Catch-up Time!

Wow, I have so much to chatter about! First things first: This is baby Elliott, our newest nephew!!!
Elliott surprised Joanna and Clay (my sister and her husband) by arriving about 2.5 weeks early, just after 12 am on Sunday. In fact, his arrival was so quick that Jo didn't make it to the birth center in time . . . but thankfully her midwife was able to meet up with them in another town, closer than the birth center, and Elliott was born in the backseat of the midwife's truck. :) Now that's quite the birth story, don't you think?! Good thing my little sis is so calm, cool and collected! Everything went just fine and both mommy and baby are doing well. It's been two years since I've seen Jo, and I haven't yet met either of her two younger children--hopefully we'll get to see them all sometime within the next year!

Everything is going well for us. Last week, Jim took a little "missions trip" to do some remodeling for a church a couple of hours away from us. He left on Monday and was gone overnight for 2 nights, then came home for Weds. night and left again early Thurs. morning. And then came home for good on Friday! So, it was a kind of strange week for all of us, but we made it through with our sanity intact. :)

I have been working at trying to better organize my life and priorities. Last week I read on Facebook that Crystal over at Money Saving Mom was starting a new routine where she was staying offline all morning. I thought, "I should try that!" So for the past two days, I've only done a quick email check in the mornings and then waited till after lunch to do other computer stuff. I think tomorrow I will start even skipping checking email, and keep away from the internet completely till after lunch. It should help me accomplish a lot more, get Sam's schooling done first thing, and generally make our home run smoother (I hope!).

I've also been hoping to implement a weekly planning retreat, such as I've read about on several blogs (most recently here). I think that would be hugely helpful for me, and very refreshing. It's so hard to find a quiet moment with 3 little ones clamoring for my attention most of the day . . . and you know, I love those little ones to pieces!! . . . but I also love to have some quiet time to think, plan, journal, and pray. I'll let you know what we come up with. Jim thinks it's a good idea, but I'm not sure where around here I would go to make something like that happen. We live in a pretty rural area, and whereas the thought of a planning time spent at a cozy little coffee shop or Panera sounds lovely, we don't have much of anything like that in our neck of the woods. :)

I recently came across a neat modest clothing website that I wanted to share. I know some of you ladies prefer to wear skirts or dresses, and nice ones can be hard to find. This site, New Creation Apparel, has some really cute skirts, and the prices aren't too shocking, either. I particularly like some of their denim skirts, and if I ever have another baby, you can bet I'd be investing in one or two of their maternity skirts!! My sister-in-law, who is expecting, recently bought a couple and told me that they're really nice, and fit really well. So, just a little heads-up for anyone who might be interested!

After our applesauce-making extravaganza, we took about a week to recover :D, then jumped into apple stuff again with our friends, who still had about 6 bushels of apples left. We took some home to freeze for pies, and worked with them last Saturday to turn the rest into apple butter, apple juice, and then more applesauce. Yum!! It was lots of fun, but I think we are all glad to see the last of the apples for this year. It will be so nice to enjoy the fruits of our labor through the winter months!!

Well, I guess that is a quick update on us . . . hope you're all doing well, too!! I'm going to try to get back to posting at least once a week, but we'll see how it goes. Life just seems to be going along at a rather breathtaking speed lately!