Pumpkins

A small treasure

When my dad passed away this summer, I took just 1 thing from his house. His baby grand piano. Not such a little thing, a quite impressive beauty actually. For years before he died, he wanted me to have the piano but it was never the right time.
This is the piano I played on as a child. It will forever remind me of my dad and I love it. I asked the big kiddos if they wanted to take piano lessons this fall and Callie eagerly jumped on board. We placed the piano in our main room so actually all the kids play on it all the time. And despite my sensitivity to noise (yes I have 4 kiddos) I don't mind the piano.

Today I went to my dad's house to work on the final phases of cleaning it out. I was going through his closet and found this. My old metronome. My brother told me to take it and I was thrilled. If you look close, it's held together by rubberbands. I brought it home and plugged it in and it works. I absolutely love it, and Callie does too. This will be one of the most meaningful things in my home now, and it will forever remind me of my dad.

Halloween countdown

Wordless Wednesday (This one's for you Papaw)

Ordinary Tuesday

Autumn Weekend

This weather, in a word, heavenly. While the big kids were at swim team practice I took the little kids to a scuplture park. They ran around like crazy and let me take lots of pictures.

In the afternoon we went to Jack's soccer game. He played well and I wish I would have taken a picture of what the other kids were doing. They weren't watching soccer, just playing so intently in the dirt you would have thought they were looking for gold.

I took these pictures of Callie this morning before church. I wanted a picture of her front tooth. It's dangling by a thread, crooked, but it won't come out. Patience.

And this is my desperate attempt to get just one picture of Jack. But he's not having it. He's about to put his hands in the air and say "come on Mom!!"

Hope it was a beautiful weekend for you too.

Wordless Wednesday

The Pumpkin Patch

We took advantage of the gorgeous weather this weekend and headed to the pumpkin patch. We actually didn't get any pumpkins but our kids LOVE this pumpkin land. It's a huge play area made with all hay and lots of things for the kids to do.

Carter and Anna's favortite thing was the zip line.

Always a goof ball.

Callie loved the zip line too.

I noticed when I was downloading my pictures that I only had 1 or 2 of Jack. Despite this being one of his favorite places to go, he does not want his picture taken. His eyes are so sensitive to light that he just grimaces when I ask him to look at me. So this is all I got, not even a smile.

But the girls were willing to give me smiles.

If we get time, I'm hoping to go one more time before Halloween.

Missing Summer

Despite the absolutely beautiful weather we are having right now, I really do miss summer. The weeks are flying by and the time between Mondays and Fridays seems almost non existant. The kids get home from school and the rush begins, homework, swim carpool, soccer, piano, dinner..... you know the rush. And I get so tired of the nagging, to hurry up here and there.

I love the summer days of just being at the pool with no timeline. It's lots of exercise, entertainment, and super easy dinners. And so little complaining.

As I was being nostalgic I remembered I hadn't done a post about summer swim team. I meant to make a little video but obviously it didn't get done. So here are some of my favorite pictures from summer swim team.

Swim team banquet.

Jack and his friend recevied co MVP for their age group.

Callie and one of her favorite coaches.

Callie received MVP for her age group.

Our super swimmers.

Fall swim meets start for us next weekend so we will be at the pool Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.

I'm hoping to squeeze out some time to get the pumpkin patch while it is still so gorgeous outside.