Fall Memories 2017

Our fall was pretty relaxed, but still very fun! The biggest change we had this fall was that Jane started taking Gymnastics classes. She loves it!! She showed us just how flexible she is pretty quickly. We had no idea she could almost do the splits already! She has the right body type to excel in gymnastics. Petite, compact and muscular. With Sam's height I'm still expecting her to be tall eventually, but for now she's projected to be my size. As long as she loves going and Marmee and Pappaw can help us pay for the classes she'll keep going!

First class

There are a few places in our area that offer Gymnastic classes for 3+ kiddos. At the beginning of October we decided to check out the closest option first. It's kind of a mom's day out/preschool place. It's basically right across the street from our house. Jane loved the class, but she seemed confused half the time because I told her before class if she wanted to do gymnastics she had to do everything the coach said. The other kids in the class were not listening very well and kinda running around and doing whatever they wanted. So she would stand there wondering what to do until the coach could wrangle the rest of the class. The equipment wasn't very impressive either. The parent viewing room was super small and dark. Atlas was upset almost the whole class waiting for Jane to be done. Not surprisingly, it was the most affordable option.

Super impressive gym

Large bright viewing room

We decided to try another facility that was offering a free trial class. Rowland/Ballard is the most expensive option, but for good reason. The equipment is competition grade and the class was much more controlled and all the kids followed instructions really well. Eventually, if Jane wanted to, she could move into the competitive classes and train for gymnastic competitions here. The viewing room is huge and very well lit. There's lots of space for Atlas to run around and entertain himself. He usually stays happy the whole class which is a big deal to me.

We love coach Shelton

Jane and her friend Whisper

When we walked in for our first trial class Coach Shelton greeted us and asked if we had a friend in the class. I said no, but we had no idea that our old neighbors and friends would be there for their trial class on the same day as us! As soon as I told the coach we didn't know anyone my friend, Lena, walked up to me and gave me a big hug! I changed my answer and said I guess we do!! He commented on how cool it was that we ended up there on the same day without knowing. By the end of the class I was convinced this was the best place to take gymnastic classes in our area. Plus Jane already had a friend!

Pointed toes and all!

Flexible girl.

Jane's 3-4 year old fall class. Halloween dress up day. We missed the memo!

It's a really cute class to watch. Jane always listens really well and has pretty good form when she does all her stretches. When we first started Jane would ask every day if it was gymnastics day. She never wants to change out of her leotard. There was one day where Jane said she didn't like gymnastics anymore. I was able to remind her how much she liked it and she went to class excited again. That same day she fell off a high bar and hurt her leg. So for the next week she told me she didn't want to go back to gymnastics. My dad said he could come and watch her and that made her want to go again, but she said she wasn't getting on the high bar again. She got over her fear after a few more weeks and is back to being completely in love with gymnastics. One day I'd like to go in the gym and get some better pictures and videos of Jane doing her gymnastics. It's hard to get a clear picture when they are moving the whole time and pretty far away through the glass. I'll have to ask if I'm allowed to do that one of these days.

Park buddies!

It's been about a year now since we started going to home school park day. Jane and Atlas adore going. It takes me a while to convince them to go home each week. We seem to end up staying almost 3 hours most of the time. I love it too. I get to chat with my home school mom friends and the kids get to play with their friends. It's a win win! We took most of the summer off from park day and went to the pool instead since it was so hot! It's been really fun to get back to it. A small change about park day is I'm now the organizer for the event. So as long as we are all well and the weather is good we are there and on time every week! I feel like an official home school mom now that I'm an organizer for a home school event.

Yummy chips

Picnics at the park are always a favorite

I pack a picnic lunch for us to share while we are there. I normally pack PB&Js for me and some lunch meat and cheese for the kiddos since they don't like peanut butter. I bring a snack and some fruit too. Sometimes the kids eat a lot sometimes they eat a little. I always seem to pack too much or too little. I've learned not to worry about it. They'll eat when they are hungry and we can always eat some more when we get home. ;)

Watching the turtles together

Hello Turtles!

Our home school park day is held at the park I remember going to most when I was little. I specifically remember going to this slab of concrete on the ditch right near the playground and thinking it was the coolest place. It felt like my secret spot. It has lost a little bit of wonder for me now that I'm older and realize it's a dirty drainage ditch, but it's fun to see that my kids think it's special too. We sit and watch the turtles sometimes. One time there were at least 50 turtles waiting for someone to feed them. Atlas always seem to run off towards this spot all on his own at least once a park day. Obviously, I'm watching him so I catch up and Jane and I go with him, but apparently he likes my old special spot too.

Swingin

Slidin

Bouncin

When I first started going to park day my mom was in between jobs and I had her to help me keep an eye on the kiddos. When she got a job and I was on my own it was kind of a hard transition for me to keep up with both of them. In time they have grown and gotten easier to watch and I've gotten better at splitting time between what each of them wants to do and keeping one eye on each of them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when Alexandria gets here! But I am going to do my best to keep going each week. It's a big favorite of everyone's.

