Category: Uncategorized (Page 62 of 201)

We’ve started our Thankful Jar again this year.

Every night at supper we each say something we are thankful for and I jot it on a slip of paper and add it to the jar.  I think this is our 3rd year doing this.  The first year was super hard to remember to do it every day, and then last year we were a little better at remembering, and now this year I think we’ve got it figured out.  In fact, it’s the kids who are most excited to do it every night!  I can barely walk in from teaching and sit down at the dinner table before they are excitedly telling me they are ready to tell me what they are thankful for.

This is a “Fall tradition” that I didn’t actually mean to create, but somehow it’s become our thing.  And I love it.  And isn’t that the best kind of tradition?  The kind that springs up just spontaneously in your family?  I hope we can continue this for many years,  eventually adding Maddie to the conversation and eventually little Levi will get a say too.

And it’s been a good thing  for me recently.  In my overwhelming days (which I admit are outweighing my normal days right now) I sometimes have a hard time thinking of things I’m thankful for.  It’s too easy to complain about what DIDN’T go my way today, or what I DIDN’T get accomplished, or what I’m unhappy about.  It makes me stop and look around me.

So, today I am thankful for the thankful jar.  🙂

I’m too wiped out to actually write anything today.  I’ve come down with a nasty cold that has wiped out what little energy I had left… So, here’s a picture to tide you over.  🙂

The kids and I have been enjoying learning how to play Mancala.  Josiah in particular loves it.  He’s even started to beat me… no joke.

We had another fun evening trick-or-treating with our friends tonight.  Our kids were dressed as a Crazy Cat Lady, Hiccup (from How to train Your Dragon) and a cute little dragon.  We decided to leave Levi home this year with Tim.   Maddie really enjoyed wearing the costume except she didn’t want the head piece on.  She lasted about 5 houses and then said “All done” so we brought her back home.  Jen came over and came along trick-or-treating which is always nice since I traditionally peeter out after about 30 min. and the kids and Jen can go for at least another hour.  It’s a win win!

Along the way we encountered a house that we see every year with pumpkins all over the front lawn.  It’s quite impressive.  I can’t remember if I’ve posted a picture of it before or mentioned it… but I took more pictures this year.   They are foam pumpkins so he adds more every year.

Today Josiah had a party at preschool today and they were able to attend in costume.  I realized this on yesterday morning.

At which point I realized we didn’t have any costumes that fit him…  and if I had more energy I would have simply created a costume out of something that we already have.  But that was just too much for me this week.

So, I flitted over to my favorite destination (Amazon.com) and was happy to find a costume that should work nicely for a steal of a price–it will arrive on Friday.  Hmm…. that didn’t help me much for today’s party.  So, I mentioned my dilemma to my friend (Zeke’s mom) and she said she had a few extra costumes just laying around!  Hooray!  So, she graciously offered to let Josiah borrow one.

And let me tell you–he LOVES it.  He has worn the mask for pretty much a day straight.  In fact he’s worn it so much that it has left an indent in his hair.  And he’s been running around defeating bad guys all over the house and doing heroic leaps.  Its adorable.

Sorry, it’s not a true Wordess Wednesday, but I have to give a little background to this video: I took this just over two weeks ago, simply to show life right now. It’s noisy. 🙂 But life is definitely noisy at this stage of life. I’m sure someday I’ll miss the hubbub of little kids, but right now I miss the quiet!

Josiah made this picture this morning (with stickers) and he was very excited to show me his name on the back. We’ve been working on making the “S” curve the right way…

I started teaching again yesterday.  Yup.  My maternity leave is officially over.  Seriously, I think I blinked and it was gone.

It actually went really well–except it’s going to take a few days for the kids to get back into the groove of me teaching again.  It means they have to get used to playing in a more confined space and need to be quieter.  Plus Tim has the added difficulty of trying to keep Maddie out of trouble and away from Levi.  It’s definitely going to keep him on his toes!

We decided that it would be too much to ask a nanny to come this fall, so Tim is going to come home just a smidgen early for the next couple of weeks.  It just seemed like to much to ask a teenager to wrangle 4 kids… one of those being an active toddler and another being an unpredictable one month old!

Last week I didn’t post anything because I was busy lamenting the fact that it was my last week off.  🙂  Yup.  So instead of being productive, I savored the feeling of being able to just sit around and do nothing.  Well, kind of.  I mean we still had to get some things done… I got a hair cut,  tried out a new grocery service at WalMart (more on that later), taught the kids how to play Mancala, mowed the lawn, and we even had our family pictures taken.  But I didn’t do a good job of keeping up wit h the house–especially the laundry, so now I’m dealing with piles and piles of clothes this week…

But before I go here’s a picture of Levi from this past week.  He’s officially one month old. Whoo hoo!  (Notice his shirt says, “Nap like a BOSS” hehe!)