Emmanuel & Katharina

Why do we call a one day old baby OLD? He's as young as he'll ever be!


I don't want to keep telling myself how fast he is learning things or how quickly he is growing up. ...It already goes too fast as it is. I want to enjoy when he falls after a few minutes of sitting up. I want to laugh (and comfort him if it actually hurts) as he bangs himself with his blocks because he doesn't have perfect coordination yet. I want to smile when he leans too much to one side in his buggy and waits for me to notice and kindly centralize him. Or when he is trying to put something in his mouth and it takes a few tries before he gets it straight. It makes me feel like he is the most cuddly thing in the world because he needs me so much. If I laugh he starts laughing with me. Not because I told him a funny joke or tickled him, but just because he saw the smile on my face and wanted to return it. Maybe I hold him in my arms to much.. but soon he'll be crawling on the floor ...soon he'll be walking! he won't want to be in my arms all the time in just a short amount of time. Soon the world gets a lot bigger then mommy, daddy and play mat...so I want to treasure this time when we are still so close, so big. So important to him! I know we will still be his favorite people in a few years but there will be so many more things crowding his day and his life.

a beautiful place in the mountains near us




He loves books and he's really getting into them! I show him a flannel graph every day as well as read a bible story from his baby Bible. He sits through almost 2 sets of baby quotes at a time and I read baby rhymes to him daily.
On the scholastic side of things I show him math dots 1-5, big red lettered cards with words like 'daddy, car, ball...'etc. We hung up the alphabet on the wall close to his play area and I sing the '12345...counting angels can be fun' song so he learns numbers. Oh...and I got a big sketch pad for him and I marked one page '6 months'(which he colored in with his fancy new crayons :P the day he turned six months) the next '9 months', etc so we can see how he improves artistically...lol. maybe I'm overdoing....but that's what you do with your first kid!!


his first food...avocado and yogurt! I don't want to give him banana as his first because it right away gives them a sweet tooth, plus avocado is even healthier for them! and he actually likes the avocado!

his uncle Martin makes the exact same face !
talking!

I wouldn't say he's spoiled. Though he is extremely spoiled in the 'love' department. Chockie and I are always hugging and kissing him that sometimes he almost pushes us away he gets too much! but you can never give a child to much love. That's my opinion. It doesn't mean giving them everything they want, it just means giving them a spirit of trust in God and trust in us that we will give them everything we know is good for them...that we will love them unconditionally.