So let's have an adventure She says...

So last week in South Africa the King landed, and I mean Burger King. Debbie decided that she felt like an adventure so we decided to take the kids for a night of something spontaneous and adventurous.

Doesn't sound like anything hectic you would think but you must realise that it is over 30km's from our house, People wouldn't even take there kids never mind two of them one block from their home to go for dinner.

So we arrive and the line is out the door waiting to order, so long even after a week of being open? We persist in our adventure, we are here and we are going to do this! So we stand and the line moves quickly... And thankfully.

We get our food, service was fast friendly and the food was hot and awesome. Overall it was a huge success, we will be back... Just not while the lines are so long ; )

Our little Soulstriders ; )

So this week was a good one for us as a family, we are pretty keen runners and in December we decided to get a running pram that takes both of our kids.

This weekend was one of our favourite races so we decided to make sure that the WHOLE family ran the race. Debs did exceptionally well and ran a PB... She is such a machine. The pic below is when we had finished, as you will see the kids aced it as well.

We'll done to Gabby and Caleb for sitting still for an hour and waking up so early without being cranky and we'll done to my wife for a power run!

It's been an amazing 9 months!

Wow I really can't believe that it's been 9 months since this precious little girl entered our lives, today Gabriella turned 1 and what a fantastic time we have had. We are truly blessed to have this little person in our lives. 

We had the family over today for tea and decided to just let Gabby loose on a piece of cake, oh and what fun it was! Here are some pics of the event that we will remember for a long time ; ) 

The joy of children

I have to say that I cannot begin to express how wonderful it has been this last week know that we are the parents of two beautiful children.

Some people have asked me if this is it for us and the answer is a resounding no. Why stop at 2? One thing we have learnt over the last couple of years is that God is good and will always provide... So why not have the same attitude when it comes to having children. God will always provide and give Grace in every situation and we are confident of this fact and are most certainly going to put this to the test... Not God but us!

Gabby and Caleb will most certainly will have more than just themselves in the future, what this looks like and what time frames we are talking about I could only begin to imagine but one thing I am certain of and this is that children are a real joy and I can't wait for the next one, two, three or even four ; )

Crazy cousin session

It has been a really cool weekend, we have had lots of family come by and see us... More to see Caleb I suppose. Nicky & Ashley (my sister & her daughter) came through for lunch and spent a fair amount of time with us. So much so that Ash and Gabriella had time to do a "photo shoot"!

If you ask me this was all a bit of craziness ; ) but very cute so I had to put some of the pics up for the world to see the crazy that is the norm of my family

Our little genius and sleeper

Well I guess that the title of this post says it all, Gabby is the smartest 11 month old I know!

Really this girl of ours really is smart, this week it seems as if she has made huge steps forward... In the things she does to the things she says. She really is picking up things fast, this week while I was brushing my teeth and holding her she looked at me with this strange face so I wondered what she would don't she has a tooth brush of her own... So I gave her one and she stuck it in her mouth! Ok so that was a fluke, but two days later I went into the bathroom and and holding her again gave her the toothbrush and she puts it in her mouth and starts moving it back and forth... Ok so maybe not genius material but a proud daddy moment and I love it!

I have realised that Gabby loves sleep! In the past week her sleeps have really become loooooong, I told Debbie this morning "like mother like daughter" Debbie Sent me this pic while I was at work the other day while she was out at the shops... Nothing will stop her from having a sleep : ) when I spike to Debbie she told me that she was sitting upright and started nodding off so she put her down and off she went to lala land.

One thing we have been discussing lately is how blessed we are and have been by having this little girl in our lives, we are truly thankful to God for opening up doors in such a way that we could be together. Things don't merely happen by accident but most certainly by devine direction, We love you Gabriella and are grateful we could be part of your precious life in this world.

Close now

WOW its been a while since anything new has been put up here... sorry for that if you are a loyal follower.

