As the Christmas cards are rolling in... I wanted to make sure I took some time to type out memories and updates about our children. These days are flying by... my memory is failing as I try to keep up with all the sweet and funny moments... I don't want to miss this sacred time.
This fall has been a blur! I began teaching a class at our church for moms. We are going through the book Desperate by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson so each week I was responsible for coming up with a 20 minute talk! I have loved this opportunity!
The kids have enjoyed their class that they go to while I teach and then they also are still going to their Awana class on Wednesday nights. That has been keeping our weeks busy, but also sickly. The children have been so sick this fall. Okay, to rephrase, the younger two have been sick! The older two have remained healthy except the occasional runny nose. Selah and Asa have both had the stomach flu twice. The first time it lasted 8 days for Selah and 4 for Asa. The second time it was 5 days for both. Ugh. I hate vomit and grow incredibly anxious.... so it was a learning time for me.
In August we took a short vacation to Columbus, OH where we visited with friends and went to the AMAZING zoo. In October, we celebrated Havana's 5th birthday, trick-or-treated at the zoo and in our neighborhood, and took a family overnight trip to a hotel in French Lick, Indiana that had an indoor water park. Last month we enjoyed a fun Thanksgiving and now we are in the midst of Advent season. I created an advent calendar for us as family and one for Jason. This has added so much anticipation, celebration, and intentionality to celebrating Jesus' birthday.
Here's a recap of each kiddo:
HAVANA:
Havana turned 5(!!!!) at the end of October. I still can't believe my baby is that old. To celebrate, Jason and I took her on a date. We went to Chuck-E-Cheese, then to Panda Express, and then to Target. She enjoyed herself and we thought it was great. She had a little friend party earlier in the month - it was a painting party because she wanted a Vincent Van Gogh party because she loves the Baby Van Gogh video.She has told me that she has God in her heart. She told me that she said a prayer that went like this, "Dear God, Please come live in my heart so that I don't disobey anymore. I love you, Jesus, amen." Now she is telling me she wants to be baptized. She has always had such a strong faith... her prayer life is beautiful... it is so fun to watch her love the Word of God! She is one amazing little girl.
She is doing a lot of things on her own now: getting dressed, combing her hair, and spreading her own PB for her sandwich. She thinks she is "big stuff" now that she is five... so we occasionally have to remind her that she isn't in charge. Like today, when she told selah that once she is six she will be in charge. ha. She is geared up for school and can't wait to start next year. We still don't know where she will go, but she loves the idea of school. She is reading ready and beginning to sound out words that she sees. Her sight word list is huge now. She loves to play hang-man and practice her sight words by that.
Havana's favorite color is blue, she loves any type of dessert or breakfast food, and she doesn't like to drink milk at all. If you ask her what her favorite thing to do is she would say paint. She is my arts and crafts girl. Often saying, "Mom, I need to cut and tape something."
She is also taking things very literally. For example, I was telling her something (don't remember now what it was) but I used the phrase, "We never do this. And I repeat: We never do this." Yet, she thought I meant for her to repeat it after me. haha. kind of blew my parenting moment when I broke out in laughter. Oh well... next time. :)
JONAH:
Jonah is 3.5 now and all boy. He loves trains, trucks, fire trucks, ambulances, etc. I always tell him that God gave him the heart of a hero. He points out every kind of truck that we see. He will point out different types of trucks or train cars. We gave him a firetruck bed a few months ago and so at least once a day we all hop on it and put out fires. Then, we drive back to the fire station where Jonah fixes us dinner of "something fresh with a capri-son" to drink. He also enjoys baseball and wrestling with his daddy (his sisters too but we discourage that). He is a smart boy who pays attention to things around him in such great detail I am often amazed at what he picks up. He also has the funniest facial expressions ever. He is still great at playing by himself, but has started to really desire for Jason or I to be playing with him. Sadly, he is passive enough that we sometimes put him off for too long, but we are both working on that.His favorite color is red. His favorite shows are Thomas the train, Chuggington, and Paw Patrol. He continues to be our good eater... his most recent favorite is chicken poppyseed. He has started getting interested in books and is asking us to read to him a lot. He will usually only pick out books that have a train or fire truck in them, but it is fun to snuggle up and read him stories. I usually let him pick one special one that I read to only him right before his bedtime.
