October begins

And it already feels like a race to the finish.

At least we started off with a relaxing conference weekend.  I loved the opportunity to be fed spiritually, as well as enjoy some tasty food all weekend.

Currently, Natalie is interested in using the bathroom.  She takes her clothes off herself, and sits on the toilet herself, but has yet to do something productive in there.  I'm hesitant to try full-on toilet training.  I usually prefer to wait until a little closer to three years old and then do day and night training all in one fell swoop.  When I have done that, my kids have been quick, mess-free, and basically trained in two days.  I don't think Natalie's really ready yet, so we'll just let her practice on her own for a while.  At least until I get a little more motivated.

Kenna is anxiously waiting to turn four. She's realized that her birthday isn't too far away and is already making plans.  So cute.  If you wondered - she wants a butterfly cake again.

Hannah is back in piano lessons this year with a new teacher and having a great time with her.  Her school work is keeping her very busy.  It's like she grew up all of a sudden.  Her schedule resembles the one I remember having in high school - what with sports, music practice, school, YW, etc.  Really?  Already?  We watched some movie the other night and part of it showed a kid heading off to college and I think Josh and I both got a little misty-eyed thinking that in 4 years we'll be helping Hannah make her college plans.

Brynne is doing well.  She's getting a reputation on the soccer team for being the fastest runner.  Sound familiar?  She has also been so good about wearing her glasses for reading.  Headaches have almost completely disappeared.  I have to thank Shannon for providing the motivation/inspiration for her to finally get over whatever was bugging her about wearing glasses.  She's got some new ones and looks adorable!

After 6 weeks of soccer, Logan finally received his uniform this weekend.  I cannot tell you how annoyed I was with the soccer league.  I signed him up and paid for the uniform in MAY.  They ran out of uniforms because they had so many people sign up after the uniform order was placed.  I was frustrated that most of those kids received their uniforms before Logan did.  Grrr.

Both soccer teams that our kids are playing on are winning every game.  That is a big change from past years!  Logan is by far the youngest, smallest, and most inexperienced player on his team, but he's doing a great job holding his own against kids who are seriously two years older and twice his size. 

So a little update on how my family schedule is going that I posted earlier this year:
We took music practice out of the pre-breakfast routine.  It seemed so ironic that after months of waking up at 6am, both little girls suddenly started sleeping in and it was music practice that was waking them up.  I've been happier that they are sleeping a little more, and I don't feel any need to wake them up!  Other than that, things are going well.  I'm working on organizing and streamlining my menu-planning so that it takes less work overall.  I've got lists of family favorite recipes and am collecting them all in one big binder.  I love collecting recipes and have tons, but this binder is just for the recipes that are tried and proven and pretty much everyone is happy when I make them for dinner.

I've been feeding Kenna and Natalie lunch at 10am.  Weird, right?  They are so hungry at that time and it was getting hard to find healthy snacks that would keep them going till lunch, without making them be too full for lunch.  They would eat all morning and then not eat lunch.  So I decided to feed them their lunch at 10, and give them a snack - or more lunch - at 12.  It's actually working great.  They have the same snack every day.  Peanut butter bread.  If they eat it all, they get jelly bread.  If they eat all that and are still hungry, I give them some fruit.  Usually they are done after the two pieces of bread with peanut butter and jelly, but if not they get yogurt or cheese.  At lunch time I make sure they have whatever they didn't get to on the snack line-up, or maybe some leftovers.  Full bellies definitely equal happier girls.

I'm back in my bread-making habit and have found a brand of flour that I LOVE for making bread.  I've been buying King Arthur brand whole white wheat.  It makes tasty bread, and I love knowing that it's whole wheat - I don't even need to use half white flour.  We have gotten so hooked on homemade bread.  If I forget or don't have time to make bread, the store-bought bread lasts forever in our cupboard because no one wants to eat it.  It's funny because we've been eating it for decades, but now it tastes bland and so dry.  Someday I'll probably get a good wheat grinder, but for now I recommend the King Arthur brand!

Logan did a report on Tigers.  He researched, told me what he learned, made a poster, and then gave an oral report to the family.  Logan still struggles with writing feeling totally overwhelming to him, so I helped him write our his report, but all the information came from him.  He learned some interesting things!

The girls making carrot cake muffins.

 Yesterday the three older kids came racing downstairs to tell Josh and I that it smelled like smoke and that they could see lots of ashes falling from the sky.  After a little investigation we found there was a fire in the brush at the end of our street.  The firefighters went to a different street to fight it, so we didn't get to witness all the action - but we did get to see all the people drive/walk/ride by who must listen to police scanners in their spare time.  Interesting.  Also, did you know that there's an app for that?  Seriously.  It amazes me what sorts of things you can do with a cell phone these days.