one Saturday morning...

At our house, one Saturday morning...



I like Thea's expression looking at Thad



Oranges! what?? you have to take the peel off first?



Our smiley girl



Thad looking at the 'Best Word Book Ever'





 

Frangipani

One of my favourite flowers are frangipani. They smell so nice, and look pretty too! We have 4-5 small trees in our yard, but I think that they would do better in a bit warmer climate (they are really happy in the coastal areas). Usually the tree are just a bunch of branches with a stray leaf here or there, but recently we had one of our trees bloom with a few flowers, and I am enjoying them!

Swinging

We’ve borrowed a swing that Thad and Thea both LOVE! It hangs on our back porch, and Thea has been enjoying a swing every afternoon while I take the clothes off the clothesline.







 

helping in the kitchen

Mostly I dread having Thad help me in the kitchen, though he is always ready to help. He just gets so excited and his motions are so quick and jerky that things end up in unintended places (well, that pretty much describes everything he does, not only the things in the kitchen!) But I decided to be brave, and have him help me in a task that didn’t require a lot of precision. We had bought a large bag of flour, and stored half of the bag in the freezer, as it didn’t all fit in our plastic flour container. So I had Thad help me by scooping flour out of the bag and into the container. Most of it ended up in the container, and he had a lot of fun ‘helping’!

 

Welcome back, Daddy!

A few weeks ago, Thad, Thea and I went out to aviation to watch Jamie come back from one of his flights on a Friday afternoon…

Waiting for the plane

Thea says, 'Hi!'

  

landing





taxi-ing to a stop

 

Thea and Daddy



Jamie - the pilot



Thad gets to go with daddy and take a look at the plane



Thad & Jamie checking out the plane

Is it in the genes?

So, my (Lisa's) dad was never very fond of country music. Said that it made his ears itch! And he successfully passed those itchy ears on to me also. I would generally place country music near the bottom of my favourite music genres list.

Well, this morning as we were listening to some Christmas music, a version of Silent Night came on that had quite a country style to it. I myself was just deciding if I ought to remove it from my 'Christmas peppy' playlist as it didn’t really seem to fit, when I hear a small voice saying, "Mommy, no hear this song". I turned around and Thad was covering his ears!  A few songs earlier, when we were listening to 'Joy to the World' sung by the Ray Conniff Singers (one of Grandpa G's favorite versions of that song), he told me, "Mommy I like this song." Do you suppose enjoyment of music styles is in the genes?!

Carnival

In early November we went to 'Carnival'. Carnival is a fun day put on every year for the community by the high school students at the international school here—games, food and fun and 1/2 the profit they give to a PNG charity.

Thad enjoyed playing in the bounce house,

trying Coke,



and going for his first horse ride!



Thea spent her time smiling.

I tried to convince Thad to try cotton candy, but he thought it was 'too funky'!

Thea found a new friend just about her size!



By far, Thad's favorite thing was the Ferris Wheel!!



The ferris wheel, which is really more of a square, is a four seated ride that is propelled by the arm muscles of the high school boys.



Thad recognized the ride right away (he has pictures of Ferris Wheels in a couple of books) and kept saying 'ferris wheel'. We weren't sure if he really wanted to ride, or just thought it looked like fun to watch. We decided to have him try it out with Jamie and just see what he thought. As you can see, he thought it was super fun, and was all smiles the whole time.



 

our big stander

Oh my, time goes by fast! Our baby is turning into something a bit more vertical…

 

Mommy's laundry helper

I usually try to get the clothes off the clothesline in the early afternoon--before we get our afternoon rainshowers. So I regularly put Thad down for his afternoon nap, and then Thea and I go outside and get the clothes off the line before she goes down for her nap. This day our grass was so muddy, I decided to put Thea in the laundry basket and packed the clothes in around her--she thought it was pretty fun to be the baby-in-a-basket!

Our little book lover

As a parent, you know that when things get too quiet, it's time to go investigating. Well, usually in our house, it just means that Thad has gone into his room or curled up on the couch with a few books.

Thea discovers her toes

This month Thea discovered her toes, and she enjoys chewing on them on the changing table. I guess her diapers are so bulky that they don't reach her mouth when she has them on! She was so cute chewing on her toes, but after she noticed I had the camera out, she stopped playing with her feet, and just smiled and smiled.

bonfire ready!

Our friends invited us over for an evening bonfire in their yard last weekend. It was a little bit chilly, so I thought it was a great opportunity for Thea to wear her supper warm pink bear suit...she looked so cozy in it, and stayed nice and warm at her first bonfire! Thad also got to wear his Green Bay Packers fleece.

Thad helps with the dishes

Thad is discovering how much fun it is to be a little helper. He loves to get the broom out and help me sweep. Last week I put some water and dish soap in the basin that we use for washing the dishes and he had some great fun "wash dishes"  and putting them in the drying rack while I was working on supper.

The Elijah Tube

When we first started brushing Thad’s teeth over a year ago, we started with this tube of toothpaste. And this tiny little tube lasted, and lasted, and lasted. In April we started calling it the Elijah tube (after the story about Elijah and the widow in Zarephath in 1 Kings 17) because, although we thought it was almost gone, it never would be empty! Well, it finally finished this month—I wish we had thought to take notice of the date we opened it!!

Hiding

Thad has truly discovered hiding now. Here’s where we found him last week—stuffed into his clothes hamper!