The Joy of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Greta is almost 3 months old and beginning to settle into a little more of a schedule.  A little.
I'm not very good at getting a baby onto a schedule-- you'd think I'd have learned to do that by now.

This isn't the most exciting thing that happened to me this week, but it was the most pleasant.
Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  And I mean A LOT of them.  I made three batches this week-- the first was a double batch.  The second was a triple batch.  And I kid you not, yesterday I made a quadruple batch.
We shared a little (and I do mean a little).  But mostly we consumed them all.  It was self-medication.  We've had a run of bad news lately from people we love and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies brought a few moments relief.  And there is vegetable in them.  Still, this pattern cannot continue.

I loathe spiders.  LOATHE.
But even I must admit these ping-pong ball spiders Bethany and Faith made are pretty cute.  However, I still feel uncomfortable when I see them around the house.

Little Greta all bundled up and read for our morning walk on Saturday.

I loved this image of Faith reading her morning paper and drinking her hot chocolate.

I hope that all of my children are happily married someday.  But I do live in fear of something.
I fear that my future sons- and daughter-in-laws will be upset with me for not having done a better job of teaching my children to keep their rooms tidy (or whatever else I'm failing at).
Exhibit A:  Faith's bed
She calls this horrific pile of clothing on her bed "The Pile of Peace".
I think the name come from keeping the peace by throwing all her clothing on her bed, rather than the floor of her and Bethany's shared room.  This keeps he peace with Bethany.
I'm apologizing in advance to my children's future spouses.  I do try, but maybe not hard enough.

For someone with as many eating and food issues at Peter has, he was quite the fan of the these super spicy tortilla chips and salsa.  Go figure.

Here is Peter with he favorite person in the world-- Meghan-- his speech therapist.  She comes to our house a couple times a month and Peter anxiously awaits her arrival by running to the window to look for her.

George loves to climb trees.  He loves to ride his bike.  He loves to play soccer.  He loves to move his body.

 The boys came with me to cheer Faith on at her cross country meet last week.  Clark has a pretty busy schedule, so I really appreciated him coming with me and helping with the little kids.  Plus, he doesn't have that much time left at home, so I enjoyed the time with him.

I love how little kids eat apples.  It's the same idea with corn on the cob.

It's been a rough month with bad news about loved ones-- more on that on another post.  I had a hard time regulating my emotions this past week (hence the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies).  Life has so many wonderful good part.  And then there are the downright awful parts-- I guess it's that "opposition in all things" thing.  Even so, my heart feels heavy.

In really good news, Bethany worked her little tail off early in the morning and late at night and did very well in her seating auditions for her orchestra.  She got 11th chair out of 19 violins.  She was thrilled and we were so happy to see all her hard work pay off for her.