Ever since Corinne bumped her head, our house has been a little bit more busy. Even though she’s been back to her old self after returning from the hospital, for some reason, things have been busier. Michael stayed home on Wednesday to keep an eye on Corinne (and to give me some time to rest…between going to bed late from Corinne’s accident & nursing Eleanor, I think I got about 3 1/2 - 4 hours of sleep on Tuesday night). Lilli, Eleanor, and I still went to the assisted living community - where the majority of the residents asked where my “other girl” was - and handed out “Autumn Trees” that we made from construction & tissue paper. As always, we had fun and look forward to next week!

Lilli has her second to last day of gymnastics tomorrow. She’s been doing it for two years and although she has enjoyed it, she is starting to loose interest - we feel it’s time to move onto something else. Come November, Lilli will be taking swimming lessons. After swimming, who knows? I’m inclined to say that it will be ballet. During one of our “Clarke Girls Dance Parties” yesterday afternoon, Lilli busted out a temps leve & an arabesque:

So she’s (way) turned in and she landed on a rolled in plie…we can work on that. But look at her line in her arabesque! Must have good genes….
Corinne is almost potty trained! We’re into our second week and she is doing MARVELOUS! We still use a cloth diaper for nap & bedtime, but other than that, Corinne loves her “big girl” undies & tells us when she has to use the “big girl” potty. Another plus - Corinne’s head is looking better. The swelling has gone down drastically, but of course there is a nasty bruise.

I thank God that we were able to see a doctor immediately. Do you know how many children are not able to get the medical attention they need? Do you know in many countries, there is a language barrier? Do you know that many children die from a single mosquito bite? I feel so silly worrying about a bump on the head.

I am thankful for this coming weekend….time with the family, coffee with my pastor’s wife, church, a picnic, & of course - more apple picking
What are your plans for the weekend?

Today the girls and I went back to visit our “older” friends at the nursing home and handed out decorated autumn leaves with colorful jeweled stickers. We saw some people from last week (the ladies who I could just sit and probably talk for hours with…perhaps on a day when I don’t bring the girls, which might be easier said than done since I know the residents just LOVE visiting with the little ones) and we saw some new faces as well. Mr. “C” was a new face and he was just wonderful to visit with. Corinne gave him a bunch of hugs and I enjoyed hearing about “way back when.” I was told before we left that Mr. “C” rarely comes out of his room, so that made this visit even more special. I’m really looking forward next week’s visit! Now, to think of another Autumn craft…

Age these days is looked upon as something to fight against. From wrinkle creams to plastic surgery, our society puts the “beautiful” people up on pedestals and cast off the burdensome “old” people. I don’t want my girls to think that in order to be attractive, they need to “look” a certain way. Wisdom, knowledge, the character of their spirit…their heart…it is these things that I want my girls to focus on.

Yesterday, the girls and I decided to visit our nearby retirement home. Well, I think the correct term is “Assisted Living Community.” We made “Happy Autumn” cards - I had decided against saying “Happy Fall,” just in case…lol - to hand out to the residents. The girls had fun decorating them with colorful leaves made from construction paper and even more fun handing them out! Lilli was ever so polite and was eager to answer the “How old are you?” question - over, and over, and over again. Corinne was loving the attention and handed out more hugs than cards! And of course Eleanor was just snuggled in her blanket taking it all in. We had such a nice time that we’re going to visit with them every Wednesday morning.

The elderly deserve our respect and dignity. I feel that by visiting our older friends, my girls will learn to have a servant’s heart. They will learn to look past the grey hair, wrinkles, varicose veins, and look into a soul…to see where they’ve been, what they’ve done, learn from their experiences. At the same time, our older friends will have *adopted* children. They will have someone to visit with who cares about them ALL the time, rather than feel useless & avoided except on special occasions or holidays.

I can’t wait until next week

Now that Fall, or Autumn (which ever you prefer ), is here, I thought it would be fun for the girls to paint with a color that reminded them of the season - Lilli chose orange. I had some extra sponges and thought it would be a great material to paint with. Cutting the sponges into different shapes made it even more fun…the girls had a blast!

HOW CUTE IS THIS?!! Too cute for words, in my opinion, and it’s for a wonderful cause. Each handmade doll is $36.00. The proceeds (minus materials) will be able to feed 2 children for a month through Compassion International!

We’ve been involved with Compassion for a year now - I’ve written about Joan, our sponsored girl in Uganda, before, and we’ve recently sponsored 6 year old Musee in Kenya (will write more about him later ), and I cannot express what an awesome job they do in releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

So, whether you’re buying a doll as a gift for a birthday, special occasion, or Christmas - yes it’s right around the corner - you can be assured that you’re also giving 2 children in another country the gift of a full tummy during this time of a global food crisis - and THAT is an amazing gift!

