So the big event that happened in our whirlwind two weeks?
Martha turned THREE!
I just want to cry writing that – I haven’t really processed it. She is growing up way too fast, much faster that she should be allowed.
So, on Tuesday of our week in Atlanta she turned 3. I wasn’t going to do anything (the goal was just to survive the week), but sweet Mary Stuart got special princess gear and made birthday pancakes complete with candles (above). Can you tell Martha loved it?
Then, Melissa and some others at MTW went above and beyond to bring another celebration to the childcare place so there was even more princess fanfare and Martha-celebration there. It was so special for her. I was so thankful for those who stepped up to love on her while we were away from home and I was feeling particularly “weak” and unable to do what I would have loved to do for her. It blessed my Martha, and it certainly blessed me.
In our family, we don’t do a ton of gifts. We have absolutely everything we need and our kids get so much extra treats from so many who love them and are so generous with them (THANK YOU!), so we have never done much with Christmas or birthday gifts for our kids. But I love gift giving and one thing that I love to “give” to my kids is a cake of their choice. In our house we remember a birthday by what kind of cake there was. For months Martha has been asking for a “Castle, Hello Kitty, Belle cake”. I knew I wanted to make her one but was starting to give up on the idea as time marched on and we were quite busy.
Well, with Karyn leaving Friday and knowing that having Aunt Karyn here for her birthday celebration would be so special (and unique, as we have way TOO FEW days of the year with Aunt Karyn), I decided to try to pull it off on Thursday. We had a girls day at the beach in the mornin/early afternoon, grabbed supplies on the way home, threw the cake in the oven as soon as we got in the door, and got the girls down for naps.
All I can say is “Praise the Lord” that he led me to go ahead with it. I can’t tell you how blessed I was to see how happy my girl was when she got up from her nap and saw her cake. She sat there watching me put the finishing touches on it and just kept saying, “I love my cake, Mommy,” “Thank you, Mommy,” and “You are such a nice mommy.” It was so precious. She just beamed all through dinner. I was SO thankful we took the time to celebrate her that night.
Martha and Aunt Karyn - our super special birthday guest!
cousins, too, are super special birthday guests. and such champs for fitting in an impromptu birthday party into their schedule!
"happy birthday dear Martha"
Happy Happy Birthday to Our Martha-moo. We can’t imagine our lives or this world without the brightness of your precious life. We rejoice in the beautiful person you are and anticipate with great joy the woman our Lord is already shaping you into.
While it would be easy for me to say I am glad to leave your “terrible twos” behind – for they were pretty typical in many ways – I am not. Yes, they were hard, harder than I expected. Your fierce passions – joy, sadness, anger, excitement, fear – threw me for a curve ball to be sure. I prayed many a time for wisdom in how to teach you that your intensity was good and God-given, but also that it needs to be channeled and disciplined. That looked like a lot of praying for self- control (for both of us!). But the twos brought such sweet revelation of more of who you are and how God made you. I have absolutely loved getting to know you better.
One of my favorite things you started this year, and I hope you will do for a long long time, is whispering “I love you, Mommy” to me. Sometimes I hear it, sometimes I only see it mouthed on your lips, but rarely a day goes by that you don’t voluntarily offer those precious words to me, and usually several times a day. When that proverbs talks about children rising and calling their mother blessed, this probably isn’t what it’s talking about, but it makes me think of that nonetheless. It certainly helps me love mothering you and your sisters even more than I already do.
In fact, that’s one of my favorite things about you – you never let people go without knowing they are loved. You hate leaving or having others leave – especially your daddy or mommy or sisters – without adequately showing your love for us, which is usually several kisses and at least one good hug.
Another thing I adore about you is your heart for others. I am always amazed at your “sharefulness”. Many conflicts over stuff in our home end with you willingly, voluntarily giving something up so that anther person will be happy. You’ve done this from an early age and it never ceases to amaze me when you give up your “right” to have or play with something. I see Jesus when you do that and it has often humbled and convicted me. I pray the Lord will keep your heart tender to others and able to love people more than things.
