As of this week...

Hey there family, & the few friends who check my blog:-) --

It is now the 3rd week of October, and finally, the first full week of cool weather. And by cool, of course I mean in the low 80s. Wonderful. I bought pumpkins tonight at Walmart. (No, we do not have any pumpkin farms around where we could go on a little hayride and drink hot cocoa/coffee/cider.) I'm a little behind the season with decorating, I guess. In fact I don't know where I've put my box of Fall decor...kinda bummed I can't find it. Noah pulls down or climbs up to anything I put out that looks new or interesting to him, so I've sorta been putting it off anyway. I saw the pumpkins tonight and felt guilty. Hopefully we can paint and/or carve them soon. I bought a small one for N to paint, (that should be fun, we've never done painting yet!) and a big one for him to watch Daddy carve. Carving pumpkins has always fallen into the husband's job category in our fam. I don't think I've carved a pumpkin in 5 years. Is that incredibly terrible to admit--especially to those of you reading who LIVE for FALL? And the thing is, I REALLY like the whole fall colors decor and warmth of this season, too...I LOVE everyone ELSE's decorations...I just...don't really "do" decorations myself well. Probably due to my personally-unwelcomed frugality, thank you mother. I always say I'm going to hit the clearance racks after the holidays so I'll be ready for next year, and yet there never seems to be extra money just floating around then either.
Noah seems to like the pumpkins though. He has carried them around the house several times and sat down on the bigger of the two to watch cartoons. He also helped carry in the groceries to the kitchen tonight. He's a strong little helper! He's been feeding the cat by himself all week. Without my prompting! He does it EVERY day. L.O.V.E. I.T. Here's Noah with his neighborhood buddy Brandon.

This last weekend I got to go to a middle school retreat with 6 Jr. High girls from our church. Matt was planning on going until Thursday, the day before, when we realized NO boys were interested/able, so it was kinda obvious that it wouldn't really be appropriate for him to go. I'm not quite sure how he would have insinuated that I should go instead, because I sorta volunteered to take them before I let him attempt to persuade me. I should have let it go a while longer, I could have really milked that. Even though I kiddingly said that it would be "pure torture" because of who it was that was going--I don't think any of them reads this!--it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. It was an event called Stuck In The Middle, and not just a girls retreat, although that would have been nice. We have been to a girls-only conference before called The Revolve Tour, which is an incredibly good weekend. This turned out really good too, though. It was less than 2 hours away, and 28 hours total with the girls--not bad. There was a good band, a (1 out of 2)good speaker, a science Wizardy guy from the Mythbusters show, and some silly youth group games. We stayed the night at a local church, where the girls stayed up past 2am playing "waitress" in the youth room kitchen, complete with aprons (pillowcases) and trays and an "easybake oven" type of toaster that DINGED everytime you opened the door. I layed in bed, on a couch in the corner room with the door shut, pillow over my head, iPod on shuffle, and I could still here the DING every 3 minutes or so...for like an hour. Every time I got up to go tell them they needed to go to sleep because they would be exhausted in the morning and would want to sleep through the seminars, I would see them dancing around the breakfast bar, talking in all sorts of funny accents and I had to laugh. I did not realize these girls were so "young". At least they weren't up doing hair and putting on makeup. There wasn't a single comment about a cute boy allll weekend.

Noah got a tiny bit of a haircut today--Matt doesn't claim to notice a difference, but I appreciate that my hair stylist/friend Adreana refused to cut off his "curls". His hair is really only curly after he lays on it for a nap, but it just looks so much better long. She mostly cleaned up the thickness in the back.

Still really loving the Bible Study I'm in on Thurs. Kinda bummed I'm gonna miss it this week. So strange how what I learn each week matches so closely with what's going on in my life. I've been doing it for 5 weeks now and every week it's like DEAD ON with situations I'm facing. I looked ahead to the last topics/verses of the study and thought---so THAT'S what's going to happen to me in a month!?! It's almost uncanny how God has spoken through his Word, through this author, through the people at the church who chose and planned the timing of this study....and then that I would be reading it at this exact time in my life...the Hand of Providence continues to amaze me.

Well, gotta get back to help my husband put the kiddo to bed. Have a good week, and enjoy the fall weather if you get it where you live!!!