Father and Son...

Joel loves this outfit of his from when he was little. I forgot to put it on Sam last summer and this summer so when Joel got Sammy dressed this morning he remembered to put it on him:) Soooo cute. The shorts are a bit short, but those knobby knees are so cute that I don't think it matters much.


He wore it proudly to the Treehouse Museum this morning:) Here are some pictures of cowboy Sam from the museum.



Where was Amelia in all of this you ask? Well, she is having one of these kind of days:

Ah well, we all have them I guess! Happy Monday to you, Jen

An evening hour...

We spent a wonderful hour at Red Butte Garden yesterday evening. The sun was setting, the leaves were changing, the garden was nearly empty of people. A perfect hour to watch a bunny hopping through the garden flowers, roll down a big hill, play hide and seek in the ivy tunnels, explore for a bit. I took some video with my phone to remember the time and to share with you.

So, here is a rather lengthy video of the Children's garden at Red Butte one late summer's evening...


Jen

Autumn. Simplicity. Transition.

I can't decide what to write about today, but I wanted to get something out while I have the time. So I'll just write what is on my heart and mind:

* Autumn. I have never been so aware of seasonal shifts as I have been since having children. Maybe part of it was living in Texas and Hawaii, where the seasons were a bit more subtle. Here in Utah though, change is in the air and you can't miss it. Amelia is so into the changing seasons and I love that! She sees a yellow or orange leaf and exclaims, "It's Fall! See mama?" We are pulling our Fall books out for our seasonal book basket, we are back to eating warm oatmeal every morning for breakfast, going for multiple walks during the day, making plans for another trip to the apple orchard....just settling in to the season. It feels good, though I have to keep my negative dread of winter at bay.
We were on a "nature walk"* yesterday and Sam spied some chestnuts that were still in their prickly shells and he was so curious about them. We stopped and had a good look and then walked on home. In our mailbox were two books that I had ordered. One was this one and just look what is on the cover! Chestnut boys in their tree! I couldn't believe it. Such a wonderful, creative Fall story of the Acorn family and Mr. Squirrel and the Chestnut boys...we plopped down in the front yard and gobbled it up.

* Simplicity. Yep, my trip to Oregon is coming up next week! I feel like God has already been using the principles that I'll be learning about even before I get there. I felt like I was shedding skin as I let go of some things I had been holding onto for years at our last yard sale. I have seen the value of staying home and cultivating our little garden and our home. Because of it, we got to connect with two different neighbors that we have wanted to for so long. One was some Ethiopian refugee neighbors that live at the end of our street. We have chatted several times, but have never connected like we did when they found out we had a garden and came to see it. The visit ended with several teenagers, one woman, and about 6 kids sitting in our basement, the kids playing and the women looking at Joel's Ethiopia pictures! What a gift to connect to such a precious group of people.

* Transition. As the babes are off to pre-school for two mornings a week, and we are changing seasons, I just feel transition all around us. Tying into simplicity, I feel like this is a time of scaling down in both our schedule and our things. I am reading the book, "Simplicity Parenting" right now and it is AMAZING. I will write more about what I feel about my "homeschool preschool" goals are for this year, but mostly they revolve around establishing a rhythm for each season, reading often, exploring nature together, unstructured play, prayer and singing! Most of this can happen at home. This will take some transition as I feel like my mentality has always been, "Things are fussy, let's get out of here!" and I know that is partly because creating a home rhythm is hard. In what order do I clean, play, teach, read? I'll let you know how this goes:)

I'll leave you with this quote from Simplicity Parenting that I'm chewing on this morning, " The pace of our daily lives is increasingly misaligned with the pace of childhood."

Love to you this morning friends!
Jen

* I said "nature walk" because I gave Sam and Amelia both a magnifying glass and told them we were going on a nature walk, when my real motivation was to get to the corner store and buy a diet coke. Tee, hee:)

Preschool: Day one.

Sam, Amelia, and Mama all had a wonderful first day of preschool! :) They are going to a new, little Creative Arts preschool that I think will be a great fit for all of us. It stresses learning through play and movement and sensory activities, as well as, of course, building confidence and strength and creativity through the Arts. So, they will go two mornings a week and I will be the classroom helper once every other week--so I get some time all by myself on the other days. Today I spent it walking at the park with Anne, Skypeing at the park with Shanyn and Isaac, and going to the library. Sam and Amelia both seemed to have a great time, came home and ate a big lunch and then down for a nap without a peep. Works for me!
Jen

Here are some pics from meet the teacher day last week:

Disclaimer: This post may seem as if preschool was just an easy and quick decision for us and just fell into our laps. Hahahahahahahaha. I am SO bad at making even the smallest decision and so deciding on putting them in preschool and which preschool to put them in was ridiculously difficult for me. For one thing, I had always imagined that we would most likely home school all the way through, and so even though it is only 6 hours a week, I somehow felt like a home school failure. Like, "hello, if you can't even manage pre-school on your own, how can you handle K-12?" Then some great people in my life set me straight:) Like my mom. "Um Jenny, you guys went to pre-school and then home schooled for 9 years. It's a break. They will love it. You will love it. Take it while you can." So, I'd just like to say thank you to all of you friends and family who were a sounding board this summer while I went on and on and on and on and on about pre-school choices. Also, a big thank you to their sweet teacher, "Miss Ewin" who worked with us so much to make it possible for us to take such a great opportunity. We all feel great about our *final* decision:)

Summer's End...

