September Moments

Here's a few random moments from September.

Elise and I played with tangram puzzles together one day during quiet time. 

Elise got her hair curled for the first time and LOVED it.  She was so patient and held still like a trooper too.  I think we will do her hair like this for Halloween!

Isaac and his friend Z built an entire Lincoln Log city.

I made and decorated a mini cake with Activity Day girls and brought it home to share with the kids. It got quite the reaction.  I guess cakes are very exciting.  :)

I set up a pom pom drop to try to occupy Caleb, but all 3 kiddos ended up liking it.  It was just a paper towel roll chute and you picked up a pom pom and dropped it down the chute and it landed in a bowl below.  It's the simple things. 

Elise and I playing a one to one jewel game together another day during quiet time. It was pretty fun and helped her with her counting and one-to-one correlation.

Then there was that time when I was craving peanut butter cookies and I dropped the whole cookie mix on the floor on accident (19 weeks prego).  Sad story.  (But we recovered from the incident by making rice krispie treats - so we turned out okay in the end).  

In the gorgeous fall weather we ate outside a BUNCH.

Here's an outfit that Jeremy claimed matched based on the "Jersey test".  One morning Jeremy was getting Caleb dressed. He pulls out a shirt and pants and looks at them. "Do these match?" he asks me. Then, before I can respond he continues... "Oh wait - I got this. The pants are red and navy blue and white. The shirt has navy blue and white too. So those obviously match. Besides red, white, and blue go together because of America.   The only real question here is the yellow stripe in the shirt.... does it go with the red pants? I'll do the jersey test. Is there a professional sports team with red and yellow in its jersey? Yes. Kansas City Chiefs. So, red and yellow go together - so yes, the outfit definitely matches." Ha! Pure awesomeness. Looks like I better be the one to teach the kids how to tell if their clothes match.

One Saturday Jeremy and I cleaned out the garage for a few hours and the kids played so happily together... especially in this huge refrigerator box. 

We watched football on the projector in the family room.  Happy Jeremy!

Jeremy taught Isaac how to throw a Frisbee (and Isaac got really good at it!).

And Isaac and Elise discovered worms.

There were of course a million moments that went un-photographed. But those are just a few random moments from our September.

Service Club in September

Isaac and Elise are part of a Service club that I started this Fall.  It is just 4 moms and our kids (ages 3-7) and we try to do 2 service activities each month.  In September we decorated service jars and filled them with slips of paper of acts of service that we could do at home.  Isaac did ALL of the slips of paper on his own.  One night he surprised me and set the table for dinner.  He made notes to mail to his grandparents and served his siblings as well.  I was so happy with his enthusiasm about it!

Later in September we had the opportunity to make and assemble sack lunches to give to the homeless.  We made over 65 lunches!  The kids got to help spread the mayo, put the cheese on the sandwiches, bag the cookies, put the bags of chips into the sacks, etc... They got to do it all!  It was very hands on.  Isaac and Elise both chipped in and worked very hard.  It was a beautiful experience to share as a family, as we talked about how grateful we are for our home and our food and our daddy's job.  I am so grateful that we get to learn and serve as a family!!!

Adventures on the Driveway

We have been thoroughly enjoying the fall weather and spending a TON of time playing outside on our driveway.  When we bought this home, I was glad that the home was on a cul-de-sac and had a flat driveway... but I had no idea how valuable those features would actually be!!!  We LOVE our huge flat SAFE driveway!!  We ride bikes and scooters, draw with sidewalk chalk, play in the rice bin, kick balls, throw footballs, push the cozy coupe around, jump on the mini trampoline... our driveway provides HOURS and HOURS of fun.

