ones. God is good. He really loves them and is confident in them which I'm so grateful for, and I think he looks cute in them :)

Autumn 18 Month Photo Shoot :)

2010-08-28T15:16:00.019+02:00

I LOVE 18 month photo shoots because whenever I see pictures of adults at 18 months, you can totally see it's THEM and they still look like a "baby." So with both of my kiddos I do a big 18 month photo shoot. This one, it was hard to get smiles, but some turned out cute. Here ya go!

At 18 months Autumn is VERY adventurous. She has a great sense of humor, and makes animal sounds whenever she sees ANYTHING in the shop that has that animal. Her favorite are horses, lions, birds and fish. She can say lots and lots of words (for the grandparents...."apple, orange, sit, bath, eye, ear, nose, foot, bible, book, dog, cat, horse, fish, bee, down, up, jump, more, juice, eat, no, yes, help, brake, fix, please, shtee (yes, shtee) :) shirt, sore, ball, cracker, bicky (cookie), milk, bottle, cup, baby, blankie, shoe, bear, Nuck (for Noah), O's (for cheerio's) cheese, what's this?, what's that?, call daddy" And there's lots more that I can't think of for now. She's combining lots of words too which is fun.

She LOVES her babies and will spend the whole day taking blankets and putting them down in their bed, and she'll "shush" them to sleep. If I'm folding laundry she'll find anything pink and cover her baby with it. One day it was my pink underwear (which I later found on her baby arranged just so). She'll feed them food and bottles, and rock them in her pram (stroller). She loves playing with Spurgeon and will "jump" on him and laugh. She's my adventurous one and will climb anything and isn't scared, where Noah is more cautious about life. She likes to play soccer and when she gets it in the goal she'll say "GOAL!" (its very cute). She loves swings and she'll say "sing, sing" and I'll say "do you want to swing?" she'll say 'yeah, sing!" She's quite obedient naturally (which is great) except when you call her to come she thinks its VERY funny to run the other way (which we are teaching her isn't so funny, but her giggle gets me laughing every time). Her favorite food is corn & bananas. She loves watching birds and will say "ah, bird!" whenever she sees one. She likes to sing songs with hand motions and she'll follow the motions while smiling. She loves reading her "bible" but will just point out all the animals and "talk" about them to me. She shakes if she wants anything really bad (her whole body, its very cute). We call her hair "party hair" cause it ALWAYS throws a party. I had a tough time calming it down for the shoot :)

We love our little girl who is no longer a baby!

Dinner time

2010-08-27T15:42:00.004+02:00

For some reason at our house dinner time becomes VERY silly toward the end, and every night the kids are in hysterics. I think it has to do with the fact that its very close to bedtime, but I LOVE that my kids crack each other up. It usually involves silly noises and clapping hands and who knows what :)

Etsy designs (last time I promise)

2010-08-27T15:30:00.006+02:00

So here are a few more of my designs, this is the last time I'll be showing them here (cause I don't want to defer from our regularly scheduled programming so I've started a new "Etsy blog" where I'll display my new stuff at www.littlebirdieprints.blogspot.com

So last few designs for now :)

My New Etsy Shop

2010-08-17T20:59:00.012+02:00

So I've started a shop of some of my party invitation designs on Etsy. http://www.etsy.com/shop/littlebirdieprints

I've had fun in the past with my own kids birthday invitations and cupcake toppers so I decided to give it a go and start a little shop out of it all. I've "considered a field and bought it" (Prov 31) and have had TONS of fun doing it, and I've already had two sales...woo hooo! Here are some of my fun designs. I'll probably start an "Etsy store blog" so I don't bore you with new designs each time I create them, but here's a go at my first attempts. Tell me which one you like! :) And check out my Etsy store!

I named my shop "Little Birdie Prints" cause my first design was an Owl...and I liked the concept of "a little birdie told me." So if you like what you see then recommend it to your friends having babies or kids having birthdays!

Vuvuzela

2010-08-13T20:45:00.003+02:00

Since Noah watched a You Tube video of how to properly play a vuvuzela, he now can play one properly (and loudly I might add) and his vuvuzela is triumphantly played every day. He'd play it all the time if I didn't make a time limit (for the neighbors sake, not mine of course :)

Sunday School

2010-08-13T20:38:00.002+02:00

When Noah turned 3 he could officially start "Sunday School" which he now loves, and has made lots of friends in his class. Before 3 they just play around outside, but now he's doing little Bible lessons with crafts in a proper classroom, and its so fun for him. After Sunday School he plays outside with all the kiddos from our church....here's a shot of a few of them :)

STM/Cornerstone Camp

2010-08-11T14:24:00.021+02:00

We had a Short Term Missions team from Grace Community come out this year to do ministry in our church, and one of the things they did was help out at our Cornerstone/Young Adults camp. This year we got young adults from different churches all over to come to the same camp, so we had over 50 people, and a great time of fellowship. Here's a pic of the STM team with our church young adults......

