hello friday...

Can you believe October is almost over?!?  I can't.  Our month has gone by at warp speed and I seem to have neglected my little corner of the blogsphere.  I hope this post will catch you up a little on our doings these past few weeks.  As we have been having a lot of fun participating in our fall activities and enjoying these days of warm weather.

You can't tell from this photo but sister had just thrown a major hissey fit.  She loves {loves} to swing and just as passionately hates to get off the swing.   Well, her brothers 'called' the swings so dad got her off to let Luke on.  Big mistake.  Huge.  In Mark's defense he didn't know she would react that way.  In order to appease our little princess, she was placed on the glider.  Which she equally loves, because it is basically just a larger swing.  She was swinging herself by making the glider go back and forth with her arms.

You can see the JOY on her face at swinging in this shot pretty clearly (and the snot from the previously mentioned hissey fit!  I need to figure out how to erase that bit from her face because I just love this picture of her).  It is always fun to see Grace do typical childhood things, like swinging by herself.  Because she just doesn't do age appropriate typical things very often.  Or ever.


John's soccer season ends tomorrow.  Well, I should say it is supposed to end tomorrow.  Our weather forecast is calling for either rain or snow tomorrow morning, so we are not sure he will play his game.  His team is not very good.  At all.  They haven't scored a goal and therefore haven't won a game this season.  I feel particularly bad for the coach.  He is such a nice guy and runs his practices really well.  I think we just have timid players or something.

One of our favorite fall things is roasted pumpkin seeds.  They are totally yummy and super easy to make.  My kids devour them in minutes. It is hardly called a recipe, but in case you have never tried to roast pumpkin seeds this is what I do.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin Seeds
Olive Oil
Sea Salt

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Rinse seeds under water.  You want to make sure you clean them really well.  If you leave any of the pumpkin stringy stuff on your seeds, your seeds will taste like the inside of the pumpkin.

3. Dry and place on lined baking tray.  I use my Silpat liner which I've had forever, but you can use parchment paper or just spray the baking tray with cooking spray.
4. Drizzle with Olive Oil.  I drizzle enough on to coat each seed and mix it with my hands.
5. Sprinkle with Sea Salt, generously.  We like salt in this house!
6.  Bake in oven for 13-15 minutes.  You want to watch them after 13 minutes to make sure they do not get over cooked.  They should be lightly brown when you take them out.

7. Enjoy!  It is that simple and so yummy.  I had to 'test' a few before I let the kids know they were ready.  I'm nice like that :)

I've been having a few 'can't see the forest for the trees' days lately.  I think sometimes it just stinks to be a special needs mom.  Well, actually, I know it stinks to be a special needs mom.  However, most days I stand firmly in the the land of acceptance having fought really hard through the stages of grief about Grace's disabilities.  I don't even think anything specific happened, I think it is just a phase that I am going through and probably will continue to go through as Grace gets older.  With all that said, I'm really looking forward to this weekend.  Mark  isn't working, which means he will be home from about 5:00pm tonight until Tuesday morning.  I love it when he has a weekend off!

It will do my spirits good to have him home and for us to do stuff as a family.  Which typically means that I'll say on Sunday 'I need to 'pop' out to the store by myself for a few minutes'.  This weekend I do legitimately need to go to a craft store, which takes me literally hours to shop in because I have to up and down every aisle even if I find what I need the minute I walk in the door.  (hello, run on sentence)  I guess one of the reasons I love having him home is because he not only can but will watch the kids for me so I can 'pop' out by myself for a few minutes hours.

Besides John's game and church, we don't really have anything on our schedule.  Which feels right for this last weekend of October.  We are going to build a fire and hang in tonight.  I know that there will be some baking, cooking and crafting going on but other than that we will just go with the rhythm of the weekend.  

What are your weekend plans?  Has the weather started to change where you live?