October

Happy October! Jack has reached an age where he is very excited about Halloween--even the spooky decorations--and so at his request we already have the house almost fully decorated for Halloween. Jared and I have a tradition of watching all the Harry Potter movies during September and October. This week we put up some floating candles in our dining room and it is VERY cozy. I'll try and remember to take a picture for next week's post. 

Jack is still loving kindergarten. Flag football season is in full swing and he is living his happiest football life. He has really wonderful/fun coaches and teammates. The kids are young enough that no one's keeping score at the games, but Jack has a knack for pulling flags and running touchdowns.

Alice is sweet as can be. She has started pretending to brush her hair when we hand her a brush, and pretending to pull on socks when she stumbles onto Jack's basket of socks by the front door. She also loves coloring scribbles onto paper when we hand her a crayon. I get so excited envisioning these next few years with a daughter who might love to color and pretend. It's going to be a cute time. 

Poor Jared came down with a nasty cold at the end of the week and tested positive for Covid last night. The rest of us are hanging in there so far. Prayers for continued health and for a speedy recovery for Jared. 

I'm enjoying the misty fall mornings and doing little home projects. The big things are all in place (at least downstairs) so at this point home projects are usually adding functionality or layers of coziness. The project I tackled last week accomplished both! Jack has been coming home from school with lots of papers and I needed a place to put the important ones so I wouldn't forget about them and tuck away the rest. My solution was an enormous magnet board right smack dab in the middle of our main living area. I got a huge piece of sheet metal from the hardware store. Very functional, but a bit of an eyesore. So I wrapped it in some leftover wallpaper from Alice's room and painted/glued some pieces of trim around the edges to frame it out. That made ALL the difference. Next I just need to get a file organizer to hang on the wall for the less important papers that still need a place to live. It's a great time in 30-something land. 

^^Somehow everyone on Jack's football team ended up with extra large jerseys. It's practically a dress but none of the kids seem bothered. Jack wore his jersey to "Fun Friday" at school. 

^^My new favorite beyond favorite picture on conference Saturday. Alice has been self-weaning. The timing is good but I was feeling a bit sad about losing the post-nap nursing cuddles. Luckily, this week we discovered that she'll relax for a snuggle if she's getting a foot massage! She takes after me in this department. Usually the stillness only lasts a couple minutes but I am very happy about this discovery.

^^Jack ambushing my usually solo walk with Savvy. "Mom can I run around this field before we walk? I'll just run around 2 times." And then he proceeded to run around it like 10 times, and then asked if he could run several more times after the walk was over. This kid. He wants us to sign him up for a race and I think that's an excellent idea.

^^Grandma Lambert blessed our home with several Halloween animatronic decorations. They are lots of fun and very cute. Jack especially loves to turn them all on simultaneously for an extra loud time.

^^Whenever Alice notices Savvy eating at the same time as her, she immediately plops her face into her food and starts eating doggy style.

^^Jared and Alice made this fort together in the playroom, and now whenever I'm getting Alice's bedroom ready for her to take a nap she books it for the playroom and I find her cuddled up in the fort.

^^Putting up the paper jack-o-lantern in the playroom window. 

^^We tried on this 2-yr-old duck costume just for fun. She hated it but glad we got this picture! We'll be going a different direction this Halloween.