hello, fall.

Well, it is officially fall which makes my heart sing. Now if only it felt like fall here in the low country. I'm trying my best to wish it upon us with my booties and plaid.

It has been crazy around here which I realize is just life and won't change anytime soon. Gideon started preschool a few weeks ago which brings with it drop off and pick up five days a week. He's loving school and is learning so much. He's getting use to going every day, but we can definitely tell it's taking some time. He is so tired. He also started soccer which is two practices and two games EVERY week. Lord, be near. Are we seriously at the point in life where our kids schedules dictate ours? My four year old has more on his calendar than I do.

Two days after Gideon started preschool, Irma appeared to be making her trek straight at us, so we packed up, boarded up our house and left. We live on an island and the river is very close to our house, so we did not want to chance it and left before traffic got crazy. Being stuck on the interstate with a four year old, potty-training two year old, and a hungry, teething 5 month old was just not going to happen and luckily I didn't get stopped with them that much. We were spared when Irma went further west (although our sweet downtown still flooded when the outskirts of the storm hit at a king tide).

It ended up being a nice week retreat at my parent's house. And the weather actually felt like fall. My poor beach boys were "coldy" in the low 70 degree temps. We enjoyed my cousin's wedding, our niece's birthday party, visiting a friend's new church plant, and going to an actual mall. Despite a throw-up-in-the-bed incident and Nolan waking up in the night more than Lincoln, it was a great time.

In all of the chaos, I somehow got a freelance writing job for a local magazine. It's a fun story of how it came about, but I am excited to FINALLY be using my degree. (Look mom and dad!). I'll hopefully be sharing more about that as I get started.

I'm struggling to believe that it is already the end of September and am feeling the panic rise in my belly of Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. I don't know why I feel behind every year when we clearly still have time. My hope is to curb my anxiety and instead focus on soaking in the fun with my boys.