The Latest

Not much new around here, really. Jason and I are both taking a Facebook break as part of our church's "21 Days of Prayer and Fasting" going on through the end of January. I haven't missed it too much but I feel like many of you keep up with what we've been up to that way.

But here's a few noteworthy things that probably would've gotten mentioned on Facebook.

With Easton's decreased appetite lately, his lunches were coming home relatively intact. Like, his lunches of choice are usually a yogurt, some fruit, and a side of crackers. Plus a small milk or juice (4 oz.). And he'd come home not having eaten any yogurt and only eating half of his normal amount of grapes and crackers. This morning I made muffins for breakfast. Normal Easton would easily eat 2. Maybe 3. Today Easton had a half. A half! Autumn eats more than that!

Anyway, thinking maybe he was getting bored with his usual lunches, I made him a menu. I bought a 4 opening frame in the Dollar Spot at Target and typed up the current options of stuff he likes and each night he uses a dry erase marker to choose "at least one from each rectangle":

He's really not eating more but it's working out. I like him to have variety but he seriously prefers his vanilla yogurt most every day.

While he's off not eating at school, the other two and I are home. I've been motivated to get movin' for health this year. Not because I'm trying to lose weight ('cause I'm not) but just for general well-being and all that. I've actually been doing a good job doing at least a little something most (but definitely not all) days. I like to change it up and one day I was doing a kettlebell DVD in the living room. The kids wanted to join in. Autumn initially grabbed our big green hoppity ball and Dalton grabbed a tin purse. By the time I was able to snap a picture she had moved onto holding something else:



Cuties!!!

What else?

I took Easton to his best bud's birthday party yesterday. Dalton was invited but it was at kind of a daredevil place and that's just not Dalton's cup of tea so he stayed home with Autumn and Jason while Easton wowed everyone with his fearlessness. And ate ice cream:

And then he was full. And couldn't have his cupcake (fine by me) or drink his juice (again, fine by me but dude...full from a teeny cup of ice cream?!?!)

Jason and I made a resolution this year to try to have people over at least once a month. We're really bad about "entertaining" because our house isn't that big, I never know what to cook, and we tend to be a bit anti-social. The people we do have over on occasion are always the same: Mallory and family, Baby John's family, my family... So we made this resolution as we've been wanting to build relationships with people in our church for one thing. Plus just hang out with other friends. And then there's the whole "clean house" excuse. It's always so nice when we're expecting guests...the kids all run off to play and Jason and I team up on some different kinds of house-cleaning than I normally do--more decluttering and "deeper" cleaning. Like, he's a big fan of using our vacuum attachments...so, for example, he vacuumed the valance above our sliding glass doors to the backyard...and, sadly, I think that's the first time we've cleaned that in the 7 years we've lived here. Or, I use it as an excuse to organize toys that have gotten misplaced. Most of our toys have a specific home, and the kids know the "home" but sometimes they don't make it back there when we pick up each night. So, we filled a bag with things that were out of place and the kids put them away while I organized Autumn's hair things. Now, I certainly wasn't expecting them to check out Autumn's hair things upstairs in her bedroom but sometimes you just get that bug when picking up, am I right? And, unfortunately, either their kid or one of mine dumped out all the hair stuff anyway. Ha!

So last night we had some friends from church over. This family had us over for dinner nearly a year ago and it's taken us this long to return the favor. We invited them on Friday (because plans with Baby John's family fell through) and they were able to come over last minute. They have a daughter that's a couple months younger than Autumn:


Eventually I had to put my kids to bed even though we had company. They stayed till 10:30!

Jason played electric guitar at church this morning and Easton decided to ride home with J. The boys have a new tradition as of late where the kid that arrives home first arranges a few "soft friends" on the washing machine for the other brother to see when he walks in. Pretty cute:


And now our weekend is nearly over. Gotta start dinner and the kids and I will do a movie night while Jason watches football. Ugh. All our teams are done but still the season isn't over. I love football but I'm ready for it to be done. For sure.

Hope all of you had a nice weekend as well!