These Days

The promise of fall is in the air!

I am so excited for the change in weather and scenery!  As I'm working, I even have the windows up to let in the cooler morning air.  The afternoons are still warm, but they are a "different" kind of warm.  The kind of warm that's not muggy and doesn't make me sweat.  I love opening up the back door to the porch in the afternoons when I get off of work.  The boys run back and forth between the living room and the porch and I soak in the feeling of the air.  I can just tell-- fall is coming.

At our house, we currently have our brand new table runner on our dining table, a "pie" pumpkin on our mantle, and a "toilet paper pumpkin" up there as well.  That's the extent of our fall decor for the moment.  I plan to get a fall scented candle sometime soon (my fall favorites are the Yankee Candle branch "Kitchen Spice" and "Apple Cider"). I also have an autumn inspired door hanging, but I think I packed it away with my other seasonal front door decor.  It's either in my attic or the storage unit (which is a temporary installment as we have our house on the market).

My mother-in-law has so graciously helped me sort through the boys' clothes this week.  She has helped me remove items from Michael's drawers that he no longer fits into, or that do not work with the ease we need clothing to fit around his Omnipod.  She has also helped me sort through Noah's drawers since he still has some a lot of 12-month items in there.  I've kept most of Michael's things that he has outgrown so that Noah can ease into them.  Some of these items are in the storage unit, so I will be grabbing that bin this weekend so I can complete the wardrobe change for the boys.  Last fall, I overestimate Michael's height, and I bought several pairs of 4T pants for him at my favorite consignment sale.  I actually had to go back to the sale the next day and buy 3T pants. I chose to keep all of the 4T pants because I knew he'd grow into them.  And ta-da!  We are at that season!  It's nice to know that he has a variety of pants he can wear this fall.  He also has some 3T and 4T jacket/hoodies that he can wear on the cooler days.  I will take inventory of any area that the boys are lacking in (pajamas for Michael, 4T shirts for Michael, 2T pants for Noah, coat for both boys for wintertime) and I will get those items at the consignment sale. This fall, the sale is the last week of October.  I'm sure it will be very very cool outside, so I'm glad that the boys have some staples in their closets that they can use until I beef up their wardrobe at the sale.

This week, we're tackling potty training hard.  I had the idea to potty train both Michael and Noah at the same time.  I hoped that if Michael saw Noah using the potty, that he would get inspired to use it himself. Michael is quite the stubborn 3-year-old, and has very little interest in using the potty.  Noah has no qualms with sitting on the potty-- and a lady at our church potty trained all FOUR of her kids by the time they were 2, so I know it can be done for Noah.  Michael's success is an "every other day" kind of thing.  He will happily sit on the kiddie potty for minutes at a time, and he'll be successful multiple times that day.  But the next day, he will begrudgingly sit on the potty and will not tee-tee in it at all.  Noah sits on the potty pretty happily anytime you ask him to, but we've never caught him in the act of actually going.  It's a process, but for the first time, I feel like we're making progress.

We've started up a ladies Bible Study on Monday nights.  We are going through the book "Stronger" by Angela Thomas.  It's a video once a week at the actual study time, and then throughout the week, each lady has her own copy of the workbook, and has a daily devotional.  I can tell you-- this is my jam.  I LOVE to write, so I thoroughly enjoy reading someone's thoughts, then reading a Bible passage, and then writing my own thoughts in the book.  I do better with a structured study than if I were to tell myself "Okay, find a passage to read and try to get something out of it."  I prefer guided studies like these and I LOVE fellowshipping with these ladies in our church! This past Monday was the first meeting, and I'm looking forward to the next 7 weeks!

I am a coach for our church's Upwards Cheerleading.  I coach the kindergarten (the Sparks) and 1st & 2nd grade (the Blaze) teams in practice.  On Saturday, I lead the Sparks in their cheers with a "cheer mom" and we have two other "cheer moms" who lead the Blaze in their cheers.  I am having a blast!  I was never a cheerleader in high-school, but I am enjoying myself to the fullest.  Each girl is so precious and I enjoy being a part of a godly program like Upwards.

Aaron and I have started a new exercise program.  We have done P90X3 a few times and were actually just about to start it again on Monday when my mother-in-law offered to let us try out T25-- which is produced by the same company that produces P90X3 (BeachBody).  We've done T25 this week and I LOVE it!  I love the intensity and the short amount of time that I have to do it each day.  I'm already feeling my muscles ache, which is good!

That's a little check-up on what we've been up to lately.

Until Next Time,

Much love, Reba