fresh fall air.

I am enjoying this glimpse of fall we have had this morning.  I have been waiting for it.  Yes, I love being at the beach and wouldn't mind a few more afternoons soaking in the sun with the kids, but fall is by far my favorite time of year and it can never get here soon enough.  The rain has been comforting.  The cooler air is lovely and I was so happy to be able to be cozy in my boots and lighter fall sweaters today.  I am tired of being hot and sweaty every day and the house is the perfect temperature.

This morning was our first day of Preschool.  It was designed to just be a short “meet and greet” and get used to the classroom type of day, so I just put out some manipulative/puzzles, had some other fun things out for the kids to play with and did a short circle time and craft.  It was a very different dynamic than what I was used to last year.  I had three students last year, two of which had been to school before, and no parents in the room.  Today, I had two parents, two babies, and three preschoolers.  Next week, there will be up to 6 preschoolers and 5 babies.  And Shea is the oldest and the only one who has been to class before.  The age of the children is also younger.  There will be three two year olds, one three year old, and two four year olds.  I definitely have to plan out the time to have the right amount of movement and sitting and not too long doing any one activity. 

It will be a fun challenge though!  I’m thinking about blogging on my mommy blog about it so I have a nice documentation of it for the year.  Especially because I haven’t seen many examples of groups like this, so maybe it will be of some use to someone somewhere.

Anyway, I think it went well, except that there wasn’t much planned so kids got a little restless, since it went a little longer than I had originally planned.  I think it will be better next week when the entire time is structured and planned out though.

I already told Angela and Amber, but we found out our interview for the church planting position is on Saturday, September 28^th (my birthday - so bound to be a go well, right?) and we are sooooo excited about it.  Originally, we weren't sure if this was really something we wanted to do or not.  The more we are researching the model and having conversations about it (which is basically constantly), the more everything in this movement really resonates with a deep longing in our souls we have felt for years.  And the more we look at where we have been and the way God has changed us in the past 6 years has really prepared and led us to this point.  Maybe, just maybe, we finally will find our home in ministry.  I don’t necessarily mean this position.  This could even not last for more than 3 years (pessimistically), but we have learned so much about ourselves, our calling, our dreams, our gifts, the things we need to work on, and so much more in a relatively short amount of time since applying for this job.  I can’t imagine how much more we will learn after the interview – whether we get the job or not – and even up to that point.

That is all for today.  I have so much Preschool planning and cleaning around the house to do.  I am having  a hard time catching up on things with the kids, but I have purged so much stuff in the past few weeks, piles are slowly disappearing.  I have condensed my wardrobe down to half it's size.  Jeremy and I can officially share a small closet without things CRAMMED in there, and I am trying to get us down to one dresser (that might take a while).  I have no idea why I have so many options of clothing, I feel like it is so excessive and I don't wear half of them anyway.  It feels so GOOD to de-clutter...I cannot even explain.  And simplifying the amount of things we have is simplifying my to-do list by a great deal.  Shea helped me get rid of three grocery bags of toys, too!

I am also so thankful today for bringing home lots of fresh fruit and veggies from the local market.  We have been living off of weird concoctions of whatever I could make the past few days, because we didn't go shopping on the weekend and I have been trying to minimize our trips out during the week.  I finally had enough errands to run today to make the trip worth our while.  I even splurged and got myself an extra foamy rice milk latte.  mmmmm.  And the kids were very well behaved (read: not pulling, smacking, or screaming at each other or me).