Wonder Woman!

Batman!

I asked them both to give me a super hero pose and this is what they came up with. Jane's favorite super hero is Wonder Woman and Atlas's is Batman. I'd say they did a pretty good job! :) Can I just mention that Jane is looking super old to me lately. When did she get so tall?? And when did the super comprehension start??

Playing with Cicada shells

Pop-up Library!

I love that Jane is not afraid of bugs. She loves collecting cicada shells just like I did as a kid. They are both wearing a shell on their shoulder in the picture above. Can you spot them? The other picture needs a little extra explaining as well. As most of you know our library flooded during Hurricane Harvey. We've been without our local library for almost 5 months now. We have two other libraries that are about 15-20 minutes away. But it's just not the same. They don't have a story time that works for our schedule and 20 minutes is just far away enough for Atlas to fall asleep just about every time and not want to nap the rest of the day. So we've really been missing our awesome library. They started a pop-up library at our community center and we've been a few times. It's only open two days a week, the selection, of course, is very limited and their story times are also at bad times for us. I am SO ready for our library to reopen. Unfortunately there is still no reopening date at this point. I'm praying for spring!

Taking a walk in the sprinkles

When most of the town was under water this was our street.

Let's back up a little bit and talk about Harvey. It was sort of more of a summer thing, but it definitely effected our fall. Let me start with I LOVE my house! Seriously, there was never standing water on our street. We only lost power for about 6 hours one night. We had absolutely no damage. We are very grateful! It makes me never want to move! (even though one day I'm pretty sure we'll outgrow our house)

We spent a lot of time playing in the rain!

This was all of us sleeping on the floor in Jane's
room when the power went out.

We did get flooded in for a day or two because all of the roads going out were flooded. All the stores around us were out of stock of lots of "necessities" for a week or longer. Just a mile or two down the road our brand new HEB store that I LOVE got 7 feet of flood water. :( That HEB is located where Sam and my first apartment once stood. It's kind of a weird feeling. If we would have been living there we would have evacuated. Man, have I missed my HEB! The double seat carts are a life saver shopping with two toddlers. I am super excited that my HEB is reopening THIS week, on January 19th!! YAY!

We drove to see some of the worst flooding

Crazy. That's the HEB building in the background.

I don't know the right word/s to explain how I feel that I get to say the only complaints I have from Harvey are almost running out of dog food, not having bread, eggs, etc. for a while and missing a lot of our favorite locations around town that were flooded. Grateful... Humbled... Blessed... Spared... Lucky? Why them... why not me? I really don't know the right way to describe it. I know once the water started to recede I wanted to find out how I could help those in need especially since I wasn't effected. But I found there wasn't much I could do. I was pregnant with morning sickness/all day sickness and two toddlers, plus my bills didn't just disappear. Maybe I didn't try hard enough looking for opportunities. But I did donate what I could. We made a donation to JJ Watt's flood fund and we rounded up what we had around the house that we could spare to donate to local shelters. The other thing I found is that people were actually refusing donations because there was an overflow of donations. How cool to see everyone come together for good. I feel proud of my city. Can we have a few years off from any floods now??

Wonder Woman!

Jim Halpert as Dave

This was the first year Jane could tell me what she wanted to be for Halloween! But every time I asked her what she wanted to be it was different. I would show her a costume and ask if she wanted that one and I would get a yes to every one. Some of the options were, Ninja, Vet, Doctor, Firefighter, Cinderella, Elsa, Moana. Then finally I said Wonder Woman and she said YES! PLEASE! and stopped saying yes to anything else. I found an affordable option on Amazon and found the boot slippers at Walmart. (Why does everything girl have to be PINK?? Seriously. Why aren't the slippers red? that's Wonder Woman's color! Rant over.)

This was after we went to a trunk or treat.
So the name tag has seen better days.

The real Jim as Dave

With Atlas I knew he loved Batman already. Even though we don't watch any Batman cartoons or anything yet. But I also knew he wouldn't really care. I figured this was probably the only chance I had to come up with something fun and also have an excuse to buy him some clothes he already needed and use them as a costume. Fans of The Office will get it. Let me try to explain. There is a character from The Office named Jim and he hates dressing up for Halloween on their staff dress up day. So he always came up with creative ways to "dress up" without dressing up. One season he was a 3 hole punch, just a normal shirt with three black circles pasted on it. Another season he wrote Book on his Face... Facebook. The season I chose to recreate was when all he did was put a name tag on that said "Dave". So I dressed Atlas up in clothes similar to Jim's office clothes (I couldn't find a toddler tie so I cut one out of paper) and put a name tag on him that said Dave. Above is a picture of Jim Halpert as Dave. Let me know how you think I did. ;)

Yay bouncy house!

