lately.

Ever since church services started, life seems to be flying by at a startling rate. Most Sunday mornings David and I look at each other and say, “Wait, didn’t we just do this?”

We absolutely love our life. We love David’s job. We love our church family. We love the rhythm that Columbia Presbyterian brings to our days. But somehow this incessant rhythm makes whole weeks slip by; I sit down and look at the blog and realize I haven’t posted in over ten days and I don’t know where those ten days went. For the first time I understand my newly empty-nester friends who warn us that the years fly by and suddenly the kids are grown and gone.

So in an attempt to fill in the gaps, in an attempt to slow time down and enjoy this season, here are a few of the things we’ve been up to lately . . .

Both David and I so appreciated Kevin Deyoung’s new book and recommend it to everyone. Concise, immanently practical, challenging and encouraging.

We love getting to know new friends at church like Mikal (pronounced Michael), who’s come over to play after church the last two Sundays. He and Judah are one month apart in age and all three kids love playing together.

Judah has been hard at work on various lego creations, including this “Concert” — which he immediately asked me to photograph and text to his uncle Kenny.

We’ve gotten a couple impromptu dates including this one to World of Beer in the Vista, a favorite because we can sit outside.

And I’m loving being apart of Mom’s Morning Out, a babysitting co-op some friends invited me into, where we take turns watching one another’s kids one morning a week. Every five weeks it’s my turn to babysit, and yes it’s complete chaos with ten kids at my house all morning; but infinitely worth it! My morning out typically includes a leisurely trip to the library and a pot of tea at Drip, and sometimes a run at the river if I can squeeze it in.

Great news: David started taking a weekly day off. Fridays are Family Day and we’ve been taking advantage of this fall weather to go for long walks in the woods.

Our friend Mrs. Brenda gave the kids their very own pumpkins last week and they had a great time painting them . . .

. . . and then taking them to show-and-tell at school on Monday.

Now that it’s cool out, we’ve been spending Saturday mornings at the Farmer’s Market again.

Kenny played at the British Bulldog Pub last weekend and thanks to our friend Anna for babysitting David and I got to go watch him and spend the evening with friends. It’s nights like this that remind me how important it is to get out and have fun and make new memories with our friends.

Judah and Mikal costume-testing for Halloween (in case you’re wondering Judah was “the Spirit of Halloween,” if you read the Arthur books by Lillian Hoban, Judah’s current favorites, you’ll understand).

I worked for a whole week painting literally eight coats on this pine Ikea dresser for our bedroom and replacing the hardware. I learned a few things from this experience, namely: primer is vital. More house photos are on the way.

And finally, David and I just returned from a marriage retreat for church planters in Myrtle Beach. It was put on by a group of leaders from different denominations who have reached out to us on our church planting journey in Columbia. What a sweet, restful, challenging, fun weekend. The speakers were from a church in Austin, Texas and were so, so good. I’m still processing everything we learned and hope to post links to some of our favorite talks. Thank you so much to Kenny and Shari for hanging out with Judah and Amie so we could have time away!