We are soaking up the last of this warm weather and sunshine. Sitting out in the front yard reading books, hiking on the weekends, walking to the museum instead of driving,etc. We hiked the Secret Lake trail on Sunday afternoon and it was pretty much wonderful. I just kept thinking how much I love to be outside as a family. For us to get to see Sam and Amelia gain confidence, build endurance, balance on rocks, stare in wonder at bugs and flowers and chipmunks. There really isn't much that I love more.

My favorite things on this particular hike were hearing Amelia's little outbursts of self-confidence like, " I'm really good at this!" "I can do anything!" She did show a lot of improvement in her willingness to keep going when she got tired! I also loved hearing her burst out in random mother goose songs and rhymes like, "Cock a doodle doo, my dame has lost her shoe, my master lost his fiddle stick and doesn't know what to do!" :)

With Sam, as always, my favorite thing is hearing him say things like, " Isn't this beautiful mama?" "Dad, look at this crazy bug!" " We're hiking Mama, I like to hike!" He is still our little nature lover and appreciator and always says the most wonderful things when we are outdoors.

I also love catching up with Joelie. We always have the best talks when hiking. Or should I say, I have a captive audience when we hike:)

Anyway, as we head into Fall, I greet it with a grateful heart for a wonderful summer--full of sunshine and family and memories made. I look forward to Autumn with it's crisp air and apples and visits from the grandparents and some mama time as some little pre-schoolers head off for their first morning of their Creative Arts program tomorrow! More on that very soon! Jen

Yoga.

The babes had their first (very informal) yoga experience this morning at the museum and loved it! I'm curious if any of you consistently do yoga with your children at home and have found it to be strengthening/calming/fun?
Good times! Jen

In all of her three year old glory...

Amelia completely dressed herself for the first time today. When she came downstairs totally dressed after her bath, Joel and and I were so surprised! He has been working on them with their dressing/undressing skills and it looks like it is paying off:) She completed the outfit from the dress up basket downstairs and declared that "if we went to my friend's house they would say, "Wow Amelia, what a beautiful skirt!" Then as we were ready to head out the door she chose her new (thrifted) red sparkly shoes that she is very proud of. A very lovely and very Amelia outfit to choose for her first go of it. What a fun, spirited, confident, sparkly girl she is!
She even took the time to help her brother, who isn't so eager to get dressed by himself yet:)

I'm sure she will be his biggest cheer leader whenever he is!

P.S. She had no idea I was taking any of these pictures with my phone. She was just talking non-stop about the windy day and how perfect it would be to fly a kite (which we didn't do but must do soon!).

P.S.S. Every single thing she had on was backwards--dress, leggings, underwear:)

His point of view...

You always get to see my pictures from our days. Today as I scrolled through the pictures on Joelie's phone and asked if I could share some of his...

There were self portraits:




There were pictures of Sam and Amelia:












There were pictures of me:)


I loved this one (taken by Daniel maybe?):


Thinking of his newest niece...awwww,


There were many pictures of the campsites he visits on outreach.


All in all it was a good reminder of what a strange, wonderful, adventurous, compassionate man I am married to:) I really do love him so. Jen

Universal motherhood..

Sam and Amelia love to pretend they are cats and kittens. Please do not refer to them by their names whenever they are in cat mode, by the way. Anyway, they love to learn all about animals and what they do and eat and are they gentle, etc. I can tell Amelia is getting confused between the true attributes of animals verses their portrayal in fictional stories ( " Wolves are mean , right mama?What do they eat? Pigs, right?" after reading The Three Little Pigs), and so we try to read lots of non-fiction or based on reality fiction about animals too.

So, the other morning we were reading two such books about cats. This one,

and this one.


They are both great little books that took me straight back to my childhood experiences with dozens of beloved kittens, but two quotes stood out from all the rest,

..." They (kittens) play with everything they can find.
They run after mother cat.
They jump on her.
They lick her face.
They bite her tail.
Sometimes the playing gets too rough. Then mother cat jumps away from the kittens. She jumps on a high stool, or up to a shelf.
Sometimes she swats the kittens."

In the next book,

.." At first the kittens seemed to sleep all day. But in a few weeks they were tumbling all over one another.
When the mother cat wanted a little peace, she crouched under the drawer."

I got such a laugh out of these two statements. Sam and Amelia didn't quite understand what was so funny, but that's because you have to be a mama I think to understand the need to "jump on a high stool or crouch under the drawer" every now and then. Oh, it makes me smile even now.

Jen