Well, Autumn has arrived, to the dismay of most people. For me, I love Autumn. I love that the variety of weather, the air is cripser, and each ray of warm sunshine becomes more and more precious as the cold winter starts approaching. I love the leaves turning colours and falling down. If only we could skip winter and just go to spring after Autumn :) This September was quite wonderful in weather, and we had some of the hottest, dries weeks for the year in it.
September of course brings school starting. And this year Charly entered Kindergarten, full of smiles and excitement. He has a very experienced teacher so he is in good hands. There are more girls in his class than boys, but so far it looks like they will all get along okay. There is a set of triple girls to keep us all trying to figure out who is who. Charly goes every morning from 8:38-11:24, and gets about every second Friday off for one reason or another. So far the mornings have gon well, in terms of getting up and out the door. The school is only a few minutes drive away, but the time getting everyone ready and into the van seems to take lots of time, and it will get worse once winter hits. The first week I had to wake the kids up each morning - Sarah was not impressed by this at all. but they quickly adapted.
After I drop Charly off at Kindergarten, then I take Sarah with me, running errands, grocery shopping, and we try to be back at the school early enough to play at the playground for a little while before Charly is done. So nice to shop with only one child :)
Sarah took about a week to accept the new schedule, and is now okay with leaving Charly in his class and going off with Mom for the morning. She's had a rough month, between scheduling, and medical issues. In august she had a bowel setback, had to essentially restart her at full Lax-A-Day strength again. September was up and down trying to slowly reduce that, but so far she's back on track. She's had numerous doctor visists and they are all satisfied with how she is doing. Toward the end of the month Sarah caught a head-cold and shared it with the rest of us. How nice.
Second week of September, Gymnastics started for the kids on Wednesdays. Sarah goes while Charly is in kindergarten. It is a parented course so we can finally attend :) Even though Sarah is the outgoing and athletic child, for the first 2 classes she only showed her stubborn and independent side, refusing to do what the rest of the kids were doing. The third week she changed her mind, and with more sleep the night before, had a great class. Charly goes in the afternoon while Sarah and I watch or wander around. turns out that only one person (Charly) signed up for his class, but it is still being run anyways. So Charly gets lots of one-on-one time with his coach (same coach as from last year), and since he isn't waiting for other kids to have their turns, he is getting lots of exercise during the class!
The last week of September we added in swimming lessons for both kids, Tues & Thurs just before supper. I get to drop Charly off with his instructor and then take Sarah to her parent & tot class. We all get a work out and are hungry and tired when we get home!
During this month, we had numerouse visitors - STR & Helen, Ellen, John & Margaret, and my friend Kim. It was so wonderful to see everyone!
My husband's birthday slipped by quietly. Everyone, including me and the kids were out of town. We had gone to Calgary for Sarah's doctor checkup (all okay) and didn't get home until after supper. We'll have to make sure next year's party is extra special (he he he)!
I took the kids to the Lacombe corn maze. So many things to do there - slides, swings, bouncy pillow, animals to feed, tractor pulled train, etc so we never did get a chance to walk through the maze. But since we had done Bowden's maze it was okay with us. Kids had lots of fun!
Of course with school back in, all the kidsget together and share their germs. So the month ended with us fighting off bugs. Sarah had a fever for one day, Charly for the next with Daddy also down that day. I did my best, suffered through lots of sinus pain and congestion. Daddy and Charly recovered quite quickly (not normal) while Sarah and I continued to fight off the cold symptoms. Thank goodness for Kleenex and Tylenol!
And through the illnesses I struggled to keep the usual day to tday stuff going, plus 2 of our renters had given notice to vacate at the end of Spetember, so I was running around showing prospective tenants the places, arranging cleaning, etc. The townhouse was rented out to a nice couple so hopefully they will treat the place with normal descency.
October photos (Flickr)
Video Bouncy pillow 1
Video Bouncy pillow 2
