2012 Family Pictures

Lydia was 8 weeks old when these pictures were taken

Resemblance

Around Jonah's birthday, I never took the time to look back at the picture of me when I was young with the same cake my mom made for me (see the last blog post). It came to mind the other day, so I pulled it up and thought I'd share.

Jonah at 4 years old

Me at 5 years old (I think)

Hopefully, there are more blogs and pictures to come. Life gets busy with 3 kids. Wow!

Our 4 Year Old

This guy turned 4 years old on the 7th. We had a great time celebrating him! It seemed like Jonah got lots of parties this year - one with my parents, one with Mike's parents, and one with just our little family. 

I had a cake like this for my birthday when I was young. My mom made one for Jonah, too! 

My parents got Jonah a red-footed booby bird to go with Heezy, Jonah's blue-footed booby. Jonah often talks about Heezy's brothers and cousins. Their names all end in "eezy," of course! So, we were excited to see what Jonah would name Heezy's relative. As soon as Jonah pulled him out of the bag, he exclaimed, "CHEEZY!!!" In the picture above, Heezy and Cheezy were having a reunion.

We celebrated Jonah's birthday with a few gifts and a cake. We have decided to use the "something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read" rhyme as our birthday gift tradition. This year for Jonah: want - color-by-number book, need - a bigger bicycle, wear - winter boots, read - the set of 3 Frog and Toad books.

Jonah saw his doctor for his 4-year-old well visit on Friday. He weighed in at 41 pounds and was 42 inches tall. He is in the 85th %ile for height and 84th %ile for weight. At 4 years old, Jonah LOVES to color, draw and write on his magnadoodle, build legos, listen to music, sing, and read. And, he can read just about any kids book (crazy!). Jonah's mind is always going. He is constantly asking questions. He enjoys all of his activities (preschool, Bible Study Fellowship, and Awana), but Awana is definitely his favorite. Jonah is a great big brother to Silas and Lydia. He certainly has his moments of frustration with Silas, but I am daily amazed at the graciousness and self-control he has when Silas destroys his Legos, messes up his perfectly arranged cars, or erases his Magnadoodle that had wonderfully drawn pictures and writing on it. 

We love you, Jonah! God has richly blessed us through you!

Our 4-year-old riding off into the sunset!

Pumpkin Carving at the Rue's

This morning, we carved the pumpkins we picked at Vala's Pumpkin Patch last month. 

The Before Pictures:

Jonah and Mike worked hard scooping out Jonah's pumpkin and separating all of the seeds, which Mike roasted for us when we were done carving.

Sy made sure his pumpkin was clean and ready to be carved

 The After Pictures:

What a fun morning! Our Halloween fun is about halfway through. Jonah has a party at preschool tomorrow. Tomorrow night, I am making pumpkin chili for supper. We will watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" after supper tomorrow evening. Then, on Wednesday, I think the boys will take part in a town kiddie parade for Halloween. And, there is a fall family supper and party at Awana that evening. Lots of fall fun! 

Trunk or Treat

Last night was our church's 2nd annual Trunk or Treat celebration. We invited our community to an evening of trunk or treating, games, food, and a bounce house. Although it got a little chilly by the end of the evening, it was a fantastic night! I think we had about 115 kids and their parents partake in our events. And, we had a wonderful time with our church family hosting the event. There were so many creative trunks and even an old fire truck! Jonah and Silas had so much fun. I think their evening consisted of jumping in the bounce house and eating suckers. 

Mike's pumpkin themed trunk

My Little People themed trunk - It was very attractive to toddlers! :)

Lollipop-loving sweeties! :)

Boo at the Zoo

Friday night we went to the Lincoln Children's Zoo for their Boo at the Zoo event. It was a chilly night (around 40 degrees, I think), but we stayed warm. The kids' costumes were perfect for keeping them warm. A lot of people commented on how warm their costumes looked! The boys enjoyed their walk through the zoo collecting treats. Silas was especially interested in looking at everyone's costumes and watching all of the fun displays. At the end of the night, we enjoyed a train ride in the dark around the zoo. What a fun evening!

