The warm weather, colds, and rearranging bedrooms

After wanting to slow down our life for awhile, we finally found our desire met. We embraced the slower pace of life with open arms. After a wild start to our month having a little down time makes me feel like we are, I don't know, somewhat boring. I didn't think I had much to even put on a post. Though this may be true, I have to tell you, I love having a quiet slower-paced lifestyle. I'm less stressed, more focused on what I'm doing, and a more purposeful parent. 

Never the less, I was able to find a few pictures to share with you what we have been up to in the last week. 

In our area, many of the local farmers are harvesting or wrapping up harvesting their crops. We are fortunate to have a field next to us and across our road. My kids LOVE watching this process. They will sit and watch the farmers all day. I am amazed at how much they are already learning about farm life and where our food comes from.

Payton begged me to take this picture of her. She's so silly.

We knew the cold weather would be coming soon so we spent one of the last warm days wrapping up outside projects. My husband made a bird feeder for the kids to paint and there it sat on our counter for about a month. I decided to procrastinate until the absolute last warm day. Sometimes, that's just how I roll. 

In any case, I hauled the feeder out and let the kids paint as they wanted. They had so much fun. While they painted, my husband sealed our new campfire sitting area. We are so excited about this area and have already made s'mores a few times. Eventually (probably in the spring) we plan to make some outdoor benches or chairs for what we have already named "our secret spot."

We also took a quick trip to our apple tree and picked apples for the last time this year. We spent a few days harvesting what we picked and now have a freezer stocked full of apples from our 3 trees to get us through until next summer (or they may only get us through January). Riley found joy in picking 1 apple each time and spending the remainder of the time eating that said apple. He was a lot of help!

As I mentioned in this interview, we are preparing for baby #3 by rearranging our room situation at our house. This meant moving our two little ones into one room while we took over the room Payton was in. The 3rd bedroom on the main floor will be used as a toy room for the time being but will become the baby's room. 

We are only on our 3rd night. The first night went really well. Too well. Both kids were out within minutes. I had taken my family to my hometown for a few days to see extended family and celebrate one of my friend's 30th birthdays. While we were gone my husband moved the kids into their room together so it would be ready when we returned. They were so tired and excited about the transition to sharing a room that they both fell right to sleep that first night. The next two nights were not so easy. I'm hoping we survive this transition...

With moving and rearranging 3 rooms, I pulled all the pictures down to redistribute them. It is so crazy to see the pictures of my babies. What a bittersweet time for me as we will be adding 1 more before I know it and time seems to go faster and faster. Babies don't keep but thank goodness photos continue to linger.

When the weather got colder we turned to one of our favorite things of all, coloring and art projects. The kids have been working hard on making cards and letters for family members, creating fun art projects, and coloring in their coloring books.

The other day, I caught this beautiful picture and had to share. Riley loves his daddy so, so much.

And, unfortunately we kicked off the weekend with 2 sick kiddos. The common cold didn't want to miss our house this year. Despite feeling cruddy, both kids were fairly happy and Payton really perked up with some homemade, warm apple juice. 

Both kids are worn out but definitely seem on the mend. We will continue with a quiet week this week and will hopefully get plenty of rest.

We hope you enjoyed your weekend!