farewell october!

here they are... ready for tricks, but mostly treats.

i'm just glad to be back at home.... with a warm cup of tea... ready for the shift to a holiday of thanks.

grampy love

whenever my little girls hear the sound of those trucks pulling up to the shop and the sound of the fork lift starting up they immediately feel a pull to the front porch... where they wait for their grampy or grammy to come say good morning. oh, how they love them so. normally this particular little girl will be waiting on the porch naked... in her rubber boots. we are going through that potty training stage where she is constantly clothes free. now, i do constantly put clothes back on the girl... she just takes them off again and again. my hopes are now that the mornings on the porch are so cold there will be more and more keeping the warm jammies on. 

did you notice her "binoculars"? so sweet.

around the house : : little bits of fall

we have the fall decorating going in full force around here. the kids and i get so excited each time the holidays roll around. this time of year we mostly decorate with leaf garlands (from jo-anns), gourds, pumpkins, and scarecrows. we have one tradition that has become so very special... that is our holiday books... kept with each holidays decorations. i had noticed that our "halloween" collection was looking a little sad, so i decided to order some new books this year. i bought a few on amazon and i have left picture links in my sidebar if your interested in checking them out further. i am not a fan of the creepy halloween books, especially for bedtime stories to my little ones. so i went on a search for sweet books that focused on the traditions and changes of the seasons. i LOVE the ones we found. the first to arrive, "too many pumpkins", is the sweet story of a lady who hates pumpkins but ended up with a huge involuntary pumpkin patch and found ways to share and appreciate her misfortune. my other favorite is "and then comes halloween" which goes through the seasonal changes, and making decorations, carving pumpkins, and making costumes... all the things we do... perfect! anyway... i will post the links to all our favorites and if your interested you can check them out.
another holiday tradition that is a bit new around here is the display of past holiday artwork all over the house. i have always kept all of the cute little holiday decorations that the kids have made at home or brought home from school, but last year i decided to start storing them all with the holiday decorations. so now i have a manila folder in each storage tub with all of the art from each kid for that holiday and i hang them all over the house. the best decorations we have in my opinion. i must say it is soo cute seeing how excited they get about finding the art that is "theirs". i love traditions.

a shovel and a job to do

this is the face she makes (above) when asked to smile for the camera.

"a case of the blues can often be cured with a shovel and a job to do."

it is amazing how once you become a mother your mind can become so full of worry. especially when there are four little ones to worry about. i find myself anxious about things that i never would have given a second thought to in the past. i have found though that nothing stills a worried mind quite like getting outside and enjoying some good old physical labor. now don't be fooled, i am very good at talking myself out of such labor... it's too wet.... too cold.... too hot.... too dry (kidding). i have been forcing myself to get out there lately... not only because there is work that needs to be done before the rain and cold officially set in... but also because i absolutely love the way i feel after i get it done. some fresh air, some exercise, a job to do, and the autumnal outdoors.... now where did i put that shovel?

a desk of her own

when we started preparing this room for the littler girls, eislee informed me that a desk for her should be among the top priorities. so we carved out a little space... especially perfect for a big girl's office work. a simple table table and chairs with a little tin box full of crayons, markers, and such (that are hers... very important!), some notebooks with drawing paper, and a few other miscellaneous things. she keeps it all quite portable so that she can easily move up to layla's office and then back down again. and every time i find her quietly working in that office of hers... it melts my heart just a little bit more.