I Love Autumn

It has gotten pretty cool for this Southerner. I love it!! The leaves actually changed colors, not just brown! It has been beautiful. All of our neighbors have been sweeping up their walks and drives and raking their lawns, but we are enjoying every leaf. The girls love to walk through them and hear the crunchy-shwishy noises (so do I).

Yesterday, we brought home two of Kyla's friends from church for some playtime. I decided to walk all five girls to the park (luckily, two of them were in the stroller). It was a fun walk, I tried to teach Kyla, S & Mad how to do the monkey walk, but I guess you had to be born in the 70's to be able to accomplish this fun walk (tell me I'm not the only one to remember). Anyhow, we got there (walking normally) and had fun running around and playing on the playscape.

While we were there, another family (all girls) brought their dinner and sat near us. My cell phone rang (S's mom) and before I could say "hello?", Ryann was sitting on their blanket, eating fries! I was soooooooo embarrassed, but they even gave her some as I was dragging her off. ARGH!

Today I spent relocating and officially dedicating the schoolroom. I hung posters and rearranged a set of shelves for current work. I had originally thought we would just school wherever, but I had too many distractions being near the kitchen and my "office". I was also struggling with having to clean up for dinner every night. I decided it was ridiculous to have a room do double duty when we had 3500 sq feet half unused. We are planning to make a table top thing for the pool table so that we can spread out there too, since it's in the school room. We hope to make some oversized game boards for it.
Speaking of games, we played "Sorry" with Kyla the other night. I really don't like that game. I suggested we do the opposite of all the cards, Kyla thought I was crazy and I have to admit, it would have been confusing. I think I'm going to make up a game called "Thank You" or something more positive, I'm sure you can imagine it.
Well, I have been trying to get a grip on our days. We have been wasting so much time. It's my fault, I'm pretty lazy. So, I borrowed a copy of Managers of Their Homes by Teri Maxwell. Steve is reading it with me and is going to help me and hold me accountable. I can't believe it is November and Kyla and I are still "getting in to the groove" of things. I know that things will go more smoothly if we can implement a good schedule.
We lit a fire in the upstairs fireplace this evening. It's so neat! We ate dinner next to it. Yes, this house was built in the 80's, hence the retro fireplace. We think it feels like a ski-lodge. It certainly puts off a lot of heat! I had Steve crack a window so that I could blog near the fire.