Fall!

October is here and with it came the cooler weather, finally. We've had constant mid-90's since our return from NY this summer, and now it's cool enough (70's and 60's) to get out a little more!

H3 and I have been enjoying daily walks and playing for hours outside. Well, more like her playing and me cleaning up the yard. Although I don't usually mind yardwork, it's not very high on my priority list when it's warm out. We have a huge tree out front that drops twigs and small branches whenever the wind blows, so there's a constant pile to pick up. In a few weeks, I'll be raking up leaves! My mom gave H3 some sidewalk chalk earlier this spring, and now she is putting it to use. She'll make little marks everywhere, then hand it to me for drawing shapes. She recognizes squares, circles, triangles, hearts, stars, and diamonds and can name them. Usually, she also wants me to "draw" a few numbers and the alphabet. At this point, she does know her numbers 1-10 on sight, and can pick out 12 or so letters in the alphabet. She can sing the "ABC" song, but just doesn't recognize all of them on paper yet. Once in a while she'll make an attempt at writing one, but of course I can't make out what it is unless she tells me! Haha!

A week of rain last week caused two football games to be rescheduled. One hasn't been put on the calendar yet, but the other was rescheduled to this past Saturday night. It was an away game, 3 hours away to be exact, and poor H1 didn't get home until 2am Sunday! We had to turn around and leave for church at 8:30 too. He was quite tired that day. The season hasn't been going too well for the team, but H1 says that the kids are learning, so there's a positive side to things. It's been amazing what God has been doing in his life this year, both with football and in school. Two moms requested that their sons be put into his class this past month. Both families were going through separation/divorce and both moms specifically said they wanted their boys to be in H1's class because the boys needed a male role model in their lives. Quite the compliment, yes, but the best part is that it's a tangible piece of evidence that God has him here for a purpose right now! Sometimes that's easy to forget.

The move here was a necessary one for our family because of job situations, but it was hard because we knew no one in this area and have no family anywhere close. Still, this has been a good school system, we have a wonderful church family, and God has brought some wonderful friends into our lives here. It's been just over 2 years since we came here, and it's good to look back and see what He's been up to!

Tonight's agenda is getting dinner together and going to our church home group. We are hoping to go apple picking this Saturday. Granted, we'll have to drive a couple hours since there isn't an orchard close, but I found one that offers you-pick for 50 cents/pound, which isn't bad at all. I'm hoping to get some fuji and granny smith apples. My dad always made the apple pie filling, put it into gallon zip-lock bags, and froze it to use at a later time. I want to do the same thing! Not to mention all the apple recipes I'm hoping to try out!

Now, let's see how long of a nap H3 takes this afternoon...

Blessings!
~H2