Lilah turns three

Happy Birthday our darling Lilah. May the Lord use your passion to seek Him with all of your heart. We LOVE you!

Our little Lilah - everything is done with passion! 

Clean knees

Ambrosio is officially walking. Good job, buddy!

Reading before brekky

Eliana is already 'reading' to the littler ones. I'm looking forward to the days where she'll be changing nappies and washing dishes too ;) Thank you, Lord, for precious moments.

In the right place

Our Eliana loves to play in the dirt.

 She also loves to play near big hot pots that are sitting on a fire!

Sprung

What are you doing little buddy??

Malawi Comforts

We drove to Malawi a little while ago to get some generator parts and to visit some good friends. We enjoyed all of the comforts we could while there!

Cool Blue Headed Lizard in the backyard

It's neat finding new things out here!

Little Marias

One of our girls' favorite movies is "The Sound of Music". Hence, they love to put blankets over their heads and pretend they're Maria...

More fun while Mum was away

Little Actresses

I went to Kenya for over a week in March and left Nate to take care of three kids by himself. Not only did Nate survive, he managed to write a poem with the kids which they turned into an illustrated book, AND they made me a gorgeous, hilarious video to welcome me home. I wish our internet was good enough to post it! He dressed Eliana up as Mama, and Lilah up as Dadda. We have some stars in the making :)

Cool Dude

Little Hands

Thank you, Lord, for fun shaped tortillas rolled by little hands…

Beauty Sleeping

Lilah has a little Snow White lego doll that she calls "White Snow". Hence, the title of this post. I love seeing my children sleep. Lilah LOVES her afternoon nap. If I'm taking too long to clean up after lunch, Lilah will just put herself to bed and lie there, sucking her thumb and holding her blanket, waiting for me to come in and read a story to her. 

Even though she loves her nap, she's close to growing out of it. She's not tired enough to fall asleep by her 7pm bed time. So she'll laugh and play with Eliana, if Eliana has the energy. When Eliana falls straight asleep, though, Lilah will lie in bed at night, singing nursery rhymes and hymns at the top of her voice until she falls asleep.

What a beauty she is.

Tree climbers

Nate has been chopping down a bunch of trees in his effort to beautify our backyard. (Don't worry, he's planting more than he's chopping!) Our girls are loving it though. Dead trees are fun things to climb. They've got to get in quick before it becomes firewood for family bonfire night!

Reading Together

Chalk drawings

I was pretty impressed by this bicycle drawing Eliana did the other day! 

Our little nurturer

Just another day in the Schoen household...

Ambrose One

Our son, what a guy! He is destroyer, cuddler and kisserer, sneaky, mischievous, cranky at 4pm, on top of the world at 6pm (after bath, dinner and ready for bed), mover and shaker! He started taking steps at twelve months. He's thirteen months now, still not walking totally, but trying his hardest! He can almost cross the room now without falling over.

Ambrose's first piece of birthday cake. He thought it was worthy of laughter!

Favourite past time: pushing chairs across the floor, eating bugs or dirt, attempting to walk, baths

Favourite food: cherry tomatoes

Sleeping: two naps a day. Night sleep 6:30pm to 6:30am

Signing: more, please, up, hungry, milk, all done, no thank you, points at everything

Words: Dadda, Mama, Amen, Lilah, Thank you (ka ka), no no, that.

Favourite books: board books

Favourite songs: "Open, Shut Them" "If you're happy and you know it"

Favourite games: Peek a Boo, Blowing raspberries on daddy's cheek, blowing kisses, giving high fives, pointing at everything

I think the whole village knows his name. I will probably be known as "mother of Ambrose" for the duration of our time here :)

Ladies' Man

This little guy sure is popular around these parts!