After my weekend away in Nashville I had the good fortune of being home from work on Monday for Rosh Hashanah. Already a week later I’ve forgotten why we all ventured outside early in the morning but, just this short time later, it’s way too cold to be outside in short sleeves. Sadness.

Since I was home, I took Steven to PT and Sammy and Amaya stayed home with Megan. Steven will tell you all about his “appointments”. While he was still nervous, he was definitely a lot more comfortable with Meredith at this 2nd appointment and he was willing to participate in activities with her.

Steven brought our mail with him to PT. (Which makes me think the kids were probably outside helping me get the mail.)

Still a little nervous. Fidget hands!

Using a yellow block to knock down bowling pins.

A truck race!

Walking the balance beam.

Amaya set the table with a table cloth like they do at school. She and Steven played a fun game rolling balls back and forth to each other. I’m a little obsessed with their cooperative play. It’s so, so cute.

After naps, Steven and Amaya played a tickling game.

Play doh! Baby Taco is getting bigger and bigger in May May’s belly.

Steven is always going on adventures in the house. He decided we should all go to the farm and see the animals. And we should carry our friends with us at the farm.

You can see he’s explaining things to me.

Touring the farm!

Megan got these pictures of the kids on Tuesday morning waiting for me to come out of my bedroom. No one was going downstairs without Mommy!

But once they were all downstairs, everyone went to the grocery store together.

Sammy and Amaya were champs at Steven’s PT appointment. I’m so proud of how patiently they sat and played while he worked with Miss Meredith.

Steven did a great job, too!

He’d been very nervous about sitting on the exercise ball so we brought ours up from the basement to get him comfortable with it and it’s working! So proud of this kid.

After PT I met up with Megan and SSA for lunch! Such a treat!

Amaya ordered a side salad with her pizza and ate the whole thing!

Sammy told me, “Mommy! Your hair is straight. I love it.”

(I need to stop writing about the week to say that I’m sitting here typing this while Steven, Sammy and Amaya play independently. It’s pretty amazing to be at this point.)

We’re trying to make the most of the nicer weather while we can. At their school, the kids will go outside even when it’s pretty cold so I’ll try to do that on weekends, as well, but I’m not sure how excited I am about it.

The kids are saying the cutest stuff these days. I wish we had continuous audio recording in the house. If you ask Steven to do something, he might answer, “Sure, I can!” These are two recent moments we captured at home.

Processing through play. Amazing.

Thursday morning we had fun with hats and then Steven, Sammy and Amaya had a play date with Ben and Sam.

Amaya told me she was going to ride the horse at Ben & Sam’s house.

Naps and bedtime are really weird lately. It seems SSA rarely nap when I’m home at nap time. They’re napping for Megan but sometimes don’t fall asleep until half way into their nap period. Other times they’re out hard for the full 2.5 hours. The kids take too long to fall asleep at bedtime, though, so we’ve been slowly cutting back nap time (more sadness) and are about ready to cut another 30 minutes off their nap.

I don’t know what spurred it on but all three kiddos wanted their toes painted again last week. They were exceptionally patient waiting for their nails to dry.

You can see that little Miss Sally is getting more adventurous around the kids. For some reason, Amaya is suddenly worried Sally will bite her but Sammy is really interested in petting his sister cat.

Megan got these photos of the kids settling into school on Friday. You can see that Steven is still sad but, shortly after this, he told Megan, “You can go now.” And when Miss Penny asked if he wanted her to play with him he said, “Not right now.” So we’re making progress!

Our preschool is at a huge Jewish Community Center and they have a fantastic program. A bonus is that they do a Shabbat service with the kids every Friday morning. Friday night SSA wanted to call Nana to say “Shabbat Shalom!” so Nana also took a few minutes to light Shabbat candles with the kids. They were mesmerized.

Saturday we took a family trip to Three Cedars Farm in Northville for some pumpkin picking.

Hay ride!

Here are some year after year pumpkin comparisons.

Today we took a trip to Barnes & Noble to get birthday presents for our friends Parker & Emerson. Jason and I think a nice train set is destined for the Hannukah gift list.

And that’s all she wrote! Have a great week!