My Life as an African Gypsy

Anaya is 22 months old and will be turning TWO before I know it. What?! (A common Anaya-saying) She is such a blessing to Jon and me. She now knows all her colors. (Black, white, brown, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, purple, pink) Her favorite color is yellow... everything must be yellow. She counts to 12 in English and is learning to count to 10 in Portuguese. She sings most of the ABC's, but often gets out of order or decides to skip a big section. She knows more than half of her letters by recognition and an object to go with them, such as "B for baby" or "G for Gasher". She LOVES singing. She has mastered "Twinkle, Twinkle"  and "Old McDonald" which are by far her favorites and many other complete songs from our kids class. "The B-I-B-L-E" is especially cute, as is "I Love You Lord" her bedtime song that we sing to her and she now sings to baby as baby goes down for her nap. She talks and talks with a vocabulary I could no longer list. If we point to something and ask her what it is and she doesn't know, she responds with a peppy, "I don't know what that is!" And when we tell her, she likely has stored it away for good, knowing it from then on. She has begun memorizing her books, 'reading' pages at a time. She enjoys praying. Last night we were thanking Jesus for everything we saw, from birds to baby's swing. Other things she enjoys - bath-time, the sprinkler, coloring, caring for baby, rolling in the grass (a new found joy), doing dizzy in the swing, picking flowers and smelling them, climbing, jumping, etc.

Jovie is now 6 months! Time is flying with this one. She is such a funny girl and already all her own, very different from her sister. We are slowly getting to know her, which is such a cool privilege as a parent. She is my snuggle puppy and very much a Mama's girl. She would love for me to carry her on my hip all day long. She is sits fairly confidently, however, does have her occasional topple, already resulting in a few head bonks and tears. She hates her tummy, so while she is capable of rolling, prefers not to. She plays nicely with toys, now flapping her arms to make the noisy ones shake.  Everything goes to the mouth. Everything. She has totally figured out her jumperoo and goes to town in that thing, loving when you praise her. She enjoys music quite a bit. She loves to make raspberries with her mouth, spitting everywhere. I frequently hear her doing this in bed. Today is day 3 of food, and she is starting to cooperate. She is eating oatmeal with a little bit of applesauce in it. We'll introduce bananas soon. She adores any attention Anaya will give her and will laugh at the smallest action Anaya makes in her direction. She loves her. A favorite activity is chasing Anaya around the house yelling. She likes a lot Gasher and is testing his kid-proof-ness by frequently getting a firm grip on his lip. He handles it well and returns for more torture, tail wagging.

Baby #3 is growing well. I am 12 weeks now and beginning to feel more energetic and less nauseous. And Jon sings "Hallelujah" as his wife might start waking up before 8 in the morning and help with the dishes again. ;) I have a rockstar husband. We should find out the gender next month, which is always exciting. I love giving our babies names in the womb and calling them by name instead of 'baby'. I feel like we get one step closer to knowing this little resident in my tummy.

I am so blessed to be Mama to these three.