Valentine's Day

Our Cuties on Valentine's Day...

For her preschool class, Naomi made her own Valentine's cards. I was so impressed at the precision in which she made them. Each was unique and each was beautiful. She made 35 of these! I helped her some, such as gluing, but she was sure to tell me exactly where to put each heart on the paper.

Jordan...all dressed up cute for her first Valentine's Day.
Isaiah is quite serious about all this lovin'.
Naomi is all dressed in her outfit for a fun day at preschool where they shared a fruit salad, exchanged cards, etc.

I kept it low-key and gave the kids cards and these fun mini M&M guys. They loved them.

Each day after Isaiah goes down for a nap, Naomi and I spend some 'special time' together. This is time for the 2 of us to do fun things, without a lot of interuption. We often play games, draw, make cookies or muffins, paint her toe nails, etc. Today she asked me if we could curl her hair. I thought this would be fun on this special day, so I took the time to do it. She was happy with the results, though I was scared to see her look so grown-up!

Jordan definitely loves Daddy already. (Let's be honest, this smile melts Danny, too!)

Danny taught Modern Hebrew for his night class, so we didn't get a date until the next day. I decided to make dinner special, though and I bought Danny some shrimp. (One of his favorite things.) He put together shrimp scampi while I cooked pasta, sausage & chicken. We threw it all together and it turned out to be a fantastic meal that we all enjoyed. What a true blessing to have such a wonderful family that is full of love because of God's love for us. We can celebrate this every day.

February--Five Months

Here's our little Jordan Kate getting bigger! She's 5 months old now. She weighs 15 1bs. 12 oz. and is 24 1/4 inches long. (Translation: she has good chub rolls and is tall like her dad.) She is flipping over from her back to her belly, and also belly to her back. She is a people person, perking up when talked to, and laughs very easily.

I thought I'd document a rare sighting...Isaiah sitting down! He doesn't do this much. He is normally seen, from behind, as he's running through the house. Or you hear a huge thud from somewhere, and it was him jumping off of something...anything, really! His latest stunt was jumping out of his bedroom window while he was supposed to be taking a nap. I heard a knock at the door, and I opened it to see my neighbor holding Isaiah. She said she found him by her porch and he told her he jumped out of the window. I definitely felt like the A+ mom with total control of my children after that! I had a huge list to go through with him to explain why this was a bad idea. I started with the fact that he might get hurt. He said, "It was fun." What did you land on? "The sticks." (He was barefoot...because he was supposed to be taking a nap.) He had pushed the screen out, crawled through the closed blinds and made a giant leap over 4 feet high! At this point I tried to explain that it is scary for him to be outside alone. His grin from pure joy at showing me where he jumped was so big that I realized I was getting nowhere with this talk, so I stopped. Oh, the joys of having 2.5 year old boy! It should be noted that he already wants to pole vault like his Daddy did! (I can't wait!)
Here are the 'big' kids playing together: Looking at a bug book, and playing with dinosaurs.
We look happy! We are in front of Hume Lake, enjoying the cold, snow, fresh smell of pines, quiet cabin & the kids with grandparents! We got to get away for a night at the end of Dec.

Here's an example of a deep conversation that I had with the two big kids the other day:

Isaiah: Mom, why is God in charge of us?
Mom: God's in charge because he made us.
Isaiah: We made God?
Naomi: Nobody made God. He made his self.
Isaiah: Jesus made God's self?

Lots to learn...