An Update

Jonah is having a great fall! He started preschool at a church in town at the beginning of September. It is just Tuesdays and Thursday mornings for 2 hours. The church is about 6 blocks from our house. So, when the weather is nice enough, Silas, Lydia, and I walk to pick him up. He is also enjoying being back at Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), which we go into Omaha for on Wednesday mornings. Right now the highlight of his week is Awana on Wednesday nights. It meets at another church it town. Jonah knows a few of the kids in his Cubbies class from VBS this summer and has loved being with them weekly. He is learning verses each week and hiding them in his heart! About a week and a half ago, for a variety of reasons we decided to take a break from TV and videos for our kids. It has been a great thing for Jonah. His already lively imagination has grown. He spends a lot of time writing and drawing on his Magnadoodle. He just plays better. I'm sure we will start letting the boys have screen time again at some point, but for now it has been a good, peaceful time at our house. Oh, but he does get to watch Jeopardy. Lydia usually eats right around the time it is on. So, the boys, Lydia, and I sit on the couch and watch just about every afternoon. I don't know if he's gathering anything from it, but from the commercials Jonah knows about Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Bob Kerry (running for US Senate in NE), Aleve, Seabond, and the AARP. I guess you can tell what the demographic is that they are targeting during Jeopardy! Jonah turns 4 in about a week. He is growing up so fast!

Silas is growing up so much! There is nothing like having a new baby to make a sibling grow quickly. Silas also loves going to BSF on Wednesdays. He will often chant "Bible study! Bible study! Bible study!" And, many weeks he will immediately exclaim, "I had fun Bible study!" when I pick him up from his class. Silas' expressive language has really expanded since Lydia was born. It has been so fun to hear about the things going on in his little mind. One thing I love is that he has picked up on the word and use of "because" from Jonah, but he doesn't yet know how to complete a "because" statement. So, he will often say, "I don't want to because" or "I like it because" and then trail off. It is so cute! Silas loves to play outside and will spend much of his time with his toy lawn mower pretending to mow the lawn. I think Sy misses Jonah when he is at preschool and Awana as he will often talk about Jonah while he is gone and is always excited to go pick him up. Silas is our mischievous one. If we aren't watching too closely at home, he will make his way into our bedroom to play on my kindle. One day last week while I was feeding Lydia, Sy decided to explore the kitchen a bit. The picture below shows the result - a bowl full partially eaten pears.   

3 1/2 weeks

4 1/2 weeks

5 weeks

5 1/2 weeks

Lydia is just growing too fast. I can't believe that she is already 6 weeks old! She is finally moving out of the sleepy newborn stage that neither of our boys really had. Just in the past week she has become so much more interactive. She is smiley and coos quite a bit. I love how she coos. She often looks right at us and you can see the intentionality in her cooing. Lydia is really trying to talk to us and tell us things! I'm interested to see how it becomes part of her developing personality. Lydia still eats well and sleeps well at night. She seems to have gotten herself onto a schedule of waking up at 2:00am, sometimes even right on the dot, and then between 5:30 and 6:00am. She has been doing this since about 1 week old. I'm hoping she will start stretching those times out soon! Lydia wears mostly 0-3 or 3 month clothing and some of it is already getting tight. I don't know how much she weighs as we don't see her doctor again until 2 months old, but I know she is a big girl. Lydia loves to be held. I think she would be held all day and night if it was her choice. But, she also likes to be on her tummy and is getting fairly strong. I'm trying so hard to simply enjoy every moment of this stage of her life. I love the newborn phase and Lydia is growing out of it so quickly! 

That's our update for now, but there will be more blogs coming soon. I started this one before the weekend but never finished it as we had a very busy weekend. More blogs with pictures to come of our weekend of Halloween festivities!