For about half an hour, I had only one child in the house! Two of them were working in a local vineyard with our good friends, who manage it, and I let the rest take sandwiches and have a picnic lunch. I stayed in the house by myself (with baby!) to keep the green bean-bottling-process going. While I was eating my lunch and reading something online, baby crawled behind the computer desk and played peek-a-boo from behind the screen.
Baby
Dat is Pun!
It’s been a long time since my oldest child at home was three years old! Right now, however, our oldest five are working for our landlord, pulling wild turnips out of a paddock he has planted in Bok Choy for seed. The turnips are blooming right now, but the Bok Choy hasn’t started bolting yet, so it’s very easy to see what to take out. He doesn’t have time to do the job himself, so he stopped by last evening and asked if we could do it. The children were glad to have a paying job, so I took them over just after lunch. That leaves me with only two here–it is quiet in this house! We worked on the bananas I got on special at the supermarket a couple of days ago–the three-year-old cut them and filled a dehydrator tray for me. He was quite excited about that, exclaiming over and over, “Dat is pun! Dis is pun!” (fun). Baby played outside for awhile, and came in with a dirty face, laughing at me as he tugged at my dress. After I tried to get a picture of him (he wouldn’t laugh for the camera), the older one wanted me to take a picture of his face “to see if it was clean” after he washed the chocolate off! And now, I got a message that the children are done for the day and I need to go get them!
Just after I finished writing, as we were heading out to get the older children, three-year-old asked one of his famous questions: “Mom, when is Dad going to have a baby?” “Uh, Daddies don’t have babies.” “But you and Dad are married!” “Sorry, only Mommies have babies.” “Will you have two more babies?” “We’ll see.”
Baby Pictures
Just a couple of pictures of our cutie pie.
I made a chocolate cake for Big Brother’s birthday today, and gave Baby his first-ever beater.
Think he approved?
He’s very popular with his brothers.
Another Musical Baby!
Every one of our children has loved singing and music, and it looks as though this baby is no exception! One of the children found a CD they hadn’t listened to in awhile, yesterday, and put it in the CD player. It was Eduard Klassen, playing hymns on the Paraguayan folk harp, which is very beautiful music. Baby loved it–see his reaction below!
Random Photos
This one turned three! Here he is with the gifts his siblings gave him.
The annual Dead Boring Bike Hike–ready to take off!
I followed the bikers in the van; I never saw the oldest two boys till the end. I passed these two a number of times.
I also passed Esther and her friend a number of times.
The chicks in the house are growing–when they started doing this trick we had to put a screen over their home!
Elijah got the idea to build this house from skewers and modeling clay. James helped out.
And look who can climb up on top of things already!
This one (Mr. Sweetie) found his daddy’s gum boots one afternoon!
Someone gave the chicks a perch, and they like to sleep on it. It’s rather comical–they try to sleep with their head tucked under their wing, but when they fall asleep their head falls down!
Pretty daring!
Muddy boy!
Somebody wants to go outside!
Now this is a cheesy grin (literally)!
Flower Boy
A big brother tossed the dandelions to the baby, and of course he had to figure out how they tasted! I hear that dandelions are quite nutritious….
He’s Crawling
Baby is crawling already! He’s been getting around for a few weeks already, pulling himself along on his tummy by his arms, but today he’s nearly given that up in favor of crawling the normal way. This is the earliest we’ve had one crawling–he is 5 months and 22 days, about 3 days earlier than our previous earliest. Looks like a busy life ahead, if this is any indication.
This Past Week or Two in Pictures
I keep thinking about things to blog about, but real life keeps getting in the way. So, here are a bunch of pictures to give you a glimpse into the past couple of weeks.
Now that he can get around we have to be more diligent about cleaning up ashes!
Last Tuesday we had the biggest hail I have ever seen. When it hit a boogie board in front of the house it bounced up 3 meters (10 feet)!
After the storm passed, the cows finally made it to the trees for shelter–and when the sun hit them a cloud of steam went up!
Hail on the trampoline.
Almost crawling!
Gayle and the boys built the framework for raised beds on Saturday.
On Sunday we stopped to explore some rock pools along the coast.
Starfish
Sea anemone
Slow Down!
I’m not ready for this–my baby is starting to get around already! A couple of days ago he started getting up on his knees and lunging forward to grab things that he wants. In my opinion, four months is too early for this–but he doesn’t care what I think.
He’s a Distraction!
No, I haven’t been on here much lately. For one thing, there hasn’t been anything real exciting happening–just daily life. For another, we have a major distraction–this was yesterday during school:
Such cuteness is hard to ignore.
He loves his walker–he can investigate all sorts of things!
Yum! Pajamas!
You caught me!
Sometimes it seems like he’s all mouth.
