We’re trying to suck all the juice out of life these past couple of days.  A mini blitz in projects. Visits with friends. Shoe shopping with the entire lot of us still in pajamas. Late night game night and fires with some good company, finding places for our combined six children to sleep in. Family movie night on our bed.  Waking up our best friends with a big ol’ pot of hardy mums and bagels and donuts–sitting in our pajamas and chatting through the first few hours of the morning.     

We are so in love.  Our little happy family, as Brayden so lovingly refers to us as.  And all those people around us that we are so blessed with.  

Maybe it’s the promise of a new season.  Crisp air.  Socks and sweatshirts.  Burning candles in the kitchen and the giddiness of knowing that in just a couple of weeks we will be pulling out giant pans of triple-crumbed apple crisp that will melt our mounds of vanilla ice cream.  

Maybe it’s the fleece pajamas for the littles. The burning reds and oranges already dancing among the wind-swaying leaves of our trees.  Beginnings of a new year and with that the infinite possibilities of where life may go.  And on top of all of that, a thankful heart that although the air conditioner is broken, life will be okay once more, for the heat wave is no longer among us.  

Whatever the reason is, fall fever has hit us all.  We are smitten.    

The other day, we raided Brayden’s stash of pretend food.  We tried to replicate the very hungry caterpillar’s ravishing appetite on our coffee table, using our imagination as we stretched the meaning of lollipop and cupcake, sausage and salami.  

We are working on independent playtime still.  I think it will always be a struggle for him.  At the beginning of the week, I put ALL of our toys down in the basement.  I think having too much out is either too overstimulating or too overwhelming.  Then I picked out about ten things and put them on the toys shelves.  Everything is in easy view. . . there are no more piles.  One coloring book with a set of crayons.  One puzzle.  One game.  A bin of wooden blocks.  A bin with a few balls in it.  Three books for reading.  

I have been changing that religiously every two days.  

We have enough stuff to rotate through that eventually, things will be put out that he hasn’t played with in forever, so it will hopefully seem “new” again.  

I have noticed that he is coloring a TON more, now that there isn’t a huge stack of a bajillion coloring books to choose from. He has asked me to read to him more than before, now that he can see the covers of the few books I have put out.  And he certainly isn’t doing any worse in the area of independent play. 

I think I’ll give it a few more weeks of rotating through stuff consistently before I decide if it’s helping at all.  

And would you check out this adorable little babe o’ mine? . . . 

Happy Autumn everyone 🙂