Some of HBC's young adult girls with Sam from Grace

The first session

Clint and Des Venter and Andrew Zekveld taught on "Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in an Unbiblical Neighborhood" Clint's sermons were on gaining a Biblical Worldview, and what it means to be a Biblical Man/ Biblical Woman.

Charl lead us in worship. The team taught us "Lead on King Eternal" which I've only ever heard at Resolved.

It was FREEZING cold, but we still had fun fellowship outside

Taz was showing Autumn and Noah all the tadpoles and even a crab in the water

It was still beautiful even though it was super dry and cold

It was awesome getting to know the team and seeing how they loved the people in our church

We mostly sat out by the river and talked and played guitar

Autumn and daddy

One of the guys brought a fishing pole and taught Noah how to fish, which he LOVED!

Starbucks in SA!!!!!!!!!! (well, kinda)

2010-08-09T14:44:00.010+02:00

Ok, so its not in a REAL Starbucks, but in a cafe in Westville called "Zanzibar" they've started serving Starbucks coffee......even a Carmel Macchiato! So there are no frappacinos, or white chocolate mochas, and you can't buy the beans there, but at least you can order the basics. They even have cool couches to sit on. And I present....the first cup of Starbucks in SA :)

We took our good friends Ryan and Katherine from Pretoria to check it out. They loved it!

All the carmely goodness

We all had Carmel Macchiatos....mmmmm.

Noah scooping out all that carmel

Autumn getting out every last yummy sip

Noah and Ryan getting cozy on the couch. It was a freezing cold day so the perfect day for a cup of Starbucks.

Ryan and Katherine's little cutie baby Jethro was to little to try the yumminess, but still enjoyed the experience :)

Root Beer

2010-07-27T13:25:00.003+02:00

I love Root Beer and Clint loves Cream Soda and they don't make either in South Africa.....till now!

I was shopping for Energade because Autumn couldn't have milk when she had the stomach flu, and right next to the Energade was......Root Beer and Cream Soda, made nearby in the Natal Midlands! Yay! And it totally tastes like it too. South African Cream Soda is green, and bubbly, like a kid's drink. So Clint was SO excited when he came back from America to find these in the fridge! :) Ahh....a cold root beer on a hot day was just amazing today!

uShaka

2010-07-21T19:41:00.013+02:00

Noah and Autumn's Auntie Helen and Uncle Donovan came to visit while Clint is still (still....it seems like forever!) in LA studying his doctorate. We had a fun few days while they were here.

Uncle Donovan had tons of fun with the kiddos....Noah would pretend to "sling" down Donovan, who apparently looked quite alot like "Goliath" :)

We also went to uShaka Sea World (uShaka is the name of the Zulu King) and had a ton of fun. We saw a seal show and a dolphin show....

Autumn loved the shows and smiled the whole time. Even though she had the tummy flu and we didn't know it (which made itself abundantly evident during the dolphin show, Praise the Lord I brought extra clothes!)

Noah loved the dolphins jumping and would say "WOW!"

Autumn loved the fish as well and would make "kissing" fish sounds when she saw them. She also learned the word "wow!" and "shark" while we were there cause she heard them so much.

My favorite are the turtles, they are just amazing.

Looking at the turtles. They had a Daddy, Mommy and Baby Turtle (according to Noah).

I think they could have spent an hour at each window just sitting there staring at all the fish.

Smiles with Auntie Helen

Noah's favorite by far were the sharks that "make you sore" He loved their teeth, and kept asking me "why do sharks make you sore?" (We've entered the "why?" phase of Noah's life)

Uncle Donovan talking with Noah about the sharks. It was a very fun day!

Autumn's new word

2010-07-19T20:36:00.002+02:00

So if anyone knows our family very well, two most frequented words (and I know they are quite strange) are "Villain" and "Nuts!" Villain can be used as a term of affection, (strange, I know) but also you can say "you are a villain" if the person does something you don't like. Noah has picked this up and says "mommy's a villain, and daddies a villain, and Autumn's a villain." I love it. He means it in the best way.

Anyway. The second most frequented word is "Nuts!" It's our version of like "uh-oh" combined with, "aww, man!"

And Autumn heard me say it tonight and can't stop...............This video is for daddy who didn't get to hear it first hand.....

