Our Week in Review 9/21/2015-9/27/2015

"Wish I had time for just one more bowl of chili."  -Kit Carson (American Frontiersman)'s last words 

I think the cooler weather is officially upon us!  It was very cool most of the week here, and, at present, has been raining for 3 full days.  All of this added up to the perfect combination for this autumn's first pot of chili, which we enjoyed half of the week.  Love warm crock pot meals on cool days!

Joseph also enjoyed staying warm in some of his new jammies.  I can't believe how many of his 3T clothes he is wearing now!  He is definitely growing too fast and it makes me cry, pretty much every time I think about it too much. :-(  Here's my little guy in his 3T footed jammies and, as usual, David's shoes...

I've really loved doing MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) at church so far this fall.  At the back of each meeting there is a MOPS Swap table set up, which is a table on which you can bring things you no longer want from home and leave them for any other mommy that may want them.  I decluttered by leaving some stuff there at Tuesday's meeting, and in exchange picked up this great set of fall place mats for our kitchen table (have I mentioned that I love fall?!).  Also, I should give many thanks to my parents for keeping Jojo during my twice monthly MOPS mornings.  I had the option of using the free MOPS childcare, but Joseph has never done tremendously well in childcare situations, and would much prefer to be kept by family.  Thanks guys!

Tuesday night, we took a family excursion to get David some new glasses.  He wears contacts but often wears glasses on the weekends, and his old pair was getting to be in pretty bad shape.  So off we went shopping!  I snapped this picture of Joseph in the glasses store, making funny faces at himself in the mirror while his daddy browsed. :-)

Another one of my favorite things about fall is being able to dress Joseph in his cute fall clothes, most of which are sports-themed.  He wore several football shirts this week because, as you know, this family loves football!

Saturday morning, we headed to Mt. Airy for our annual "Mayberry Days" trip.  Always such a fun time, despite the yucky weather this year!  We ate at Snappy Lunch and did some more exploring...

David with his famous Snappy Lunch pork chop sandwich!

The two cutest jailbirds around!

Saturday afternoon, back in Greensboro, we ended up at the library as usual.  Here is little man pretending to be asleep while I snapped the picture...he's so silly!

Well, that's it for this past week.  You know what comes this next week...the start of OCTOBER!!!  My favorite month of all!!!  Can't wait to see what adventures it holds!

Our Week in Review: 9/14/2015-9/20/2015

"What it was, was football." -Andy Griffith

Lots of fun stuff happened this week!  Autumn is probably our busiest season in our home, based on how many fun events we have available to go to around here (and given that Joseph's birthday and our wedding anniversary fall in October, autumn is probably even crazier for us than the holiday season!).  I love all the fun!

On Tuesday morning, my MOPS table group had a play date with our sister table group at my friend Jessica's house.  Jessica is our table leader and one of my very dear friends, and it was so sweet for her to open her home to us and bake us yummy pumpkin muffins!  All the children enjoyed playing in her backyard.

I took the following picture after Joseph's nap on Wednesday.  He got up from his nap and seemed ready to carry on with his day, but apparently he was still a little tired, because he came into the den, laid his upper body on the love seat, and fell back asleep standing up.

I consigned this year at a church consignment sale for the first time ever!  Although we still hope for more children, it was good to get rid of a few of Joseph's old items that he never really wore or was never really into.  I chose to consign at Trinity, the church right down the road from us (and the church I went to until I was about 12).  Consignors get to shop the sale they consign at early, so on Thursday evening I went and shopped for Joseph some new clothes for a little while while Joseph stayed with David.  It was nice to get some good deals on cute clothes!

 Friday evening we went to one of our favorite annual events - the Greensboro Greek Festival!  Our house is only a few blocks from the Greek Orthodox church, so every year we are able to walk to the festival and avoid getting caught in the crazy parking.  So fun! 

Weekends are so fun now, because football season has arrived!  YAY!  This is just a snipped of what college gameday looks like in our home...

I almost cried on Sunday morning, because Joseph fit into one of his new size 3T shirts!  How is he growing up so fast?!  I didn't get his hair brushed before I took this pic, but I still thought it was pretty adorable!

And on Sunday evening, our neighborhood association had it's annual picnic by the lake.  Our neighborhood association is open to anyone within the original town limits of Hamilton Lakes (yes, my neighborhood used to be an incorporated town until the 1950s!) - that includes our neighborhood, my parents neighborhood next to us, and a couple of other small sections in our area.  Every year we have a fall picnic by Lake Euphemia, one of the lakes in our neighborhood.  It's always a great time of food trucks and fun!

September is in full swing!  Treasuring this wonderful time of year and season of life! :-)

Week in Review 9/7/2015-9/13/2015

"The blood you donate gives someone another chance at life. One day that someone may be a close relative, a friend, a loved one—or even you." -Unknown

School went great this week!  Joseph is still loving it and so am I!  We made a tissue-paper version of the red fish and the blue fish from Dr. Suess's book "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" (our book of the week):

Our color of the week was yellow, and our Creation study revolved around God creating the sun, moon, and stars.  So we made yellow play dough sunshines!

