"He thinks he's four, like us"

At kindy, a mother told me her daughter said "Emma's brother is so cute, he thinks he's four, like us". Which is quite true. It was one of Emma's three friends. She tells us about three specific friends who she dearly loves playing with. Will has picked up on this very quickly and when he talks about Emma's kindy days he mentions Maddie, Alex and Timmy. They're a sweet group of friends and I'm so encouraged to see Emma making friends, enjoying them and learning so much. William has launched into kindy as quickly as Emma has and I'm sure he quite believes he truly is four like his sister. Will has a glimpse of kindy at drop-off and pick-up time and totally feels like he belongs there. We're working on leaving kindy 'without fussing'. "Do all things without grumbling and complaining" (Philippians 2:14) has been quoted a LOT lately from my mouth! 

{side note: Maddie's uncle is close friends with my brother - Emma's uncle. SMALL world! Her mum and I were so excited to make that connection.}

At home I'm noticing massive changes in Emma. She's growing in maturity and discovering her sense of humour. I sometimes feel a little sorry for her - that I don't respond her to her the way her friends at kindy do. It's a good thing, as my role is very special and I am the only mum she has. But there are moments when, in her silly four-year-old-ness she says something or acts a certain way and her friends aren't around to enjoy it with her. I love seeing it though, it's a little revelation for me of her 'other' world of her growth and development (mainly consisting of cute silliness).

Anyway, thats all basically a super long introduction to this photo! I've been slowly teaching Emma to read, using a reading computer program. She's doing so well. We usually try to do it during Williams afternoon nap so he doesn't get jealous. But on the odd occasion he'll wake up and join us. It's lovely having our two children close together in age, he is absorbing so much from her.

This picture is adorable. Emma is sliding a picture of a spider into an 'S' box and William got right in her face and said "Careful of scary spiders, Emma!? No touch!"

These two are SO adorable, and such blessings to me.

Cute Girl

Here are two pictures of my darling girl. One taken in April 2010 (age 15 months), the next in April 2013 (age 4).

This is at a park near my folks house - we drive past it a lot (especially lately - I've been over there almost every day to be with mum post "she-fell-over-and-fracture-her-jaw-surgery". hectic hey? She's on the mend though) and each time she asks "Can we play at the boat park after Granny's today?". So finally one afternoon last week I made an intentional trip over to the boat park for an afternoon play and couldn't resist taking the latter snap of our chicken.

Gum Boots and The Crawl Space in the Bathroom . . .

Those two topics aren't related. I just have cute pictures of the boy related to them that I would like to post.

We bought him gumboots which are fabulous. Of course if you have gumboots you MUST jump in muddy puddles (I removed his shorts to save on laundry!)

 I love his face in this shot, he's working hard on that jump!

 Standing tall. For a shorty this pic makes him look like he has long legs!

These boots are GREAT because they have HANDLES. Weird, but extremely functional for a 2 year old! They're great for two reasons a) He can put his own shoes on; b) the fact that he can put his shoes on excites both William and myself.

And . . .the crawl space in the bathroom. OK so we're currently in a rental (the snob in me can't resist commenting: I would not have tiles that look like that in a house I own, I promise) and this bathroom has this weird space between the vanity and the bathtub (I wouldn't have that in my own house either. It's really annoying to clean, but aside from that, recently buddy has discovered he can fit in there. I think I was telling him to smile at this point and he did his typical fussing (we're REALLY working on that  . . . .sigh - feel free to pray for us in that regard actually!)

 and then of course he has a sudden attitude change and becomes rather joyous . . .

  . . .and all is well in William world. He is SUCH a clown.

The End.

The Here and Now

I've learned over these last few weeks that, mysteriously, having a child in 'school' (Kindy) all of a sudden makes great demands on your time. I didn't think it was quite this full-on but oddly enough, having to get Emma to Kindy (all of five times a fortnight) has made life so much busier. It's an interesting phenomenon. It's helpful to me though, you see, I LOVE sleep (Yes, I too think of Proverbs 6 when I say that "How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.") But, I digress (and repent!) so getting up early enough to keep ahead of these two kidlets has been the next learning curve for me! But the children seem to be loving this next stage of our lives.

I have certainly enjoyed Williams company without his sister around. (Is that OK to say in the public forum?!)

Today we did some gardening and afterwards had a moment to recuperate on the kitchen floor. I asked him to smile and in typical fashion he rather refused for a time. He absolutely LOVES to kid around.

⁹ 

 There's a shopping centre near Kindy which provides (for a ridiculous fee) the hire of these shopping trolleys. He adores having time to 'drive' the car. I can't successfully have the children BOTH in the presence of the car trolley, as you can imagine. Thankfully, although William is learning to speak amazingly well, he can't quite tell Emma that he used the car trolley without her. Give it a few weeks though and our secrets will be all exposed to her!

The big girl turned 4 in February. She had a "Playschool" themed party, hence the Jemima cake. My friend, Delia was a wonderful help in making this cake - I had my wrist in a brace (long story, still to be fully experienced in order to be told) so I needed her to do lots of icing-rolling for me! In the end the cake looked wonderful and we had a very pleased 4 year old. Despite the rain that was threatening our afternoon at the park!

We went to Emma's favourite 'Piggy Restaurant" for dinner. It was fun to celebrate her birthday as a family. We are so blessed.