Motorbike

2010-07-14T21:07:00.002+02:00

With Clint being in America studying for the last 2 weeks (with one to go!) Noah asked to see pictures of daddy. So here is one of my favorites. Noah and Autumn LOVE a game that Clint calls "motorbike" where they ride on Clint's back and he throws them off onto the bed.

Couldn't be happier...

8 more sleeps, then daddy comes home!

Such a girl

2010-07-06T19:47:00.008+02:00

One of Autumn's first words was "baby" and now its her most used word by far. She just LOVES taking care of her baby and carries it around with her everywhere. She cries for it if she sees it across the room (we are working on the please for that one!) It's just so amazing how the Lord made girls SO girly. The first time she saw a baby at the grocery store she cried and cried and just had to hold it.

After dinner she likes to feed her baby

And kiss her baby

She'll give her babies hugs throughout the day, which are BIG squeezes with a special Autumn "I'm hugging you SUPER tight" sound.

Noah's bookshelf has books with babies in them, and if she sees them she'll point and say "book, baby" or "story, baby!"

And will happily look at the babies for a long time.

Engrish

2010-06-25T13:34:00.003+02:00

Being the mommy of a 3 year old it's fun to watch language develop. He still gets some words/concepts wrong, here are some of my favorites from this week.

"When my older, I can drink onion juice just like daddy" (communion juice)

"My eyes are running" (I'm crying)

"Let's go to the couch room" (livingroom.... hey its a bathroom and a bedroom, why wouldn't it be a couch room?)

"Mommy, where's the cows gutter, I can't see it?" (udder)

"Mommy I feld (past tense of fell, makes sense!) and I'm dying, can I have some special medicine?"

Father's Day

2010-06-20T19:47:00.002+02:00

Happy Father's Day to my hubby who always sacrificially cares for our kiddos, and reads them countless stories, and for our dads who did the same when we were little :)

Winter

2010-06-17T15:17:00.003+02:00

Wintertime in Durban tends to sneak up on me. May is absolutely beautiful with warm sun and clear skies, and then one day it hits in June, and the air has this bone chilling waft that seems to enter into your inner being. In LA you have the "warning" signs of Thanksgiving and Christmas music lulling you into the cold. But here its suddenly upon you with seemingly no warning.
This is the first year I haven't felt this overwhelming sense that the seasons are "backwards." There are no thoughts of BBQ's in summer and beach trips this time of year. Since no one has central heating here, the warmth can be found in most houses from hot baths, electric hot blankets, hot coffee, and small oil heaters. I love it, its quite cozy. My mornings are usually spent reading with my kids under a warm blanket for about an hour, sipping hot coffee. They sit there happily knowing that its the warmest place to be. Tobi finds her warmth from our little red blanket.
This winter I'm going to save the seeds from our little vine so that it can cover our whole fence.

Attack of the Tickle Monster

2010-06-15T20:27:00.009+02:00

Moms and Tots

2010-06-15T19:28:00.007+02:00

For the last month or so I've been taking Noah to a weekly Moms and Tots. We have one through HBC but its once a month, and once Noah turned 3 it seemed like he needed a bit more stimulation weekly. At first he was quite shy of the other kids, but now he loves it and is starting to do all the hand motions to the songs and really get into it and have fun. His favorite thing to do is the craft/paint table.

And the "messy play"

And the big ball play where they just throw around a ton of beach balls and kick them. Autumn has started coming with and she loves it too!

Moms and Tots has taken a break for the 2010 world cup soccer, which was good timing cause my kiddos have been sick off and on for 2 weeks. It's been freezing outside, and I haven't been able to go anywhere with sicky kids, so we've had a bit of cabin fever. So I found this book in our church bookstore and have slowly started going through it. It's perfect for Noah's age cause its a NT Bible lesson with a little (super easy) craft you do with them. He looks forward to it every day!

Jesus loves me

2010-06-08T19:50:00.003+02:00

So what you'll learn from this video is that my son is rather tone deaf, but loves loves to sing. It's awesome to watch his heart understand the things of God every day.

One Brave Boy! (And one super cute little girl)

2010-06-06T15:40:00.017+02:00

Ever have one of those days that you've got a smile on your face the whole time? That was this Saturday! Winter is the season for schools in the Hillcrest area to have fairs, since its dry and warm in Durbs just before the chill of winter sets in. We went to the biggest fair (at Noah's possible future school, Hillcrest Christian Academy) and Noah was SO SO brave. I couldn't believe my own eyes. Last year he didn't even want to go in the jumping castle or on the rides meant for one year olds. And this year, he wanted to do EVERYTHING! He's normally quite cautious, so it was fun to see him come out of his shell.

First of all, he's been asking me for the last month if he could please please ride on a tractor. I had no idea how I could even make this happen, and he asks me every single day.