I love how you always pray in thank you’s. As in, “Thank you for Daddy’s test.” “Thank you for Gloria to feel better.” “Thank you for my baby brothers to come home soon.” I know you don’t even realize what you are saying, but your Daddy and I often remark that your prayers are prayers of faith in a God who answers. It reminds us and encourages us.
I love your smile – so intense, so completely all over your face, so disarming and uplifting all at the same time. God did such a good job when he gave you that smile.
And your voice! I just want to bottle it up and never forget the way your words and thoughts and questions and prayers and ideas and imagination fill our home in these fleeting days of your toddlerhood. I love hearing your way of saying your Bible verses. I love more when you connect them to real life. It’s amazing to see glimpses of your mind at work.
I love that you are such a little lady, but with a toughness and sense of adventure that leaves me totally guessing what you’ll “be” one day.
Oh girl, I could go on and on. What a precious year, what a precious LIFE! May you never doubt how much we treasure you – all of you – and praise the Lord for the wonderful way he crafted our Martha Evangeline Noll and continues to do that. We are just so amazed and blessed and humbled to be part of your life and to have front row seats to it.
I pray for you this “lulluby” I’ve sung to you so often since before you born:
“Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts, Thou fount of life, thou light of men, from the best bliss that earth impart, we turn, unfilled to Thee again.
We taste Thee, oh Thou living bread, and long to feast upon Thee still. We drink of Thee the fountain head, and thirst, our souls from Thee to fill.
Our restless spirits yearn for Thee, wherever our changeful lot is cast, Glad when Thy gracious smile we see, blest when our faith can hold Thee fast.
Oh Jesus ever with us stay, make all our moments calm and bright, Chase the dark night of sin away, shed over the world Thy holy light.”
Can’t believe this monkey turned ONE this last Tuesday!
Gloria is such sunshine in our lives and it was a special week with many fun things to celebrate this precious girl. It started Monday night with our group of close seminary friends. We have “family night” every 2 weeks where we get together for food and fellowship with 6 other couples, all the husbands of whom are classmates with Eric. Glo LOVED the happy birthday song, and chowed down on her piece of pumpkin bread and whipped cream (I did too! Thanks, Christie 
). I was enjoying it so much I forgot to take photos!
Tuesday morning we had our traditional birthday pancakes. This photo is right before she stuck her hand in the flame and I yelled for her to stop. She didn’t cry from the burn or the yell. So grown up…
And then on Friday, when all her FL cousins (that is, all her cousins except for Baby O – we missed him!) were back in town, we had a little celebration brunch with sorbet cones after. I wanted to make her a sunshine cake, but it just didn’t happen. Eric says if there is ever a year to not make the cake, the first birthday is the one to do it on. So, we plopped a candle in her sorbet and she was just as happy.
8 of 10 little cousins…
We also celebrated her baptism this morning at church, which was made extra special by my big brother Jonathan performing the ceremony. I’ll try to post photos and maybe a video later this week.
I can’t believe my baby is 1! It is so crazy to me, and terribly sad that she is growing up so very fast. But wow, there is so much joy in watching her grow too. She has begun to walk, she communicates quite effectively, and is such a lover of people. We just adore her!
We praise you, Lord, for Gloria Kathleen Noll and the incredible addition she is to our lives!
I can’t believe this tiny little baby:
is now this big, beautiful girl:
(who just had a hair cut * and learned to hold up four fingers).
We celebrated with a family dinner and birthday cake with our down-the-street cousins on Monday, her birthday. 
And then had a little picnic party at the park with some friends (some of whom are also cousins, of course )today. 
We went to one of our favorite parks that has some fabulous playgrounds and a splash pad as well.
We had a wonderful picnic lunch.
And of course, some birthday cake. She requested a rainbow this year. 