Thursday evening, we went to a local blood drive at Fellowship Presbyterian Church here in Greensboro.  We LOVE giving blood!  This time, David volunteered to give "double red cells."  It's the first time he's ever done this particular form of blood donation (usually we both just do the general "give a pint of blood" blood donation).  In giving double red cells, they hooked him to a machine which takes out twice as many of his red cells, but then puts his other blood components (platelets, plasma, etc) back into his body.  It was pretty cool!  The Red Cross said they are VERY much in need of double red cell donors, and at the drive we were at they only had 3 people all day volunteer to do it because it takes a long time and also makes some people feel a bit more woozy than they normally would after giving blood.  They also told us that his red cells would most likely be given to a cancer patient and used by the end of this month.  I was so proud of him!  And since we are training Joseph to be a "future blood donor," one of the nurses gave him some cool bandages so that he would match his daddy. :-)

Jojo and I took this selfie randomly on Friday.  Love my happy boy!

On Friday evening, David and I watched a movie in our den after putting Joseph to bed.  Pretty soon we heard the all-too-familiar cry of a bad dream coming from Joseph's room.  So onto my lap he went, and little man slept on me for the rest of the movie.  He's so precious.

On Saturday, we made our normal weekly trip to our local library.  Joseph had fun as always and had a great time playing with a little boy and a little girl around his age that he met while we were there. :-)

I didn't get any pictures, but Sunday after church we went to a greeting ministries potluck lunch with church.  David and I were "substitute" door greeters for several years and recently decided to become "regularly scheduled" greeters.  We love welcoming people to Westover!  It was a great time of fun and fellowship with everyone yesterday (including my parents, who are also greeters on a different Sunday).

We woke up today to a 50 degree temperature!!!  The weather is supposed to be back into the 80s at the end of the week, but I'll take this amazing fall weather when I can get it!  There was also a LOT of college and pro football watched at our house this weekend, which makes all three of us very happy (we are definitely a sports-loving family!).  :-)  Happy autumn, everyone!

Week in Review 8/31/15-9/6/15

"By all these lovely tokens, September days are here , with summer's best of weather and autumn's best of cheer." -H.H. Jackson

September has arrived, and that means the fall comes out in our home!  September 1st, for me, marks the mental switch to Autumn (even if we are still having some 90+ degree days) - my favorite season!  I was very excited this week to drag out some of my fall candles and fill our home with smells of pumpkin and apples!

We had another successful week of homeschooling.  I think I love homeschooling more by the day!  It's amazing to see how quickly Joseph is learning!  One day this week we actually did two days of school in one because, after Joseph's nap, he asked for "More school, please, Mommy!"

Our book for the week was about an elephant, so we made some elephant crafts :-)

One evening early in the week, Joseph had his first successful pee-pee in the potty!!!  We have been working at potty training for a VERY long time with no other successes, so this was a big deal!  He hasn't done it since, but at least I know he's capable of it now!  He got to have a treat of his choice after this big occasion, and he chose a cookie from Whole Foods.  So we went, pajamas and all!

 On Thursday night, Joseph did his best to cheer the Tar Heels on to victory against South Carolina.  We lost, but it wasn't for lack of Joseph's support.

On Friday, we had our monthly La Leche meeting.  Joseph has so much fun playing with the other babies, toddlers, and preschoolers!  So thankful for this group!

We had a very exciting day on Saturday!  We went to Charlotte to visit our sweet friend Emily!  Emily and I have known each other since our freshman year at UNC, and it's always a pleasure to spend a day with her.  Thanks, Emily, for such a great day!

We got to ride the Charlotte mass transit train...Joseph enjoyed this very much :-)

We went to Imaginon, a children's library.  Joseph loved it!  Here he is on the pretend trolly!

We got to read a Llama Llama book that he doesn't have at home :-)

No, we are not torturing him!  This is a nifty little device to measure children's height :-)

We ended our trip by allowing Joseph to play in these fountains at a Charlotte park.  He LOVED it!  And he was SOAKED!  Thank goodness for a change of clothes!!!

The rest of Labor Day weekend was very relaxing.  We went to the park a couple of times, went to the local library, and had a cookout with my parents.  All in all, a great holiday.

Hope everyone had a great week!

Week in Review: 8/24/15 - 8/30/15

"Prepare children for life...and our life depends on the Lord.  Academics are just a fraction of what we are teaching our children at home.  Teaching them to seek the Lord above all is our main goal.  Without Him, the academics mean nothing." -BibleBasedHomeschooling.com

Last week was super exciting because we started our homeschool preschool year!!!  I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying homeschool and how 100% convinced I am that this is the right choice for our family and something that God laid heavily on our hearts.  To be able to help my little one learn and know exactly what he is and isn't getting out of school is such a blessing to us.  This year, we are using the "ABC Jesus Loves Me" curriculum.  We LOVE it so far! 

Joseph was eager to get started on Monday...

I tried to get a few good pictures from his first week of school.

Our book for our first week was "Llama Llama Red Pajama."  Joseph absolutely LOVED it!  Even though we are on a different book now, he still likes me to read this for him when I rock him to sleep each night.

Some crafts to go along with our Creation Day 2 story.

Coloring Bible coloring pages :-)

Some more artwork - color reinforcement on red and projects representing the Creation Day 1 story.

On Wednesday of this past week Jojo got to do school in his pajamas as part of our "Llama Llama Red Pajama" celebration. And since our color for last week was red he got to have a red snack of raspberries!

He LOVES helping me create Bible stories on his Bible flannel board

We did some vertical surface coloring, too, to help him work different arm muscles.

Other than school, we had a pretty low-key week last week.  We did work in two different trips to our local library, which has become one of Joseph's favorite things to do.

Hope everyone had a great week!  Getting so excited about autumn now that September is underway!