Before we moved to this home the kids never really got to ride bikes, so it has been fun this year to watch them enjoying that.  This fall we decided to get Elise a real bike with training wheels (instead of just a tricycle) and we were lucky to find a cute used one for $10!  It was a great find and a joy to watch her learn and gain confidence riding it.  Isaac made a lot of progress on his bike and got braver and braver going around the cul-de-sac and venturing out of the driveway.  He also spent a lot of his time outside playing football (and a million other games with a million other balls!).  Caleb knows no fear.  It's a bad thing!  For at least a month he played a fun "game" of running as fast as he could straight into the middle of the cul-de-sac.  Yikes!  He likes his cozy coupe a lot, but desperately wants to ride tricycles and scooters like the big kids.   

Elise's Prechool: B is for Body

It was our turn to host preschool this week and it was a joy to see Elise and her friends so excited to be together and learning!  Elise was happy to have a turn for preschool at her house.  We learned about the letter B and our bodies.  We read books, sang songs, played games, ate snacks, practiced writing our names, and drew outlines of ourselves in sidewalk chalk on the driveway outside.  Isaac and Caleb got to join in on the fun as well.  Isaac was a great designated "helper" and Caleb... well, let's just say that he was enthusiastic and liked to be involved.

Soccer!

Isaac is playing soccer on a co-ed club team this fall.  He has been eagerly anticipating the start of the season and we are excited to watch him practice, learn, and PLAY!!!  Soccer practice is every Wednesday evening from 5:30-6:30 pm and then he gets to play a game every Saturday morning. 

Ballet Class

Elise is in her first Ballet class this fall and she is SO excited about it!  Seriously, this little girl LOVES to dance.  She dances all the time and was counting down the days to her first ballet class.  

On her first day of class she walked into my room (2 1/2 hours before her class would start!) all dressed and ready to go - wearing a leotard, tutu, and her ballet shoes. She then proceeded to point her toes "because that is how they do it in ballet". After that she happily pranced back to her room to "warm up" and read more books about ballet.  She was SO EXCITED!!  Anyway, finally the time came to leave for her ballet class and, of course, she did great.  She eagerly ran up to meet her teacher and participated like a champ.  That is, until I walked back into the class at the end to pick her up.  The moment she saw me she broke into sobs saying "I don't want ballet to be over!" over and over again...  So then we started counting down the days until ballet class NEXT week.  

Elise's First Day of Preschool

Elise started preschool!  She is in a co-op preschool this year.  It's just one morning a week (Tuesdays 9:30-11:45 am).  Each week the kids focus on a theme from one letter of the alphabet.  Nothing fancy, but lots of fun.  There are 5 little friends in the group - and I love them all!  Such fun kids and mommies.  I am grateful that Elise and I get to participate in the group together.  Elise loves it and was so excited for her first day!!  She did great - just big smiles as she ran off to play with her friends - and excited chatter telling me all about it when she came home.  Perfect.

L-R: Joshua Jones, Charlotte Redd, Kailey McGowan, Elise Johnston, Sara Laudie

Trip to Arizona: The Cabin

The last 4 days of our trip to Arizona were spent with my whole family at my parent's cabins in northern AZ  at our first official Niland Family Reunion!  It was so nice to have my whole family together and even my mom's parents (Grandmom and Grandad) were able to come and join us for the event. 

The family reunion was blissful!!!  It was 4 days in gorgeous pine trees and beautiful weather (with no cell phone reception - no internet - not even a land line phone to distrupt the peace) - with my favorite people in the whole world. Camp fires, 4 wheeler rides, looking at stars, naps in hammocks, beautiful pine tree fresh air, baseball games in the meadow, fort making, yummy food, digging in dirt and climbing on rocks, collecting pine cones, rocking on the front porch, cousins sleeping in the same bed just because they couldn't part with each other, papa bedtime stories, evening devotionals and awesome skits, wishes at Chris's, hikes, treasure hunts, picking wild flowers, grown ups staying up late playing games, MORE yummy food, long wonderful chats...  like I said.  It was blissful!

At the end of the family reunion our Arizona adventure came to a close... and we sailed away on our flight back home to Missouri.  We are so grateful for all of the family that we were able to see (and for all of them for driving us around and hosting us at their homes!).  It was a wonderful trip!!