Lots of painting by Jude on his new art easel-
and recycling it into some lovely gift wrap for Christmas!

Turning our living room into some cozy little play houses…

A 3 year old getting over his fear of owls…

Hours of playing with cars…

…and two brothers having the best of times!

What we have not been up to:

*Sleeping- not that we don’t try, it’s just that convincing a
7 month old to go back to sleep at night is easier said than done!

*Keeping up on housework- lately I’ve been thinking how fast the time goes with kiddos and have had a fun week putting off housework to just be with and play with the boys more than I usually do.

*Did I mention sleeping? I seem to forget things easily these days…

What have you been up to?

Apples from a walk in the woods that made a yummy crisp last night and a bowl full of Autumn- my take on a ‘nature table’- a big beautiful bowl filled with findings from the outside world on our walks this fall.

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which
God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.
~George Washington Carver

What abut you? Do you have any ideas for bringing the outdoors in
or celebrating the beginning of cozy fall days?

The mornings are starting to be a little chilly around here and our schedule is growing full. In the midst of the day to day living I really desire to be purposeful about my time with our kiddos, as moments become hours, hours become days, and days slip by faster than you can say happy birthday! Jude is almost 3, with an excitement for cars, trains, the outdoors, and baby animals. (He cuddled a small plastic dolphin he named ‘Joey the baby dolphin’ to sleep last night and walked out of his room with it this morning!!:) He also has a growing curiosity about letters and numbers, so this month I’m starting some ABC activities- fun and simple little games and books. I’ll focus on one letter a month. I found a great book that goes through the alphabet with a scripture and little story/lesson for each letter that we have started using- the book is called My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt. The devotions are a little over Jude’s head so I just make up one that goes with the verse. The first one is ‘A soft answer turns away wrath’ and I can’t tell you how appropriate that has been for Jude, who is learning not to scream ‘NO’ at people (especially me!) when he gets upset. I’ve also been using the library to check out books on leaves, seeds, China (Jude loves looking at the pictures of the dragon costumes and children) and ABC books. My Mum, who is a kindergarten teacher, (and an amazing one might I add!) has some great ideas for fun letter activities that I’ll share as we do them.

Resources:

*My ABC Bible Verses

*Free printable calendar pages

24 lbs of tomatoes picked by us on Friday became
one huge batch of some delicious spaghetti sauce…

…and four jars of garden fresh salsa with 3 kinds of peppers.

Not pictured: some sweet & tart strawberries that were frozen for
smoothies and spooned over waffles this morning! It’s been a good eatin’ weekend!! Knowing where our food comes from and making things from scratch: very, very rewarding.

We are enjoying some family time this weekend before the fun and craziness of our fall schedule starts up again. On Saturday night we went to see the Spokane Symphony play a free concert in the park- it was so awesome sitting on blankets with our friends as the sun set and the music filled the air. Jude danced and commented that the trumpet solo ’sounded like a storm’. It’s cool and cozy today and fall is in the air- I love it! We’re sipping on coffee while Jude dances to Beatles music and contemplating what we’ll be doing today. What have you been doing with your holiday weekend?

From our growing little garden… a humble salad of baby lettuce, spinach, and sliced radish. I don’t think I’ve been that excited about a salad (and such a simple one at that) in a long time- because I GREW IT! I may have a green thumb after all! We paired our salad with lasagna and strawberry rhubarb crisp with home made vanilla ice cream. Next year I plan to get a patch of strawberries and rhubarb in along with all my veggies in early Spring, until then we have a farm about 10 minutes from us that doesn’t spray any of their crops and you can go pick your own fruits and veggies for pretty good prices. Both strawberries and rhubarb freeze well when sliced and frozen on a cookie tray, then packed into freezer safe bags or containers. The crisp I made last weekend used up the last of my frozen strawberries frozen from last summer! Here’s my favorite crisp recipe:

We also had an end of the year pool party for our middle school youth ministry- Fusion. Jude got to hang out with a bunch of sweet girls and swim, he wasn’t ready to go home when it was over!:) We are closing out our (almost) 2nd school year with the 6th through 12th graders at our church and are so blessed to be doing what we’re doing.

I thought this article was interesting- it details how much energy is used up by our tv’s, laptops, etc. and how much we could save per year if we shut them off when not in use.

Coming soon… videos of the boys and more about Andrew’s China outreach!