Catch Up

It's been a while...but rest assured we've been having a super time at the sensory smart home.  We've been scientists (baking soda/vinegar),

we've refilled the sensory table,

 

we've explored our surroundings,

we've crunched some fall leaves during our walks around town,

we've seen and soaked up the last smidgen of fall (72 this morning when we played sand/water...and under 40* now!),

we've experimented painting with our hands,

 and with paintbrushes!

It's been a busy few weeks and we keep our days hopping and our nights restful!

Xavier's fully potty trained.  He hasn't had an accident in several days.  We're very proud of him!

  Of course he did this transition almost completely on his own directly after Mike and I decided to switch to cloth diapers and placed our big order, that was actually VERY affordable (like WHY didn't we do this a long time ago!?).  They came the other day...I'm a little sad to pack them away for "next time." {aren't they pretty?} but my little cutie's tushie looks pretty darling in his unders!

Xavier's learning his colors, knows that his name starts with X, and is completely in love with his new shirts from Nannie that have wheelers and motorcycles on them.  He loves to see how things work and makes quite an apprentice for his dad.

 His hair is curly, his eyes are wild, he's 100% boy, and totally a hoot!

 

Natalee's losing the last of her babyhood and becoming fully a "big girl/preschooler."  She can be quite the helper when she puts her mind to it.  

 She delights in saying, "we don't go to school, we do homeschool!" and I can't fill her hours with enough learning.  

 She knows all her letters and is picking up the sounds as we go back through the alphabet and do a letter a week.  Her imagination is growing and it's fun to watch her try new things.

She's excelling at Bible memory verses and is inspiring her brother to do the same!  She loves numbers and counting and is planning a BIG birthday party all themed around letters and a purple cake!  I'll be ordering natural food dye online to make her dream a reality.  

She's working hard on using her words instead of her reaction screams.  We still go to Memphis for OT, PT, and Speech and we are delighting in the growth we see from her therapies.  We are so grateful for the family based approach the therapists take with us by allowing us to stay in her sessions and see how they are helping her along and teaching us what we can do at home.

Natalee used her memory very from Joshua 1:7 (be strong and very brave!) to conquer a big fear and get her hair trimmed last week.  The stylist was terrific and Natalee did great!

Natalee is spunk and sugar. She wears her heart on her sleeve...she loves fiercely and fights just as fiercely.  She's making great strides and we couldn't be more proud of her.

 We've survived a whole week of daddy being gone, although this is what my bed looked like the first night.

 As for me, I'm chugging along.  It's an adjustment to only have little people to talk to during the day but I'm hanging in there.  I'm truly enjoying being HOME and spending all the little moments of life with my children.  We have a great group of "friends" to fill our days and keep my children from feeling stale with only one another.  As much as they dearly love their friends I do see that they enjoy the peaceful moments in the evenings with just mom, dad, and each other.

I love that I have the time during the day to do a load of laundry or two, keep the dishes caught up,  have a supper plan, and feed my husband a real breakfast in the morning (and me, too!).  I'm working to find a few minutes a day that are soley "mine" and am learning to find them in the little things...like yesterday when I was able to rearrange my herbals/medicine/first aid cabinet...it was work, but it was "for me" and I delight in the organized, end result.  Nap time has been a good time for me to catch up on emails, do little things like this cabinet...and also keep up laundry, etc. (is it ever "caught up?")

We're loving life, each other, and being home.