Happy birthday, my big, sweet girl! How I praise the Lord for your life and celebrate who He made you to be!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*I cut the girls’ hair the other day in hopes that it would help it thicken up a bit, and, in Martha’s case, eliminate the mullet effect. Here are some photos:
Translation:
Happy Birthday, Martha!!
On March, our Martha-girl turned two. What?!?!? I know, I can’t believe it. To celebrate, we had a lovely picnic at the park with some friends two weeks ago.
Most of the friends who came to celebrate. There were 4 two-year-olds in the bunch.
It was a beautiful day, perfect for a picnic!
Cake Time!
We had butterfly cupcakes:
*see Martha’s face? She faceplanted on the driveway the night before. Poor baby!
The dads had some time to chat…
and so did the mommies (while cuddling babies, of course!)
It was such a special special day to celebrate a very special little girl!
We love you, little Martha-Monkey!
WOW! This girl is growing so much. I just love watching (and wondering) how that mind is working and then realizing all the things she is taking in. I know I say this all the time, but really, it is just so fun watching her learn and figure everything out and then to see what she has figured out through what she says. It’s amazing and I love this stage of her life.
That being said, I have to admit that I have had a rude awakening this last few months. Everyone talks about the terrible twos. But in our situation, parenting the twos was super fun and it’s the threes (this whole month and a half of them so far) that has really thrown us for a loop. Our compliant, easy-going, rule-keeping girl has discovered she has a will (and it’s strong!), the ability to reason with words, and that it’s a struggle for Mom and Dad (well, just Mom really) to be consistent 100% of the time. She tests the limits of obedience a lot more now, and often uses excuses (sometimes “good” ones… she must have learned from me) for why she doesn’t obey. It has been hard, extremely frustrating at times, but has brought me to my knees more than anything else in parenting so far, which is a wonderful thing. It’s also wonderful because I am learning a lot about my own sin (hello, impatience!) and of my heavenly Father’s long-suffering with me. There is something so sweet about being able to tell my daughter that I know it is hard to obey and hard to understand why to obey. It’s sweet to confess my own sins to her and ask her forgiveness. And it’s so sweet to hear her own prayers of confession and requests for the Lord’s help in obedience. It has been a sweet journey, with lots of up and downs, and I wouldn’t trade the Threes for anything.
A big thing that has taken off recently for Noa has been her imagination. She has dabbled in imaginary friends – usually real friends that she was pretending were with her when they weren’t. But she now consistently has a little friend named “Dora” (and she has never watched that show about the explorer… hmmm) who does most things with her. It is pretty cute and we are trying to figure out how appropriately play along and encourage her imagination.
She also imagines a ton of other random things throughout the days and it’s fun to watch. Just yesterday she ran to the door and knocked on it from the inside, and said, “Oh, whose here?”. Looking out the curtain, she exclaimed, “it’s the prince! He’s here”. She quickly opened the door, let the prince in, then said, “and he brought his friend Zacchaeus!”
Speaking of the prince, she has traded in The Sound of Music, Heidi, and Annie for the all-time little girl classic Cinderella. Oh my goodness. Everything is relate-able to Cinderella these days. And we have this sweet little girl to thank:
This is Bella and Noa dressed up for trick-or-treating. Noa was just a “blue princess” until we borrowed the DVD from them on Halloween night. And they have been so sweet to not want it back yet, as that is the only movie the girls want to watch (Martha is under Noa’s persuasive spell… I don’t think she cares, and she doesn’t really watch all that much anyway). I don’t mind. It is a really sweet story and one of the only Disneys we’ll let them see for a few years.
Amazingly, the obsession with babies has died down a bit. I think it has to do with the fact that the real baby in our midst takes a lot of the baby attention so the baby dolls don’t get as much. Still, she loves to use this mini-sling I made her for her birthday, especially when I have Glo in my sling:
(oops, sorry for the poor photo quality…)
I really love these photos… the busy princess-mommy hard at work packing:
Yep, that pretty much summarizes all the play that goes on around here: princesses, babies, and packing to “move to America.”
