Wow!! Major update needed.....

Make a Smilebox slideshow

It has been way to long since my last post. It seems like it always happens that way. I figure that pictures can tell way more than I can write so I made a pretty lengthy slide show for you at the bottom of this post. You can scroll through the pictures at your own pace so you can look quickly. A couple of highlights:

• Michael is crawling all over the place, standing up on everything and actually taking some steps behind one of his toys. He also climbs steps and moves from one piece of furniture to another if they are close enough.


• Natalie is talking so much now, a million miles a minute. She says the funniest things. Like tonight...."Natalie, I love you. Do you love mommy?" "No" "No, you don't love mommy?" "no" "Well, who do you love?" and with so much excitement she screamed "I love JESUS!" It was so cute and I cracked up. She later told me she loved me too, phew.


• Natalie is such a mimic of us. For example, if we tell her to do something we say "Natalie, you need to put your toys away. You say 'okay mommy' and obey" She knows that she has to say okay and obey us right away. So now she says to Michael if he's doing something he shouldn't be doing "no, no, Myny. You obey mommy, you obey!!" Poor little guy has 2 moms!


• James was traveling for work for a week so I went back home to Randolph for 5 days. It was a wonderful time of visiting with family and friends. There are pictures of our time there in the slideshow.


• We have a friend living with us. His name is Dieudonne and he moved in about 2 months ago. He has been attending our church (http://www.cdomaha.org/) for about a year and half. He is a refugee from Burundi, Africa and is going to Central High School. It has been so much fun and such a blessing to our family having him live with us. We've had some great conversations and Natalie loves playing with him and talking to him. We celebrated his 19th birthday with him in October.


• Our church, Coram Deo, is celebrating it's 3rd Birthday next week. We have grown so much spiritually through the teaching and community of people we are around. All of the sermons are on the website if you are ever interested in listening to one.


• I am absolutely LOVING my job of a stay-at-home mom. I look at our kids every day and am so thankful I get to spend all of my time with them and friends. I get to use all of my energy on my family and watching it grow is so wonderful. We spend our days doing whatever comes our way. Natalie will wake up and say some of the following statements "are we going to the woo... are we going to MOPS... can we go on a walk... are we going bye-bye in the car.. can we play with coco "or names other kids"


• I'm starting to work on sign language with Michael so he stops grunting when he wants another bite. We did it with Natalie so that she could communicate with us before she was able to talk. We started with the sign for please and she would have to do it before we would give her food or anything else. So, I would say to Michael "do you want more" and then take Michael's hand before every bite and sign "please." Natalie would laugh and then a couple minutes later said to me "mommy, may I have some more milk please." Amazing what a difference 21 months makes.


• I've been making baby food for Michael. It's been great. It cost 1/2 the price to make my own organic food than to buy non-organic!! And, not to mention the difference in the food. Gross. Here is a picture of green beans that I bought and food that I made. Yuck. I think I'll stick to making my own. I'm not sure what they have in their "green beans" but why isn't it green???