life lately

Life continues to move along and I'm just loving time with my kiddos lately. It's truly delightful to watch them grow and learn and love the world around them. Parenting has its daily challenges of course, but I'm so blessed to have a husband that parents alongside me: he listens to me, encourages me, teaches and corrects the kids, and is passionate about doing life as a family, even amidst this busy season of finishing his Master's degree. I've been feeling more joyful and settled lately, getting to connect with friends over coffee, email, and the phone. This is a necessity for me as "quality time" is almost my number 1 love language.

Here's a glimpse of what we've done these past few weeks.

Our church had a family service on Sunday and both Curren (amazing!) and Maggie did well sitting in the service with us (C is in the orange shirt and M is sitting on his right). There were children's songs, a shortened sermon (16 minutes, all of which Curren basically sat in his chair watching our pastor speak on the screen), and a children' time to come sit and listen to a story up front. I love these Sundays!

We took family pictures on Saturday afternoon and it went well, minus several meltdowns from the kids and Maggie (Maggie?!) failing to cooperate for some of the pictures. I do love the candid shots because let's be honest, this is life with young children, it's not all a soft hue of sunset and peaceful smiles. I do hope Allison (she is my good friend and such a gifted artist!) got at least one good pic of us all smiling. How funny is Kate in the first pic, eating the parking block?

Obligatory pumpkin carving which is more of Aron's thing. I could do without this yearly tradition; sorry, is that just me?
Kate in her hilarious cuteness as of late means we see her like this often daily: sucking her thumb and poking her belly button simultaneously (these 2 invariably go together now) and also just waking up uber happy after nap times (below).

Maggie's latest art creation: a lion. We LOVE it. Her art teacher, a friend here on campus (and art major) is so talented and is doing a fantastic job with Maggie. Inspired by my friend Laurie, I will probably host a "gallery viewing" in a couple months to display all Maggie has learned.
This is the best homemade pizza I've ever both tasted and made. It's so easy and I have batches of dough in the freezer waiting to be thawed and made for weekly dinners. I'll never buy another frozen pizza again, I swear. Many thanks to a friend on campus who hosted a perfect pizza making party and taught us all the tricks of the trade. I'm a believer.