Life with the Hildebrands: October 2011

- We went to the beach with our good friends in the middle of September for the last time till next summer. It was windy and a little chilly, but that didn't stop our kids from swimming! Especially Yohanis, he LOVES the water!

Yohanis with his good friend Emre

There is never a dull moment with Vienna!

I LOVE the beaches here! Just beautiful!

The little lady with her Daddy

- Yohanis has been home for 9 months now, I can hardly believe it! It has been an amazing, but in some ways hard, 9 months. Yohanis is doing so well, seriously this kid handles everything like a champ! He is the sweetest little boy who has such a big heart. He is constantly doing things to surprise me, like making his bed or cleaning up toys before I even ask him to. He loves to help out and he goes about his day with such a huge smile on his face. We always get comments on what a big smile he has, you will rarely see him without one. We are beyond blessed that Yohanis is our son. Cute story: the other day I was telling Yohanis how I always check on him and cover him up before I go to bed. He was surprised and looked at me and said, "Mommy, I'm going to wake up when you cover me because I want to see you. I love you so much!" Talk about melting my heart! Love this little boy! And I LOVE seeing the relationships between him and Colson and Vienna deepening. The three of them have so much fun playing together. Sometimes Vienna and Colson actually fight over who gets to play with Yohanis (yes, he's that much fun!). Yohanis loves to play cars, wrestle and run all over the house with Colson, but he will also spend time with his little sister playing babies with her or helping her cook in her play kitchen. He is a very good big brother to both of them!

- We enjoyed carving a pumpkin the other night with the kids. Then we roasted the pumpkin seeds with a little salt and butter, so yummy! Then we cooked and pureed all the pumpkin and now we have a bunch in the freezer. This week I've already made pumpkin cookies and pumpkin cheesecake. Anyone want to share some other pumpkin recipes with me?

- My belly keeps growing! I'm just about 39 weeks pregnant now. My midwife arrives on Wednesday and we're so excited for her to come! This pregnancy has been hard physically and emotionally and I'm ready for it to be over and finally get to meet my little baby girl! The kids love to feel her move (she is the most active baby EVER in the womb!) and give my belly lots of kisses.

- We celebrated Yohanis' 6th birthday on October 19. He got to celebrate at school (Vienna was even allowed to come for the afternoon) and eat lots of cake. Then we celebrated together with a special dinner that Yohanis picked (cheeseburgers and corn on the cob) and homemade cake and few presents at home in the evening. It was a day full of lots of cake!

Yohanis and Colson's kindergarten class

Happy Birthday in Turkish is Iyiki Dogdun, but literally means "it's good that you were born." I like that.

- Okay, I just need to brag on Yohanis for a little here. He is doing amazing at school. He's been going for a month and a half now and when he started he barely knew any Turkish. Now he's saying all sorts of things and he's already made lots of friends. He is very social and enjoys being around other kids. He's already got basic Turkish down. And have I mentioned he's only been speaking English for 9 months and he's practically fluent?! He's such a smart little boy!

- Vienna turned 3 on October 20th (right after Yohanis' birthday). So we had fun celebrating her. Vienna's dinner of choice was homemade pizza and lentil soup.