There has been so much happening lately, 3 weeks to go before Caleb arrives and our little girl hits her 1st birthday in a little over a month. life truly is good and I am so glad that God has seen fit to show so much grace upon us. Our lives at the moment are pretty calm (thanks to the fact that Gabby is an amazing baby) but we think that it will be getting a bit crazy soon... but that's ok. God has put us in this place and will give us the strength we need to get through the days ahead.

An update on how our girl is crowning so fast, she is standing all by herself and moving around the furniture like a trooper! I think she is really close to walking, however for the sake of Debbie we are hoping that she will hang on a bit until Caleb is a bit older. She has also made some huge jumps in her vocab, , Deb has really done a fantastic job spending time talking to her and it is paying off... her latest trick is to "Taa" for something. It really is funny when Debs sits down on the couch with any sort of food stuff no matter where Gabby may be she goes into overdrive and crawls at warp speed over to Debs, pulls herself up and proceeds with the following "taa, taa, taa, taa..."

One of the other things we have started doing is getting Gabby into the shower, with Debbie getting bigger has made bath time a bit of a nightmare. So I decided to shower with her to help out, its really funny the noises she makes! It took about a week for to get used to the fact that the water falling on her is actually fun : ) she has now gotten so comfortable she doesn't even want to be held, she just goes on the shower floor and just plays in the water. This little girl really is a trooper and game for anything, and we love it!

Another thing we have been doing more frequently is going for a run, it's been getting cold so have had to wrap up warmly. On this particular day as we came around the corner I saw two other runners ahead of us and I pretty sure I heard Gabby say "go get em dad!" not really but it was fun to push past them and see there faces... One day she will say that and enjoy there surprise with me : )

Now what do I say about Caleb? He is getting big! At one stage we went to the gynae and he was over two kilos and growing rapidly... at the last visit he had slowed down slightly and was just under a 3 kilos. We have another visit this week so we will have an update that I will post later this week.

My first airplane ride

So this weekend we are off to Cape Town for the two oceans and a visit to my dad, a Gabby first on a plane : )

We really were not sure how this was going to go... I even told the young lady sitting next to me that I wasn't sure and I was sorry up front for what was about to happen!

Anyway, the plan was for Gabriella to sleep but she would have none of that... Sleep is so overrated. She was good though, unlike the other two screaming kids in the flight. I was really glad we were not that side of the plane by them, at one point it sounded like the Father gave one of th a smack but that just made it worse... The crying got louder and the plan just erupted in laughter!

In am hoping that the flight home will be better and the excitement of being on an airplane has worn off and out little girl will sleep.

What a week, in a good way

So this last week started out with a bang! We got a call last week to go and see the magistrate to do the final documentation for Gabriella to finally become a Payne. We were not really sure what to expect but Debs was really impressed by the conversation she had with the magistrate and said she sounded nice... Well she was super nice and we really had nothing to worry about, the longest part of the morning was the up and down in the elevator! Really it took like 15 min to get all the stuff done.

The other great part of the morning was that we got to share in the joy of the Richter Family as they also appeared before the magistrate to finalize the adoption of their daughter Danelle.

We also managed to finally get our family photos done, it has been rather hectic lately and to get Adam and us on the same day has really posed it's challenges. Anyways we finally managed to do it and had a real blast doing it... Both Adam and Sam (his wife) were truly sports in taking the pics and before we knew it we were on like 2000 photos! In the words of Sam... "you need to take hundreds to get that one perfect shot!"

Adam sent me a taster this afternoon of what to expect and I am like a cat in a hot tin roof in anticipation.

Then this Sunday we finally had our dedication for Gabriella, read up on this in the previous post "Our promise to you... Precious Gabriella" It was nice to have almost the entire family there for the occasion. I think the afternoon feast at our house was a welcomed last minute addition to the plans ; )

Our promise to you... precious Gabriella

We thank God for the Grace that he has given us and through faith the road that he has led us down to get to this point, that we can reflect our adoption in Christ through the life of Gabriella. We therefore acknowledge our responsibility to be intentional in our parenting and endevour through everyday talk to show Gabriella Christ who is the Lord and Saviour of our lives and make the best of every oppurtunity that presents itself to show our Saviour Jesus Christ to Gabriella.

