See that little drop menu to the left that files my posts by month? Well, for the first time ever, I think, I will have a month with just this behind it: (1). One blog post for all of October! And I'm squeaking it into the VERY last day of the month, otherwise it would say: (0)! So, this post will catch you up on a whole month of life, and it is for my sister, who is probably the only one still checking our blog! :)
This fall we made it to every football game but one. What a fun Friday night tradition this became! The kids loved running around with all their school friends in our brand new, state-of-the-art stadium, while Dave and I enjoyed cheering for our almost-undefeated football team. For about half the games, we'd meet friends beforehand and go out for dinner-- making Fridays even MORE fun! Above, Delia is dancing on the field with one of our babysitters/cheerleaders, Kara.
Being a 5th grader, Ella also took up the call to join the band this fall. She chose to play saxophone and has already made tremendous progress in playing it! When she first started, there was much honking, squawking and cringing (by me). Now, on her own, she is playing recognizable Christmas music from her piano books!
There has not been much blog posting, because there are not many spare hours in a weekday! Ella's homework load on some nights is pretty heavy, and every now and then, she'll work straight from afternoon to bedtime. This was a particularly frustrating homework night. The guinea pig on her shoulder helped a bit.
On top of school responsibilities, we continue to let the girls do one extra thing each. Ella is hanging in there with piano lessons, and Delia wanted to try a second year of dance. She switched from a ballet class to a jazz one this year and is enjoying it a lot. The music is peppier and there is more sass and booty-shaking in the choreography (even though this picture makes jazz dancing look like serious business)!
I had a lovely birthday way back in September. My expectation was for a totally normal day, full of all our normal responsibilities, but I was abundantly loved and spoiled all day by family, friends, co-workers and students.
In the middle of life's craziness, I treasure these quiet moments too, when we all get to just slow down, cuddle up and be together. I'm trying to be more intentional about keeping our weekends as free as possible so we can just relax and recharge. This (above) was one Saturday night and it was perfect.
One weekend we did take an outing to my friend Dorina's house, though! This was a special trip because it allowed us to spend time with and get to know Shawn better. The story of Dorina and Shawn's relationship is one of the Lord's amazing Glory Stories. I'll just say that one year ago Dorina was organizing Ericlee's funeral, and this year she's planning her wedding to Shawn, who was one of Ericlee's best friends. If you want to read about it in Dorina's own powerful words, click here. Grab some tissues first, though!
We had to take advantage of our yearly invite to Pastor Appreciation Day at Funworks! A blast, as always, we raced each other around the go-kart track, smashed into each other in the bumper car room and set the girls free on the huge play structure so we could watch the Cubs playoff game on Dave's phone! Pizza with our new youth pastor and his family rounded out this super-fun night.
Just this week, our life finally got exciting! :) Grandma and Grandpa made a special visit to California to celebrate Grandma's recent retirement. While we finished up school for the first few days, they toured Napa. Then we shared a couple beautiful days in Monterey with them as we were off school. To show them how excited we were to see them, Ella came up with the idea and design for this huge WELCOME sign to sprawl across our driveway last weekend.
And since our Wednesday kind of felt like a Friday with no school for the rest of the week and since Grandma and Grandpa were just returning from Napa, we decided to test out the Halloween costumes with an outing to a nearby church's Trunk-or-Treat. The girls were SO excited about this costume idea they thought up! Yes, Ella spent the whole night in her roller-blades. Yes, Delia confused a lot of people by dressing as the Stanley Cup ("Are you Jiffy Pop?"..."A satellite dish?"). And yes, they plan to do it all over again tonight for our own church's Harvest Party. But, we had a great time sharing this taste of Halloween with Grandma and Grandpa.
More of our adventures with Dave's parents coming soon...
(No, I won't make you wait a whole month!)