You can visit Abbie at her blog, all in His design, for more info.

I think the last time I won something was in third grade from Pizza Hut. They had a coloring contest and I won a “Land Before Time” Little Foot stuffed animal. Obviously, it’s been a while…lol.

But my luck has turned around. I am this weeks winner of Mandi’s Favorite Things: I won a subscription to both Family Time & Wondertime. I’m super excited because they both are loaded with recipes and crafts, which I’m always on the hunt for. The girls and I are going to have SO much fun - thanks Mandi!!!

Now onto contest #3…what you’d think I’d give up when my luck is this good? Nah This week’s winner will receive a $25.00 gift certificate to CurrClick: a site where you can download curriculum that is organized by subjects, age, price, you name it. With my “near to perfectionist” type personality, I just love looking through the different categories that are organized so well All you have to do is visit CurrClick and choose the product(s) you love the most. Then go back to Mandi’s site and leave a comment with your product choice, your name and a way for her to contact you if you win! Also, if you blog about this contest and come back and leave her a comment with a link to the post, you will receive THREE additional entries. Additionally, if you tell someone about the contest and they mention your name in their entry, you will receive an additional entry as well. WOW!

Why are you still reading this…go go go!

…those cool candy necklaces when we were kids? They’re probably still around, but rather than jumping in the car & heading to the store to rummage through the candy aisle, I thought it would be fun to make our own. I found this to be a perfect craft to do after playing outside…it allows the girls to sit calmly & cool off while working on their hand-eye coordination (without knowing it, of course, ’cause where’s the fun in that?!)

What you will need:
* Thin shoe-like strings or a string with a hard end to string through the cereal.
* An “O’s” cereal. I found anything like Cheerios to have a too small of a hole to string, so I opted for the less-healthy but way more colorful and yummy Fruit Loops cereal that has a larger hole.

What to do:
* Knot one end of the string.
* Slip the string through the hole of the cereal.
* When your necklace is complete, tie (loosely) around your neck and enjoy!

I’ll admit it - I’m obsessed. I can’t walk past a window in our house without looking out to see if there are any finches feeding from our homemade birdfeeders. There usually are…with some waiting for their turn, as a matter of fact (Note to self: Must make more…I guess five feeders isn’t enough). We’ve spaced them all over our three acres, but my favorite is the one right outside our kitchen window. We can see them, but they obviously can’t see us, since we don’t scare them off as we spy on them. Corinne loves telling me there’s a bird feeding by saying, “teet teet teet!” as she points out the window.

So for craft time, I thought feathers would be an appropriate material to use. Corinne glued the feathers & fuzzy balls onto paper & Lilli decorated her own bird from an empty toilet paper roll that I had cut out during nap time. She said she is going to “hang it outside to scare away the mean Blue Jays!” I don’t know about that, since she did an excellent job at making such a beautiful bird

Our weekends are usually busy…getting “stuff done” that normally doesn’t get done during the week. This weekend wasn’t any different in that sense, but man - I think we went non-stop! (We even forgot to watch Battlestar Gallactica on SciFi Rewind- gasp!!)

Friday we went into the city…well I suppose some call it a suburb, but to us “country folk,” Fairfax is definitely the city. While Michael had a doctor’s appointment, the girls and I decided to hit up Fair Oaks Mall. I was excited to get to Yankee Candle Company (I’ve been debating over THIS item but wanted to see it in person before I bought it, which I happily ended up doing) and the girls were excited to play in the indoor playground area - or as some of us describe it: the place to take your kids so they completely wear themselves out and conk out in the car on the way home, which of course didn’t happen for us - the girls had as much fun jumping on our bed when we got home.

Saturday was a complete “nesting” day for me. I re-organized (yes, organized…again) the girls play room, decided to pick up some great craft supplies from Oriental Trading Company (thanks Mandi!), and ran errands with my partner in crime (also known as Lilli ). I’ve been wanting to get a LARGE chalkboard for the girls, but am not going to spend a large amount of money on something that we can make for a lot less (and have fun doing at the same time). My sister in law, Tracy, had painted a chalkboard on one of her walls and said it was awesome. The wall behind the girls’ door is perfect for that so Lilli and I went off to Lowes for chalkboard paint, as well as some other ”supplies” needed by my project lovin’ hubby. Target was another stop for some picture frames, as well as Chik Fil A to get a super duper mega yummy milkshake…I believe this was Lilli’s favorite “errand.”

Today I started off a little under the weather. But after I perked up, we painted the girls’ wall, made some more birdfeeders, got the laundry going (Lilli loves to sort) while Michael & Smiley worked on Michael’s garage…something about rafters???, did yard work, played on the playground, and had an enjoyable cookout with our incredible neighbors Wade & Julie. We should all sleep well tonight…especially the girls, who had a blast splashing around in our neighbor’s hot tub!