Just a Few...

...of the many sweet memories captured over the last few days celebrating our Savior's birth.

I'm off to enjoy more moments such as these. Merry Christmas and I'll see you after the New Year!

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14

Lately

Lately, Abe's favorite thing to do is build forts.

I don't know about you, but this random photo from the internet is my idea of a fort.

This is Abe's.

It's every blanket and pillow that he can physically get his hands on mixed with his favorite toys at the moment {currently Noah's Ark, Judah's Bumbo, and every toy from our living room toy basket.}And then he just piles it all on the couch. 

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Lately, this is how the toilet paper in the boy's bathroom always looks. It's Ben's idea of how to perfectly spend 13 seconds!

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Lately, this boy of ours has started looking {and acting}awfully ONE!

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Lately, in reading this book, I have been awestruck by just how generous and inexhaustible God's grace really is.

What's been up with you lately?

ONE

Happy Birthday to our sweet Judah Boy!

One of These Things is not Like the Others,

One of these things just doesn't belong, 

 Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Our {ALMOST ONE} Judah Boy

So here we are, just a few weeks away from our Judah Boy's first birthday! I absolutely cannot fathom that it was almost a year ago that we were off to the hospital filled with the anticipation of meeting our third child; completely giddy with excitement over the possibility of what this new baby would bring to our family. I think time flies with your first baby but warps at the speed of light with your second {or third, in our case!}.

These days, our boy prefers to pull up and stand almost all the time. It's made for quite a few breath holding moments on my part too, mostly because his older brothers don't quite grasp how unsteady he still is. Jer and I are constantly reminding them that, "It doesn't matter if he can stand, he's just a baby!" They mean well, I just think that it's taking us all a little time to get adjusted to a fifth person existing in our household in a manner that doesn't just involve napping and boucing in a bouncer : )  

 Lately, we've also been finding the advice, that subsequent children will do things quicker and earlier because they want to keep up, to be ringing very true. Our sweet Ju-ah {as his brothers like to call him} is always fast on the heels of B&A, following them to the playroom, climbing after them on the couch, or {his favorite!} trying to slip out the backdoor into the backyard with them. When the big boys are on the floor, he climbs on them and tries to wrestle with them. He pulls up onto the coffee table after their snacks, is thrilled when he gets a hold of one of their books, and is overjoyed at the prospect to try and steal Mister A.B.'s blanket-which is almost always a no good, very rotten idea in Abe's mind. Occasionally he will share though...

Our boy laughs like his brother Abe, loves emptying the DVD drawer, and taking the bowl out of the boys' potties-which on occasion may or may not be empty! {I'll never tell though!!} He still never really fusses or cries except for after dinner when he's DONE sitting in his highchair. He loves Natural Cheetos, any kind of graham crackers, and he will only eat squeeze-y baby food because he likes to hold it himself. 

He's our Judah boy. And just as the instant a raindrop falls into the sea, you can't make it separate again; he has become so intimately a part of us that we couldn't picture life without him.

Friday Funny

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Teaching My Tots

About a month ago, I started on this 26 week lesson plan with The Deuce. I figured with the winter months almost upon us {and subsequent countless days at home!} there was no better time to begin! I came across Brightly Beaming Resources under the recommendation of my friend and fellow momma to four, Sydni. It's  a fabulous website that offers weekly lesson plans for children of all ages that will help you, the parent, to teach them from ABC's all the way to reading independently. Being that the boys are not able to recognize every  letter of the alphabet yet; we started with the Preparatory Curriculum. Basically what that entails is that each day of the week {M-F} we learn about one or two of the following categories: Theme/Vocab Word/Shape/Color/Number/Letter/Rhyme/Memory Verse. We then also spend time reviewing the four previous days on our learning board. On most days, it only takes about 45 minutes of our day and usually fills up the time perfectly between the end of breakfast and the end of Judah's morning nap. And for those of you who currently have/or have had toddlers in the house, then you know how precious those quieter activities are with a napping baby under the same roof!

So with all of the above said, I must now say this...this is fun, people! I promise! We are learning about jungles and  coloring cows, not doing Latin excercises! The lesson plans have helped me to be more consistent and organized in teaching the boys and they have helped The Deuce by providing  a bit more routine to their day. And above all else, it's time purposed to spend together and what could be better than that, right?!

So while it's nearly four weeks late a wee bit late, here is the rundown on our first week...

Week 1: This week our theme was, "cow" and our vocab word, was, "calf." We learned about squares, the letter "A," the number, "1," and the rhyme, "Hey Diddle Diddle." 

Highlights: Seeing B&A crawl around on the floor acting like cows and moo'ing it up, all the while! Hearing them both recite "Hey Diddle Diddle" completely from memory but with a 2 year old twist. Think, "Dish wan ah-way wif da' foon!"

Lowlights: Ben calling the square a triangle approximately 487 times before he finally got it. 

Favorite Activities: Making square shaped cows and gluing squares to the letter, "A." Both involved The Deuce getting to use glue and scissors so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised.

  Above all else though, our absolute favorite part of the lesson plans was the library trip. In keeping with our cow theme, we checked out the following books {Our recommendations are marked with an asterisk}.

{Mrs. O'Leary's Cow*, Market Day*,  Thump, Quack, Moo: A Wacky Adventure, Click, Clack,  Moo: Cows that Type*, The Cow That Laid an Egg, Boo-Hoo Moo, Clorinda Takes Flight}

{Pumpkin Time}

This year, we traded in our annual trip to Wagner Farm's for a day at a little pumpkin patch east of Albuquerque.  

As an unexpected perk to our day, our family jaunt coordinated perfectly with the fall weather that finally arrived, as well. So all bundled up, we made the drive to McCall's Pumpkin Patch for a day of pumpkin picking, hay rides, and all things Autumn!

The Deuce had an especially good time this year! If only you could have seen their faces when they got off of the hayride and gazed upon the field filled with pumpkins. They were in total awe of all of the perfectly misshapen possibilities that were there for their picking! 

Right as we stepped off the truck, in a absolute moment of genius, their daddy told them they had to be able to pick up the pumpkin that they wanted. Best.Decision.Ever. And entirely adorable to watch.

Ben settled on a pumpkin pretty quickly but our more particular child, Mister A.B., well, he had a bit hoarder harder time choosing. This boy is somewhat of a collector of like items. Poor little guy was on complete overload! He wanted them all!

Alas, we finally convinced both boys to make a decision and made our way out; two pumpkins and two pumpkin-heads in  our wheelbarrow.

 And because I'm better at posting pictures than writing about them these days, here are some more photos from our fun, fun day at the pumpkin patch...  

 Happy fall, y'all!