Well, they had quad bikes at the fair, and he thought it was a tractor, so there you go! Most moms with kids Noah's age would ride on the big "tractor" with their kid, but Noah was super brave and wanted to ride on the little one "all by myself".
Then he saw this monstorous slide, and just had to slide down it. Wow. So here's the littlest boy in the world on the world's biggest slide!

Then there was the little train that last year he cried at the thought of, but this year he wanted to go twice, and said "wow mom that was so so much fun!"

We met up with his friend Keenan (and I had fun with Keenan's mommy Mindie), and they rode together.

Then Autumn saw the little airplanes that went round and round, and well, she smiled the whole time.
They played a little kid version of "hakuna matata" and she'd dance and dance while going around.

The joy on her face was pretty priceless.

Then on the way to the car Noah begged me to ride the "tractor" again! So here we go!

Pretoria

2010-06-06T15:25:00.009+02:00

This last week we got to fly to Pretoria and enjoy the Shepherd's Conference. Pat Abendroth was the main speaker this year, and we were blessed to hear great sermons on the importance of keeping the gospel pure, and warnings about the emergent church movement. Clint got to preach one of the sessions, and I was listening and forgot to take a pic of him preaching! But here's one of Pat Abendroth.

We were so blessed to have Clint's sister Bronwyn look after my kiddos while I got to go to the conference. She runs a creche that looks after kids from 3 mo to 5 years, so it was perfect for my kids to play with other little kids for the day. Here's Autumn with her Aunty Helen and Aunty Bronwyn.

And Noah's Granny threw him ANOTHER birthday party at the creche (how spoiled is my kid to have two birthday parties?) :)

It was a Thomas the train party, and he loved it!

Cutting the cake with Aunty Bronwyn.

Eating the cake. yum yum!

He even got presents from his Aunty's and Uncles and Granny. He loves his new train set!

Grandpa (or as Noah says it "Crapper"....we still laugh out loud every time he says this) was in the hospital in ICU recovering from surgery, so we'd take turns looking after the kids so we could visit him and would often pop into Granny's shop to say hi. Crapper says thank you for all your prayers!

Aunty Helen babysat the kiddos so we could go out and see the play Grease (I forgot my Camera, but it was such a good show!) So we AND my kiddos were spoiled the last week, thank you! :)

The fair

2010-06-03T19:39:00.009+02:00

For the last week all of us had a bad case of the stomach flu since we came back from Pretoria, which has lead to a LOT of laundry, and many grateful thanksgivings for the fact that we have wood floors and not carpet (how to people have kids and carpet? I still don't see how this would work). Anyway, Noah's beloved giraffe (who's name is Giraffe, in case you wanted to know) has always been in dire need of a good bath. After Giraffe took a brunt of Noah's stomach flu one morning, he decided it was a good idea to give Mr. Giraffe a bath...he looked so cute on the line with all my other laundry....

To start my little catch up since the stomach flu, a few weeks ago we went to our church's preschool fair. It was such a fun day for the kids, and we had lots of fun too...Noah's first request was for ice cream, since every other kid was licking a cone on an Indian Summer day. It was the best ice cream I've had in SA. Ice cream at the grocery store is REALLY milky...but this one was more like I'm used to, super flavor intense. Yum.

Then we went fishing for prizes, Noah loved this and did it twice. He got some toy dinosaurs and a yo yo. He was really good at it.

We had a fun family date and had some tea and cake

Autumn won a prize of some jewelry which she loved. She now puts them on her babies and walks around the house looking like Mr. T.

She also tried fishing after Noah was done, but just liked the sound of the crinkling paper the best :)

Wordless Wednesday

2010-05-19T13:59:00.012+02:00

Father Son Campout

2010-05-15T21:45:00.007+02:00

Noah's future preschool has a father/son campout every year on our church's playground. Since the principal of the school goes to our church, she invited Clint and Noah to join in on the fun.

Every time we go to a sports store Noah only wants to get in all the tents. And now he actually got to sleep in one. All the other kids were playing, but he wanted to stay in his tent cause he was so excited to sleep in one.

He'd start playing, but then ask Clint to come back inside the tent.

But by the end of the night, he was having so much fun playing ball with the older kids, that he "tucked daddy in" and told him he could go to sleep while he played ball. If he saw Clint looking out from the tent he'd say...."daddy go to sleep, you go to sleep now ok?" He knew he was up past his bedtime but wanted to keep playing, and thought that if Clint would fall asleep he wouldn't notice. But eventually (9pm) the fun was over and he came into the tent. But he was so scared that daddy would leave him there...but eventually he fell asleep with Clint. So cute.