Not Walking!

She was walking until....

Look familiar?

The last two pictures are when Elise was 14 months old after breaking her leg.  These girls like to break their legs!  Naomi gets her long cast off on Tuesday (less than 3 weeks).  Then she has to wear a boot for a couple of weeks which will allow her to take a bath!

And then I'll leave you with some pictures of Justus and Elise at my friends' wedding.

cute

silly

Aunt Alicia is silly too!

Walking! and a few Naomi updates

I really don't know how to turn this video the right way, so you'll have to crane your neck sideways to watch it.  I also figured out that I don't know my daughter's age.  For the past few months she's been a month older in my head than she really is.  I was fact checking my statement after I took the video and she's actually not going to be 19 months old for another 1 1/2 months.  Oops!  I still love her to pieces and she is such a joy to us all. 

I was unintentionally ignoring Elise the other day in favor of playing with Naomi and admiring something cute she was doing.  Elise said, "Ugh, I wish Naomi wasn't such an attractive baby.  She's just too attractive!"  Naomi loves her big sister and and brother. Although she does have a bit of fight in her when Justus is being a bit too much.  We're working on gentleness.  She's very observant and curious.  She's saying all kinds of words now which of course only her family can understand.  She sleeps like a dream baby which I attribute to her thumb sucking.  There is so much more that life holds, but this is a bit of what Naomi is up to these days!

Summertime To Schooltime

Our summer was quite full.  My goal was to make it a fun summer for Elise before she started school.
I think her favorite part was swimming.  The girl is a fish and her little sister is following in her footsteps.  We found a great city pool that all the kids loved.

I'm not a big picture taker, so I didn't capture most of our fun, but here are a few pictures from the summer.

Time with Family

A Sunflower Field!

Time with Friends

 

Elise's 1st Day of Kindergarten!

Elise's First Story

Elise sat down a couple of weeks ago and decided to write a story.  She just kept writing.  She would occasionally bring it to me to read.  When I would read it out loud, she would get so excited.  I made me realize that I take for granted how magical reading and writing are.  She came up with a story in her head, wrote it down on paper, and now it's coming out of someone else's mouth.  It's quite wonderful when you think about it.

Here is the transcribed story:

Once upon a time Elise was walking down a road and she went to a pond.  And her brother, Jus, came along and he played with her.  And they heard something.  It was a bunny rabbit and a fox chasing each other.  And a giant came and he said, "I'm going to eat you after I get your bones out."  And so they ran for their lives.  "Come here right now," said the giant.  But they kept running and running.  And so they stopped for a rest.  And the giant did not know where they went.

The End

I'm a proud parent:)  She learned so much this year.  Much of it was self-motivated learning.  It's really amazing to see how their minds learn things.

She also learned a lot in her Pre-K class this year.  She went two days a week.  I'm thankful for that easy transition into her school days for all of us.  Next year it will be kindergarten 5 long days a week.  She'll be in a dual language program, learning Spanish.  Here is a picture with her class from this past school year and one with her teacher.

And I leave you with a picture of some beautiful hydrangeas.  Stolen from the yard of a house with a caved in roof.

Happy Birthday Naomi!

She's reached the one year mark in record time.  Sweet Naomi.  She is a joy.  She melts hearts with her smile.  She is curious just like her big sister was.  She can crawl like a pro.  She's pulling up on everything and is learning to climb stairs.  She babbles and is very expressive.  We love her so much!

He is Risen!

We had a busy week of remembering and celebrating Jesus' death and resurrection.  Seder dinner, neighborhood egg hunt and cookout, Easter Sunday, time with friends, etc.

The kids and I dyed some eggs with ties, crayons and food coloring

They are trying to look like bunnies:)

They found them all and then ate one for breakfast!

Aren't they cute??

She didn't fine any eggs, but that didn't bother her

Happy Easter!!

Little update

I've missed adding quite a few things here on the blog including Justus's birthday in February.  No pictures, but we did have fun celebrating.  Aunt Alicia and Uncle Haroldo were here to help us celebrate.  The most notable thing to Justus was getting Thunder Cake for his birthday.  He is three!  He is a funny guy with a big imagination.  He loves wrestling, books, being a scary monster, singing and dancing (more like rhythmic stomping), being loud, being tickled, riding his balance bike, getting dirty, playing any kind of ball, pretending, being a working-man, etc.  He's very deliberate in his speech, but has a few really cute words.  For girl, he says girlu.  For ambulance, he says ambliance.  He's in that stage of knowing a lot of big new words that he's trying out but doesn't quite know how to use them correctly.  It makes for some fun conversations.

Here are a few pictures that I've taken over the past couple of months.  I need to pull out the camera more often, but here's what I've got...

The kids enjoying some hot chocolate

Naomi representin' our neighborhood

He likes mud!

He likes his Daddy!

Somehow taking all of the clothes out of the drawer and burying Naomi in them seemed like a good idea

Playing in packing peanuts...done with permission!

Getting big, pulling up, so sweet!

Some of Elise's original artwork

More of Elise's original artwork...this made me laugh!

It's warming up.  Playing in the sprinkler the other day.

The old house that we're rehabbing is coming along.  I'll try to do a picture update of that soon.

Happy Valentine's Day...

...from Naomi, Justus and Elise

Thankgiving and Beyond

Thanksgiving was at a lake house in Kentucky with Dane's entire extended family.  Canoe rides, Settlers of Catan games, cousin fun, good food and singing all happened.  Oh and we can't forget Dane's annual weird shave of the year.

An Andrew Peterson concert at the beginning of December was a good start for the Christmas season.  Thank you Alicia!

Visits with friends and family throughout the month of December.  These are the ones we have pictures of...but we saw Uncle Mark too.

Christmas in Missouri with Pappaw.

We rang in the new year soundly asleep.

Then a stomach bug hit our house:/  This is Dane and Elise after a rough night.  You wouldn't think it from Elise's smile.  I think she was happy for a sick day to watch movies.

Snow day!

Three Kings Day.  Elise found the king in her piece of cake, but she let Naomi wear the crown too!

Then our annual MLKJ Day weekend cabin trip with just the family this year.  We celebrated Elise's birthday while we were there with a special breakfast, a hike, and some s'mores cake.  We loved the wood burning fire place and Justus was great at helping clean it out.

That rounded out our celebrating for the season and we're ready to settle into a bit of normal!