These two love watering the flowers we planted when Granny G visited. Emma is able to turn the tap on, but she made a grave mistake a week ago when she allowed her little brother to hold the other end . . . . incase you're confused, it resulted in her running away screaming "NO WILLIAM, DON'T WATER ME!" Hee Hee.

So here's something interesting . . . . my son . . .on a motorbike . . .

 . . .that belongs to his father.

My neighbour said "what did you let him do!?!?!?" to which I replied "I didn't!" My official line is that I said "I'd rather you didn't but it's your choice"

All that to say, he now rides a motorbike. He looks very intimidating in his bikie gear! But he loves it.

MY TURN!

"My turn!" or "William's turn!" must be the two most common phrases out of our 2 year olds mouth lately. He clicks the little seat belt on his booster chair at the dinner table, he takes his own shoes off, gets into the bathtub by himself, rides his scooter and his bike, vacuums his own bedroom . . .all by himself. Mostly, I'm hovering over him cringing and waiting to see how much blood may result from his "I-can-do-it-by-myself" mentality. We had one trip to the Dr after bath time as he slipped and cut his lip. Thankfully it was superficial (side note, the face is overloaded with blood vessels so there's always more blood when kids cut their faces even with only a little damage . . .good to know!)

He is much more independent than his big sister, but he is also very giving with cuddles and willingly allows me to baby him a fair bit. Which I am totally fine with - especially if he's our last child (we still haven't decided).

Emma pulled out her violin the other day and of course in a heart beat, buddy began his 'my turn' chant and this is the result . . .

 LOVING his turn on the violin

 And of course the little Miss can't be ignored. She cracks me up.

Too Much Too Soon!

Well, here it is. Emma's first day of Kindy was on Thursday. I can't believe she's old enough to not be at home with me all the time now!

She was a natural! It wasn't a full day and I was allowed to stay as long as needed to settle her in (which was actually much shorter than I had hoped for).

She painted a stunning picture which now has pride of place on our bedroom wall.

It was an extremely stressful day . . .for me. I cried. She didn't.

Thankfully we have her enrolled in a Christian Kindergarten and I asked the teacher (before we enrolled her) how does Christianity influence their school and her example was that a child had asked where rainbows come from and she taught through the story of Noah.

I'm pleased that she has that influence around her, but honestly I'm still slightly terrified that she is growing up so quickly. . .

Ages and Stages

I noticed with Emma at the age of 2 that she went through a stage of saying "SMILE" when we had a camera in her face (which of course was, and still is, frequent).

Well, our next two year old does exactly the same thing. And as a boy he has a shorter attention span than that of a newt.

We were at a playground and I found a lovely angle to grab a few shots with my camera phone.

I attempted to catch a sweet photo of the boy smiling as he was climbing ritualistically on the playground equipment, up the ladder down the other ladder (much like a Tasmanian Devil as it happens...)

 Below you can see he is forming an "s" of the word 'smile'

Again, word forming. It looks like an 'o' but with an Aussie accent it is in fact the "i" in 'smile' (pronounced "smoile")

Of course the almost four year old knows exactly how it's done.

I think she was rather envious when she asked me "why are there so many photos of William?" To which I quickly responded "you are so clever that you know how to sit nicely for a photo, but he's still learning...blah blah blah." I think she bought it though.

Gardening with Granny G

Emma and William's South African Granny G is visiting us. We went away to the beach for a few days which was lovely (pics to come).

Here's a happy snap of some fun gardening Granny G and Emma have done together. (Now I feel the pressure to keep the plants alive after she leaves!!)

A Christmas Story

The more I tell and re-tell my kids about Christ and that He came to die the more I've found my heart joyful over the reality of God's plan of salvation.

I hope this video works for you...it's fabulous.

The Christmas Story from St Paul's on Vimeo.

A Birthday Greeting

It was my sweet sister-in-law's birthday recently and I thought I'd send her a quick, cute photo to wish her well . . .so we sent her this:

But these cute photos don't necessarily come easily...

(he's saying "SMI-ILE")

nonetheless, we wished her well . . .

Summer Rain

Some days I grab my phone just in time to snap a picture. Sometimes it works out well. Like today.

We had a sudden downpour and I asked Emma if she wanted to put on her rain coat and go out into the rain - I was surprised that she was so keen...until I realised she wanted to 'jump in muddy puddles' just like her ham heroine, Peppa Pig (a kids TV show . . .I advise you to google it, it's very funny).

It's Here!

You see this gorgeous boy?

This handsome, adventurous, naughty, cute, sweet, funny, mischievous, delightful, busy little boy?

 Well....he's two. Today.

And we could not be more pleased to have him in our lives.

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate." ~ Psalm 127:3-5

Happy Birthday William boy!

1

ONE..... (I'm excited!!)

2

~TWO....~

3

THREE...

4

FOUR...

Beauty and the Beast

(No, his hair hasn't grown back - this was taken in September)

Mornings in my room

Our kids come into our bed for snuggles in the morning. I love it.

Face Painting

Do you remember the chalkboard I posted about? Well, we use it for painting. Painting, is a supervised activity. I obviously wasn't present-of-mind when he painted on his face, but I was (or at least I thought I was) when he tried to eat the paint brush. Ahhhh, bless him. *sigh*

He said "Yuck" after eating it....

I claim that as a small positive that came out of this scenario.

Walking Up A Hill

We went to a friends birthday party today and at one point I captured this.