Time Outside and Kids Growing Up!

Well, so much for the posting binge I was planning on doing! I guess we are just so busy living life that I don't have much time to post about it!

Now that the weather has been so nice lately, we have been spending a lot of time outside! We have been doing some major overhaul work in the gardens, getting rid of ground cover and such in order to put some veggies in. Here is Fabio working in the back garden, getting it ready to plant. And then Joshua planting the beans. And Dominique getting in on the action too.










































We also got two bird feeders up so far and one bird house. We are gearing up for a unit study on birds that I am planning for this fall! So far, we have had a lot of woodpeckers on the suet feeder and we have some birds building a nest in the nesting box. :) The kids have been enjoying watching them from the sliding glass door.













And I *finally* got a clothesline hung up! Now one of Joshua's favorite "chores" is to help me hang up the clothes. I love hanging clothes out! They smell so nice and fresh! Dominique enjoys helping too. Her job is usually to hand Joshua and I one item of clothing and one clothespin.









And on the front of the house Fabio has been busy too! I forgot to take a "before" pic of the jungle we had here previously, but it looks SO much better! The other side of the walk gives you some idea of the overgrowth. That bed is done now too, though! Yay! Now we plan to mulch and put down a *couple* of little plants/flowers here. No more ground cover!







And speaking of my kiddos growing up, we moved the bunk beds into their room a couple weeks ago! Joshua was still in a toddler bed, and Dominique was still in a crib, but no more! Now they are BIG kids in bunk beds! They LOVE the new arrangement and I like it too. I have to admit that I got a little teary-eyed the first night we put them to bed here! They are growing up! And do you believe that they were ASKING to go to bed the first few nights??? Now, getting them to go to SLEEP was another matter, but at least they wanted to go to bed!



Here they are, all excited about their new piggy bank! Joshua has been wanting one for a long time, and I told him we would look for one at a garage sale. Well, he started praying that we would find one, and we did! You should have seen Joshua's excitement ~ he kept saying, "Gloria Deus!" (Glory to God!) It is neat to see a child's excitement when God answers prayer. We should all get that excited and give the credit to God when He answers our prayers, even the simple ones!

Another night before bed. They are getting to be such good friends! The other day we were talking about the story of David and Jonathon and I asked Joshua who his best friend was and he said without a moment's hesitation: Dominique!
Then a few days ago, Dominique woke up from her nap before Joshua. She ran down to the basement calling for him, so I informed her that he was still sleeping. She got a little pouty face and said, "Eu quero Joshua!" (I want Joshua!) They love to play together and some recent favorites are hind-and-seek, peek-a-boo with Israel and dolls. Yes, Joshua likes to play dolls with her, but she also likes to play cars and army guys with him. Yes, they still bicker (daily), but I am enjoying seeing them grow as friends and pray that their friendship will continue for life!

And as Israel grows I hope he too will become good friends with his siblings! They both love him to death, and it is obvious that it is mutual. He thinks there is nothing in the world more amusing than watching them play and run, and Im sure he will be playing and running with them in no time! Here Joshua is carrying Israel on his back in the ergo carrier. I definitely wouldn't let him carry him this way for longer than five minutes, but it was cute for the pic and they both thought it was great fun!

Well, I think I am going to give up on back-posting, and at least try to stay some-what current anyway. So, more when I have time!

Israel is FIVE months old!

Yes, time flies! Our "newborn" is now rolling, learning to sit, crawl, and suck on his feet, among other exciting feats... or should I say "feets". ;-)

Here are a few pics of his big five months birthday, last Thursday.

For the record, he weighed in at 18lbs 7 oz and it was really hard to get an accurate measurement, because he never stretches out well and is always in constant motion, kicking the measuring tape away!, but as close as I can tell, he is about 28 inches. And he wears mostly 12 mos size clothes.


He is very smiley and loves to watch his siblings play ~ he thinks they are hilarious! He likes to play too. Sometimes when he fusses, I think he wants to nurse or needs to be changed or something, when all he really wants is to get down on the ground and play!

He can get up on his hands and knees now and rocks back and forth, and is starting to put his knees forward, but he doesn't get very far that way. He does get pretty far on his belly, though.



He can sit for short periods of time, but really prefers to be on his belly.

We haven't started solids yet, and he shows absolutely no interest either, although we have been having him sit at the table with us at meals lately. It is nice to have all three of them at the table now, like our little "olive shoots"! (see Psalm 128) He is perfectly content to chew on a teething ring at this point, however, and watch the rest of us eat!













Is he cute or what?
What a joy to have a happy baby around!


He is teething pretty badly now, even though nothing has come through the gums yet. He drools a lot and chomps on everything and has been up a lot at night... ugh. I can't say I really enjoy sleepless nights, but I have found that a combination of clove oil and teething tablets help us both sleep better. :)




























I love these chubby cheeks!






And these chubby cheeks, too!




















And a quick video clip of his recent motion!







I dont know why comments didnt show up on my last post. I checked my settings, and everything is fine there, so hopefully they will show up this time. I live for comments! LOL!

I still have a lot to post, so stayed tuned!

Baby Moriah

I'm a little behind since my sweet new niece Moriah was born 4 wks ago today, but I have a lot more to blog about than I have time to blog, if ya know what I mean! Anyway, welcome to the world and to the family little one!

This is my brother Scott, his wife Amanda, and their four little ones: Dillon 6, Cheyenne 4, Gabriel 2, and Moriah Sage at about a week old.

Auntie Friz meets Baby Moriah! What a tiny sweet little peanut!

And Israel looks like a big lug next to her! They are almost exactly four months apart, just like Dominique and Gabriel!

