"A" Faves

I truly can't believe it's the last day of October.  

It's been a beautiful month.....a fantastic autumn....to think we are now in the beginning of the 2nd month of autumn......wow.....pretty soon Thanksgiving here in the States will be upon us!

For now, I am thanking God for the beautiful, warm weather we've had this week...and for most of the month actually!  And I'm finding FIVE FAVES from the last week to share with other bloggers who link up over at Susanne's site.  How about joining us?  What were some blessings you discovered in your life this week?

FIVE FAVES

Claire with Aunt Joy

My younger sister Joy and I
Stockbridge, MA

•  ANNUAL AUTUMN DAY AWAY! Ever since my oldest daughter went away to college, I've done something each autumn with my youngest girl.  We go with my sister Joy (she is 2 years younger than me, and the oldest of my 3 younger sisters) to a small village in one of the surrounding states or areas.  For the last 3 years, we've gone to Vermont so this time....our 4th Annual Autumn Day Away... we chose to go to this tiny village, about an hour away, in Massachusetts.  What a nice day!  The weather was very mild and the sun was out....there was a chill to the breeze but the sun was so warm....we walked all over the main street and a couple of side streets and did a lot of shopping.  I actually bought 4 Christmas gifts plus something for my dining room table.  The photo with my sister and I is in front of the Red Lion Inn (where Dave and I had our first official date way back in 1989!) where they were displaying 2 pumpkins.  They were over 1000 lbs! We had a delicious lunch at The Main Street Cafe, did some more shopping, and then had lattes and gelato (homemade!!) at this amazing shop. I had the Hazelnut Gelato (OH MY!) and the Almond Joy Latte....a really special treat. It was a lot of fun and we are already planning next autumn's excursion. It's a blessing to be able to do fun things with family.

New table-runner for Autumn
homemade by a local artisan in Stockbridge, MA

• ANSWER TO PRAYER! Claire turns 16 on Dec 21 and do you know how difficult it is to plan a birthday party so close to Christmas?  Mine is in December, too as are 2 of my nephews, 2 good friends, and a sister!  So it's a busy month!  Claire has always been easy when it comes to parties...she  typically has a couple of friends over for a sleepover or movie night, etc.  She is a lot different from big sis who always needed theme parties, with all the trimmings.  But at least I could do those in the backyard as it was July!  So...we started looking at places to have this party since she wants to invite more than 3 friends and our family room just isn't big enough for a huge party.......I started praying about possibilities.  We wanted our church's youth center but the dates and times weren't available for when we wanted the party.  BUT....(this is a huge benefit to belonging to a mega-church with multiple campuses!!)....this campus was free the night she wants her party and I met with the facilities manager and he said I could book the entire lobby/cafe area!!  Glory to God! Here is a pic of our satellite church in the town just to the north of us:

it will be a blessing to have the Sweet 16 party here!

• AMAZING WEATHER!  Tuesday was a day off of work for me due to Parent Conferences and my supervising teacher said the special ed aides didn't have to go in!  That was a huge blessing because I was able to fit in several little errands that needed to be done and now I won't have to fit them in on Friday evening or Saturday.  I had lunch with a good friend of mine and then raked leaves......enjoying the very mild temperatures and the lovely color of our maple tree in the backyard. We have a smaller maple whose leaves are just turning, to the right of the one shown in this photo. That little tree in the front right is a pear tree whose leaves are just turning a dark red. Autumn is such a blessed time!

• ATTENTION ATTAINED  I work as a Special Educator in an integrated kindergarten. 10 of the children are "gen ed" kids who are in school for only the half day program. (they have no known developmental/academic delays...are typical 5/6 year olds).  The other 8 children are "all day" kindergartners, who have specia l needs mainly in the areas of speech/language, attention, motor planning, and one is on the autism spectrum but is mild....like Asperger Syndrome.  Some of them have social/emotional issues as well.  Most of them went to a special needs pre-K so services were already in place (speech therapy, OT, PT).    One boy I worked with last year is repeating kindergarten...he is actually one of my fave 5 year olds......(I know we are not supposed to have faves but.....we all do!).  Well, all last year he had difficulty with self-control.  I have noticed a huge improvement in his attention during large group activities and much better self-control when engaged in free play or more unstructured activities.  He also is screaming or crying a lot less and using his words/language to get his needs/wants known.  This is a huge blessing to me. Even though it might seem like a little thing, it is BIG for this little boy. I'm very proud of him.

• AIR TRAVEL SAFETY  Dave had to fly out of state very early on Tuesday morning......and come back late Wednesday evening.  This was his first business trip since his heart attack in September.  I'm so thankful that he had a safe flight both ways!

That wraps it up for me.......I hope you enjoy the weekend and do some restful, refreshing things.......