We had a busy day Wednesday, and since Chris wasn’t home for dinner, I let the girls choose whatever…sandwiches, yogurt, crackers, it was simple and easy. Partway through dinner, Maggie got up to wander, and I was just about to snip at her to stay at the table when I realized she’d wandered over to me. She threw her arms around my neck and sighed “I Just love you MOM I’m so glad you’re my mom”

It was totally out of the blue and it was wonderful. She’d had a great day. She brought a friend home after school – it was a half day and the friend got to ride Maggie’s bus instead of her own. This is HUGE in first grade! They played happily all afternoon, even sharing their playtime with Katherine. She was exhausted, but she had a great day, and she threw her arms around me in the middle of dinner to tell me she loved me. It was so sweet.

Of course, an hour or so later, in her excitement about being invited to Riley’s birthday party, she told me “You know, he’s kinda like my boyfriend” Um, let’s go back to sweet and innocent please! You’re too young for boyfriends!

In other news we had fabulous (though much too short) trip to Evanston on Sunday to visit with our favorite Iowa City residents. It was wonderful to watch the cousins play together. A trip to the park, playing on the front porch, reading stories, and a “private” dinner at the “kids” table in the kitchen - it was perfect!

We’ve had perfect weather for the last 3 weeks; Almost no rain, and warmer than average temperatures. We’ve been soaking it up – knowing that all too soon the snow will fly. Almost every afternoon has found us outside raking leaves and jumping in the piles. I never get tired of watching their glee, jumping, tossing, skipping through the leaves.

Once upon a time I thought I'd update the blog at least weekly. Perhaps that was too lofty a goal? Because I'm slacking, Wow.

We are in full school year mania herein the Sepersky family. School, dance, gymnastics, church meetings, extra school activities (for Daddy AND girls) zoo school, church school (CCD) plus regular employment for Mom and Dad. It's a bit crazy. But honestly I do love it. It is good to be busy and having fun!

And of course, with all the scheduled activities come the unscheduled things - like a GI flu that hung around for a week. And a major school project that was suddenly due in 10 days.

Yes it's crazy - but a good crazy, a fun crazy. Let's just recap in pictures.

Maggie's first night of dance class. It's very low key - through the rec department. Honestly she's a little old for this class, but she overlapped with 2 classes, and Mondays work better in our schedule. She doesn't even realize it because she's at the same skill level as all the other girls - which is to say, unskilled. She has the energy and desire to dance - who cares if she has no grace other than her middle name! (Katherine is not in dance, because she chose gymnastics. But she enjoys dressing up for dance class with Maggie.)

I have no idea why Abby is wearing sunglasses. Does it even matter?

My girls in pink, ready to go to school for Maggie's presentation. Maggie's unexpected school project was to create a timeline of her life (all 7 years) and give a presentation to her class. She had to answer, and then read from, 2 pages of questions about herself and her family, and then read her favorite book to the class, and explain her display board of time line pictures. She took it a step further by creating a computer display as well. Chris wasn't able to be at her presentation, so he helped her to create a powerpoint-type display of pictures. Initially her scheduled date was May, so we felt we had plenty of time to put it all together. Then we were asked to switch and ended up with about 10 days to get it done. But it went very well and we had fun doing it as a family.
On Saturday we had nothing scheduled. So, despite the chilly temperatures, we went out to an Apple Orchard/Pumpkin Farm for the morning. It was awesome!


We took a hayride to the orchard, and the girls had a blast taste testing different apples and then climbing in the trees to choose the best ones.
Then, the hayride took you out to the pumpkin patch to choose your pumpkin. Abby wasn't so thrilled by this point, but we quickly chose a pumpkin and got back the hay wagon to ride back to the car.

It was a perfect family activity for a beautiful fall day.
On Monday, Katherine and I took a field trip with preschool to a farm. She got to play with so many animals I lost track. She really enjoyed milking a cow and chasing the chickens. I appreciated the abundance of hand sanitizer stations! We took another hay ride and picked out another pumpkin. And we came home completely exhausted!
We're looking forward to finishing this crazy week with a trip to Gram and PopPop's on Sunday to see our favorite Iowa cousins!