Jane loves anything she can jump on!

A few days before Halloween three local churches that are within walking distance of each other put on a Trunk or Treat on the Trails event. One of the churches hosting was the church my parents were a member of when I was born, it's also the same church Sam and I got married in. All the events were held in each church's parking lot. They each had bounce houses, games and trunk or treat stations. It was a perfect event. It was well attended, but didn't feel too busy or overcrowded since everyone was always moving around to the different churches. There was perfect weather that day too. Both Atlas and Jane seemed to really enjoy themselves. Jane really loved it though.

Princess Sofia

Xan was a 1up Mushroom

Cinderella and Batman

On Halloween night our community was putting on a Trunk or Treat for the area. It was open to everyone, but it was especially for those who didn't have a place to trick or treat since their neighborhoods flooded. On that night the Astros had a chance to win the world series and it was raining. The rain made traffic extra slow and Sam got home late. Because Sam got home an hour later than expected, the bad weather and the Astros game we didn't want to miss, we decided to stay home that night. We had a fun bath time and then spent a good long time playing dress up before bed. It was the right choice. Atlas and Jane had already gotten to go to a Halloween event anyway. Our street is super slow on Halloween night. I almost never see any kids walking down our street. I'm not a fan of trick or treating or Halloween in general. I normally hide inside on Halloween. But recently I read a blog about being the most fun house on the block as a ministry. I really liked the idea of creating a small fall festival in my own front yard for all my neighbors to come to. That way I would have an opportunity to get to know them better and be a light on that day. I read that idea a little late to prepare for this year. It wouldn't have worked well because of the weather anyway. Maybe next year I can try it out! OH yeah, The Astros ended up winning the World Series the day after Halloween. WOOHOO! WORLD CHAMPS! GO 'STROS!

The Kearley side of the family

Our fall came to a close with a bittersweet end. We went to my grandparents house the Saturday after Thanksgiving to celebrate my Grandmother's 86th Birthday. It was the biggest family gathering we've had in 2 years. We were only missing a few grandchildren and one great grandchild. We visited for a while and had some ice cream cake. The kids and I were getting over a cold so we tried to keep our distance from my grandparents and stayed outside most of the visit. I regret this a little because I feel like I knew this would be the last time I would see my grandmother. I could tell it would be soon. She couldn't stay awake even with all the activity around her. I had seen her a month or so before and I saw a rapid decline in her health. My grandfather moved her home from the nursing home just 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. I think she was waiting to go home and see the family one last time before she left us. If I hadn't been sick I would have talked to her longer and given her a bigger hug when I left, but I know I would have felt worse if she would have caught a cold right before she died and I knew I was the cause. Just one week after her 86th Birthday Pat Kearley left this world. It was bitter because it's always hard to lose someone you love, but sweet because she was no longer suffering and her departure was peaceful and at home surrounded by family. We don't know the actual minute she left us, but we believe she passed during a prayer by the hospice chaplain. God is good.

On one of our fun trips to Boston

One of my favorite pictures of my Mimaw

This was the tribute I wrote to honor her memory.
My grandma (my mom's mom) passed away a couple of days ago shortly after her 86th Birthday. She wasn't the perfect grandma, she lost her temper, raised her voice and was unreasonable at times. She had a tough life and it showed. But no matter her faults, she always showed us how much she loved us. I'll always remember that she would ask me if I wanted something to drink at least 5 times while I was at her house. I realize now that part of that might have been her memory, but mostly I know it was because she wanted to take care of us whenever we were around. She was the grandma that was always trying to give us money. My mom would try to stop her and tell her we didn't need anything but she'd end up giving it to us anyway. Anytime we would comment about how much we liked an item at her house she always tried to send it home with us! This didn't just apply to grandkids. She did it with everyone! She'd embarrass me because she would talk to EVERY stranger she met even when you could tell they were busy. She would always stop to pick up a penny no matter how inconvenient. She would give us a huge bag of coins to count up and take to the bank at the end of each year. Whenever we stayed in a hotel on one of our trips to Boston, Pensacola or Mobile she would have us guess which elevator would open first and give us a quarter if we were right. If there was just one elevator she'd give us a quarter anyway. I'll never forget the time she spent being completely focused on us. Especially the sleepovers full of board games, movies, candy and fast food. She was the grandma that got on the trampoline with us, that slid down slides with us and I'll always remember her giggle while we did it. She was the great grandma that HAD to get on the ground with the littlest of babies and play with them even though she could barely get back up. I'm not sad because we knew it was time for her to go and no one can stay on this earth forever. She had become a shadow of what she once was. Because of these last 6 years of her health declining, I had started to forget the fun times we had. I will make sure I choose to remember the times when her mind and body were well and all the fun memories we have together. I will smile when I remember her. She was the grandma that spoiled, just as it should be. 
We love you Mimaw. 

Thessalonians 4:13-14

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.

Psalm 107:1

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.