September Reminiscing -- Getting back to school

In this season that has felt unsettled in so many ways, I've been double-thankful that we were already homeschooling and I didn't have to wrestle with what to do for this school year.  Although a lot about homeschooling looks different than before I am thankful that we are able to continue together at home.

We had a fantastic first day (on September 14th), starting with our traditional first day of school hike, a park picnic and a little table work too. We all experienced a few bumps with the trasition from our wonderfully unscheduled summer to the school year, but we're all looking forward to this new year of learning!

Hiking at Buzzard's Roost 

The fall bouquet the kids collected on our hike.  So pretty!

Picnic at the park and feeling very happy to get to spend my days with these guys!

September Reminiscing - Celebrating our girl!

Mabel turned FIVE last month and we had a great day celebrating her. She had been giving me the specifics on her cake for months ahead of time (in her chipmunky voice and with detailed hand gestures: "first mom, a layer of chocolate, then fudge, then crushed up oreos and another layer of chocolate, with fluffy pink frosting all over and Lowly the Worm on top). I did my best to get it right, but she did provide me some feedback that the cake wasn't exactly how she'd imagined it. Next time, maybe? :-)

The kids get to pick their meals for their birthday -- breakfast is usually Lucky Charms :)

A beautiful day at Center Lake 

Present time! Some of her favorites: A big-girl swing for our swing set, a cozy robe and dance lessons.

Love this girl!

September Reminiscing -- Heart Friends & First Snow

September really went by in a blur of so, so many {mostly} wonderful things. 

Labor day evening we received two visitors -- one was incredibly welcome and truly wonderful while the other one was not so much. 

Our welcome visitors were our very, very dear friends, the Deeds Family who we met when living in Guatemala. They stopped by the Black Hills as part of their summer vacation for what was supposed to be a few days of camping together. After over two years without seeing them, we were thrilled! Unfortunately, we also received over an inch of snow that same evening followed by below freezing temperatures. We changed gears from camping and instead had a great time hanging out at our house and doing some local hikes. The snow & freeze killed most of our garden and flowers, but we had a most memorable "summer" visit together. 

Morning of September 8 -- not too much snow & it looks pretty, SO glad not to be camping in this though!

SUPER happy to get to be around our table with this family! (Jason's out of view, but on my left!)

In typical fashion for us, we forgot that if there is a little snow in town, there will be a lot more out of town! Oops! Snowy, but we had a great time playing at Rock Mazes.

We had so much fun just being all together in our home, chatting, doing puzzles, eating & reading

Sharing one of our favorite hikes - Little Elk Creek

A special, final evening together in our backyard, complete with Will leading us in worship songs. 

Capturing these kiddos

We had really beautiful Fall weather last week and I did my best to get out with my camera and try to document these kids of ours. They seem to be always on the move and are hard to capture very easily ... any photos together tend to have one or both of them making silly, grumpy, angry faces while poking at each other :)  It was totally worth the effort though, with them growing and changing so much I want to see and remember this precious stage!