He loves to run around in only his underwear. For some reason he thinks pants and shirts are completely unnecessary. So, if you stop by, chances are he will be running around in his tighty-whities... or perhaps even bare bottomed. ha. He is also very particular about his underwear. He changes it every time he goes to the bathroom. He likes to be fresh, I guess. ha.
A cute phrase he is saying now is "zero minutes" he will ask me if I can rub him back and I will tell him I can for a few minutes, but he will say, "How about for zero minutes?" If I say ten minutes he will say, "No, not ten. How about zero." He's funny.
SELAH:
Oh my selah girl. She is hot or cold... just like me. She either is loving on you and laughing or she is crying and yelling "don't talk to me." She loves to go upside down and spin round-and-round. She loves dancing and singing. She still doesn't know how to self-soothe though so if things don't go her way she cries and demands to be held or for a cup of milk. We are slowly trying to teach her how to gain self-control, but I honestly think the fact we never made her "cry-it out" as a baby is coming back to haunt us.Selah is hysterical. She is funny to watch and listen to. Just today she was reading me a book and each page started with "once upon a time" and she is just naturally a funny girl. The problem is, she knows it. So when I am trying to correct her she will give me a look that she knows I laugh at. She loves the color yellow and reading books. She is not much of a show watcher, but does really enjoy Wonder Pets and shows by the "cedarmont kids" which are children singing Bible songs. The sad thing is, Jason and I googled these children, and they are now almost 30! Eeek! There is boy on there named Robert who selah really likes. She will always say, "I Really like Robert." and Havana has suggested that we have a Robert party for her 3rd birthday and that we get her a robert bed (since we got jonah a firetruck bed).
Over the past few months she has entered this phase where she only wants to be around us. We have been getting paged out of church to pick her up and her only excuse is that "I really missed you." If I ask her if she likes something she will say, "no, I only like you." Sweet, but a little stifling at the same time.
She is getting tall and her hair is getting long. She is ready to be potty trained, but I am still dragging my feet. Poor girl. She did go #2 on the potty the other day on her own. I think that is a cry for me to move forward.
Selah does awesome at helping clean up the toys at night. She is always so good at obeying when I tell everyone it is time to clean up. Hope it stays that way.
ASA:
What a wonderful little boy we were blessed with! He is so happy and sweet. He loves to snuggle! He is now 11 months old. He began crawling at 9 months and until recently it was an army crawl, but now he is up on all fours. He is a bit of a troublemaker... always crawling quickly to Tucker's water bowl, but aside from that, goodness he is edible. He can say "da da" and "yeah" and today Jason thought he heard him say "tucker" -- he loves to be held! He still takes two naps a day... both around 2 hours in length and his night time sleeping has greatly improved to usually sleeping 10-12 hours.Asa loves to eat. No longer my "failure to thrive" boy... he has chunked up as he began eating solids. This boy will eat any and everything you put on his plate. He honestly eats more than I do sometimes. He still won't hold his own bottle, but aside from that, he is great.
He is so happy and flexible... he truly makes having four children easy. I hope he always stays that way. I can't believe he is almost a year!
Jason and I:
We are doing well. We had a few blah months earlier in the year when we were at odds with what our future family should look like, but ultimately God is working on both of us... so who knows what is in store. I am confident that children will be added to our family, but unsure if they will be biological, adoption, or both! Being a couple who doesn't believe in medical birth control (it causes abortions!) it makes the concept of "family planning" difficult. Which, the Lord has really been bringing me back to my controlling nature and the fact that I want to control how many children we have and how close together my children are and I have really been feeling His prick at my heart to stop controlling everything. So... who knows. :) I weekly blog about our journey to marriage at darbydugger.comWe are getting ready to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary! To celebrate we are going to a hotel for a night! This will only be the 2nd time we have gone away for the night since having children! I am so excited I can barely handle it. :) I love him so much. He is so patient and kind with me... such a man after God's own heart. I certainly married up!
