Happy Monday friends!! WHEW….it’s been a crazy few weeks for me and unfortunately I’ve fallen off the blogging bandwagon!! I’m excited to get back into the swing of things this week! The end of August brought on RUSH week at Franklin College and the bookstore has been hopping. Having students back on campus has breathed life back into the campus environment and I am thankful I get to be here to support the students. Plus it’s now my favorite season….FALL!

Here’s a look at what we were up to these past few weeks:

• One of my most cherished memories from childhood is the night my aunt took my sisters and I to see Garth Brooks in concert. It was a night of good music, staying up late and the excitement that goes with attending my very first concert. I have always been a huge fan, so when it was announced he was adding shows in Indy I knew I wanted to get tickets. After much debating on who would be going, how much to spend and where to sit, my ticket-buying-ninja sister Natalie scored us some great seats. October 7th, here we come!!
• If you have not checked out the hilarious videos made by Matt Bellassai, boy are you missing out! His honest, opinionated videos telling me “how to live my life” leave me in stitches -my favorite is THIS ONE! And I truly applaud a man who can chug almost an entire filled-to-the-rim glass of wine. Repeatedly. Bravo, sir.
• Jackson doesn’t often wake up in the middle of the night, but when he does, he’s still mostly asleep and out of it. We had one instance a couple of weeks ago where he woke me up from a dead sleep crying. I rushed into his room to soothe but also to hush him from waking his sister – it’s a delicate balance of making him feeling comforted but NEEDING him to be quiet! Harper is WAY harder to put back to sleep if woken in the middle of the night. Ha! He went back to sleep fairly quickly, so I tucked him back in and headed back to bed. The favorite part of my morning is when I walk into the kiddos’ rooms and they greet me. Jackson often says “Hi Mommy!” while Harper always great with a “Heeeeeey!!” The morning after his middle of the night jag, I went in to get Jackson and the first thing he said to me was “The lady bug bit me.” I just brushed it off as part of the bad dream that woke him up crying. We get ready for school and head down to breakfast, where I notice one of his ears is really red. It had me thinking about that lady bug comment and so I gave him some Benadryl and off to school he went with Jon asking his teachers watch his ear for us. Early afternoon rolls around and I receive a call from daycare saying his ear was even more swollen and turning purple. Ahhh! I was on the phone to the doctor lightning fast and scored the last available appointment in the office that day. It turns out it was some sort of bug bite that he must have scratched, which opened it for an infection. We kept a close eye on it and with some good TLC and a round of medicine, it cleared up just fine. Remember that lady bug comment though?? I washed his bed sheets that evening after everyone was home from the doctor, so that night when I was putting his sheets back on I pulled up his mattress and lo and behold, there was a dead lady bug in the crack of the mattress where his pillow would have been laying.  Whew, this turned into a novel! To not make a long story longer, next time Jackson says a lady bug bit him I might not be so quick to brush it off.
• Jon finished our planter boxes. I am in looooooove! I am excited to start planning what we want to plant in them next year. But first, onto the next step of painting them!!
• My sister is a crafting goddess. We celebrated my nephew Joe’s sixth birthday this past weekend with a Star Wars-themed get-together. My sister went out on all the decorations, from Star Wars banners, to Jedi Juice, to handmade pool noodle lightsabers. I heard several adults wishing the party was for them. 😉
• Beech Grove kicked off the beginning of their season on Saturday with their first performance in Class B. I was super bummed the kiddos and I couldn’t be there, but they had a solid run and I’m glad to hear that some of the changes they made this year are already paying off. I’m excited to see my first full preview of the show this weekend!!

1. Darn lady bugs  2. This girl is a goof!  3. A need for speed   4. Chef Jackson creating his specialty = pancakes  5. Target run!  6. Poor girl fell face first on the sidewalk 🙁  7. Star Wars birthday  8. Loving the swings  9. Finished planter boxes!!

Much love friends,