Joshua getting acquainted with his newest cousin. He loves babies, and always likes to add that he especially likes baby girls! LOL

We love you, baby Moriah!

Today Israel turned five months old, and I also received in the mail the cd of the pics we took in Brazil that somehow didn't make it home with us, so I have a lot of posting to do. Keep checking back! I'll try to get go on a posting binge and get it all up in the next few days. :)

HOMECOMING!

Well, as I mentioned a few posts ago, my brother Aaron got back from Iraq on April 28. I really wish we could have been here for the homecoming, especially after we found out how cool it was! This is the email my brother Scott sent me the day after Aaron got home:

aaron and the rest of the unit returned around 10:30 last night led by 428 harleys and some state police for 80 miles. there were thousands of people along the entire town on streets and lawns waving flags and banners. inside the compound there were around 600 family members to welcome them home. so contrary to what you hear on the media , people really do support our troops. scott

Scott made this sign and the one below and mounted it at Aaron's base the week before the homecoming. Pretty cool!

Uncle Aaron meets baby Moriah. :)

We sure are happy to have you home, Aaron! Thank you for your service to our country. I love you!

More Pics from Brazil

Our happy family of five. :)














Fabio's brother Fernando, wife Carol and baby Leonardo. (Fabio's dad is in the background.)












My smiley happy boy! He is getting so alert and strong, rolling over and trying to scoot everywhere. He is just a little bundle of joy.












Fabio's mom, Joshua, cousin Renata, sister Luciana with Israel, Carol with Leonardo, Me with Dominique and Tia Lucy.












Fabio's mom, aunt Rosa, Carol and Leo, Fernando, Luciana, Fabio. We did a whole lot of eating!











Here we are in front of a trolley that goes around downtown historical Santos, giving a little info about the history and such as it goes.












Mommy and Miki.


















My sweet nephew Leonardo.



















These brothers like to take nerd pictures just like my brothers do! LOL












This is at the hippie market, and here we are eating again! Me, William, Suzana, Fernando and Carol.












Joshua just LOVES to pose for the camera, which everyone with cameras enjoyed and took a billion pictures of him posing in every different way you can imagine. :) At least he's not camera shy!










At cousin Cristiane's apartment, eating once again!


We accidently left the other cd of our pics in Brazil, which has about another 200 pics on it! Luciana is sending it to us now, so when we get it I might post some more pics of that, since it has some interesting things like me washing all of our clothes by hand. :) Or, I might just stop with these.
We had a wonderful time, the kids were troopers in the midst of messed up schedules and a different environment every day, being on the go all the time and meeting a million new faces. In hindsight, I am really amazed at how well they did at just going with the flow, and I am really thankful for that! I got to know Fabio's extended family better this time than when we were on our honeymoon too, and that was great. I asked everyone I could all kinds of questions about the family history and came away with a little more understanding of all that. A little. :)
Now we are almost recovered from loss of sleep and nearly ready to get back into our comfy little rut. Almost. I'm off to take a nap now, while I have a window of opportunity when ALL the kids are sleeping at once! Doesnt happen very often, so I need to take advantage of it! :)

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jog

Well, we arrived yesterday safe and sound, though thoroughly exhausted! But we had a wonderful time and made so many wonderful memories. We have several hundred pictures from the trip, so I will spare you from the majority of them, but here is a small sampling:

First, Santos, Fabio's hometown. What a place! His parents live about 2 blocks from this beach, which boasts the largest beachside garden in the world, as well as the largest port in South America. Who'da ever thunk I'd marry someone from here??

Santos is an island, so you have to take a ferry to get to the closest city. Here we are on the ferry with Fabio's cousin, Henrique.
God had something really cool planned for this trip: we got to have a part in Henrique giving his life to the Lord while we were there! He is just recently back from Japan and not working right now, so we got to spend a lot of time with him and Fabio had a chance to do a lot of discipleship almost every day as we walked along the beach and sat at home, etc. It was so awesome to see the change in him even in the few weeks we were there!


This is at the "orquidario" in Santos, with Fabio's parents, siblings, and cousins. It is like a nature preserve with a lot of loose and caged animals, all from the Amazon.












This is Fabio's family, l-r: our new sil Carol, Fabio's brother Fernando holding their baby, Leonardo, Luciana (Fabio's sister), Joshua, Fabio's mom, Fabio, me holding sleeping Dominique, and Fabio's dad holding Israel.
This was taken Monday at the airport.







More pics of the fam: Fabio and Israel, cousin Cristiane, uncle, Cristiane's husband William, cousin Henrique, sil Carol and nephew Leonardo (Leo), and my mother-in-law.











And more family, aunts, cousins, etc. :)

We spent lots of time at the beach, and lots of time eating!










At the beach with Fabio's cousins.















Mommy and Israel. He is 4 months now and growing so fast! He was a real trooper with all that we did during the last month.
















My sweeties at the beach. They never got tired of digging in the sand and playing in the waves.


We were very happy to have had this chance to re-connect with Fabio's family and re-create family bonds. Everyone loved the children and they were spoiled rotten the whole time we were there! We had the privilege of seeing God move in several, and we are confident that it is only the beginning of what God will do in the family! How awesome! We were also pleased to meet for the first time and get to know our new sister-in-law, Carol, and their baby Leonardo, who is nine months old and a real smiley cutie. :-) The kids' Portuguese improved quite a lot and they were able to build relationships with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins for the first time. We are so thankful for the opportunity we had to go and we hope to be able to go again before another six years lapses. But, I am in awe once again of God's timing and purposes. We have already seen so many reasons why God allowed us to go at just this time, and I'm sure He will allow us to go again in His perfect time.

I will post more of the pics later. I'm too lazy now! ;-)