In other Noa news, I think we are over that little speed bump in potty training that we were having a few weeks ago. She is back to being a quite responsible little toilet-user. In fact, last night was her first night without pull-ups for bed (we ran out) and she was so excited to finally be allowed to sleep in underwear. I have to admit I think I am more excited than she is. We celebrated with a pancake breakfast.
I think that’s it for now. I want to be done writing about her and go get her up from her nap and snuggle her.
NOT.
I will snuggle her but there’s no way I am trading in the last few precious moments of nap time with all three down. In fact, I am going to go get all the chores done that I don’t need (read: want) any little helping hands with
It’s crazy to think this little girl has been here for 3 weeks and 2 days! She has grown so much and changed in her little life already, and so have the rest of us. We have loved every moment – well, most of them – and it’s already hard to remember what life was like before she was part of us in this way (out of my belly). 
Gloria still loves to sleep! She sleeps about 18-20 hours a day still. It’s hard for me to remember if her older sisters slept this much, it’s crazy! And I am very thankful that in just the last few days she has responded pretty well to falling asleep in her bed, as opposed to my arms. I think with every kid I start this process a little earlier, and it is going great. I am not strong enough to let her “cry it out”, but I am doing better about giving her a chance to fall asleep on her own at every nap and bedtime. But I still just savor the sweetness of sleeping babe on my chest and indulge that treat every once in a while too. That being said, here are some photos of her sleeping everywhere BUT her bed.
in the sling,
in her carseat,
on Aunt Martha.
Gloria is eating great! Still at 3 hour intervals during the daytime, and 3-5 hour intervals at night (I think. I’m not very coherent during those times so I’m not really sure). At her two week check-up last week she weighed in at 9 pounds! Today when I weighed her with me, she was around 10. She is definitely packing the pounds, but thankfully doesn’t take a long time to eat. I don’t think her sisters would be too happy if she did. I love this photos of her and my mom cause you can see her skinny little leg sticking out. 
I feel like you can see her weight gain the most in her chubby cheeks: 
She continues to be adored by her big sisters. Martha has adjusted to big-sisterhood much like Noa did with her: I don’t think she even recalls when Gloria wasn’t here and has just taken it all in stride. She often pauses from her play in order to come put her face real close to Glo’s and say (in her high imitating-mommy-talking-to-the-baby voice), “Hiiiiiiiiii”. She loves to give her kisses and hold her hands and feet and rock her in her carseat, bassinet, or bouncy seat. Today, she asked to hold her for the first time and lasted about 5 seconds, but did wonderfully. I am so thankful for how well she is adjusting. 
Noa, our baby-lover, has done great as well, but surprised us a few times. She loves all things pertaining to Gloria and her care and really is so sweet to her. However, every once in a while we have seen some signs of hostility and she has asked twice if Gloria could go back into my belly. Also, after about 3 weeks of being completely accident-free and officially potty-trained, she has had several accidents since the novelty of the new baby and my mom being here wore off. We have struggled to know how to help and love her through this, and are pretty sure it’s all just part of her adjustment and very normal. And these little discouragement really are very small compared to the constant joy she brings to our home, along with incredible entertainment in what she does and says regularly. I am so thankful for the sweet little girl that she is and so thankful for the example and help she is with her little sisters.
*funny story: Noa dressed herself to be a cowgirl yesterday, complete with the horsey shirt and boots. As Eric was loading them into the car for me, She ran out to the garage and yelled “Here comes the cowboy!” One of many comments that makes us look at each other and ask, “whose kid is this?!?”
So now you know how our Glo-girl is growing and a little bit of how our family is growing with her, and in love with her. We are so blessed and thankful for her life, and for how the Lord has made this transition so smooth and sweet.
And here’s one more photo, epitomizing what I get when I try to get a picture of our children together. Noa can’t stop looking at Gloria to try to get her to smile; Martha can’t stop moving, and Gloria throws her hands up in exasperation of it all (and spits up on the carpet instead of the burp cloth. great.).