We Commit ourselves to use the means of Grace that are given to us through the local Church and use every oppurtunity to expose Gabriella to the various ministries & teaching of the Church that are available to assist us in adorning the gospel to Her.

We understand and ackowledge that this is a mammoth task, and request that this our Family and our church to assist in this endevour. We call on you as family to be our eyes and ears when we cannot, and help us to raise this precious gift Gabriella in the nurture and admonition of the Lord for his honour and glory.

Business in the front... Party in the back

Something new

So today we had lunch after our WOC and one of the platers had chicken livers on it so I decided that this was a winner... And so did Gabriella, she liked it so much so that she kept coming back for more.

The aftermath wasn't so great but I suppose something new every now and then won't harm.

 

Our little girl is growing... at a rapid rate!

Well it's been a while since a post, our little girl is really growing up fast. Today she started crawling and it was one of those moments that we not really paying attention : )


My brother and his family came round for a visit and Gabriella was sitting on the table by his wife Tracy and while we were talking she decided to make her way across the table to Debbie... and then the penny dropped that she did that all by herself!
She has really had lots of milestone moments in the past weeks, we went on holiday a few weeks ago and she started sitting from a lie and even clapping and blowing kisses, my personal favorite was in that week she ate artichokes... yay for Gabby!!

 

Check out my new kicks!!

So today was Gabriella's first Christmas and it was really fun! We got to see the family again and got lots of really cool presents, Gabriella got this really cool pair of shoes from uncle Richard and aunty Claire. Check them out in the pics.

As soon as they got put on she started jumping up and down I couldn't get a pic of her standing up so had to get one sitting down : )

Bath time is the best!

Recently I was at work and one of my staff members asked if I would mind him going home a bit earlier than normal. Not a problem I said, the next day when he came in I asked if everything was alright and he said "everything was fine he just wanted to miss the traffic to make it home for his sons bath time"

Well I thought that was a bit odd, until little Ella arrived I didn't get it... but now that's another story! I really enjoy the bath times with little one, and I think she enjoys them too.

Here is a pic of what I get the privilege of  experiencing at the end of bath time : )

Dinner with our pals

Tonight was super fun, we went out for dinner with T-man and Ali... long overdue but well worth the wait.

Gabriella had fun too catching up with her pal in the way that babies do (not really sure how this works but it seems they get each other)

Awesome evening chatting about real things that matter... Life, kids, love and the Gospel!

Thanks to our pals for a fantastic evening

Happy fun times : )

So today we had all the cousins together at a birthday thing for Ashley and we managed to get all of them together for a really cool family photo.

Lots of happy fun times : )

Look I am a big girl now

So this week has been rather fun as we started Gabriella on solids, she started out with yuk rice cereal but today we moved onto butternut... yum yum and worth every photo. It was so cute but I don't think that little one enjoyed it so much.

There was a second highlight today...

Gabriella got to meet Grampa Mike and aunty Lynne that were up visiting all the way from Cape Town so I had to wear my cute new Christmas hat!

So she is home...

Its been a while since an update has gone out about our little girl, Yip she is home : ) and she has been for a while.

At one stage we were really worried about when it was going to happen but we are glad it has. Things have been good and it has been an amazing few weeks. Today Gabriella seems to have found her voice and won't stop talking...

An update to what I think this will be know as "Gabbys journal" will be posted again soon.

Our little girl isn't happy : (

Today was really not cool... we went go see Gabriella and she was boiling hot! And she wasn't her usual smiles and happiness, It wasn't fun to see but I suppose that's what its all about, taking the smiles with the groans.

Deb sat with her after see had fed and was keeping her content until she fell asleep...

Thankfully the panado kicked in and by the time we left she was much happier.