30 Day Slow Down Childhood Challenge – Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs..

Currently..is a meme hosted by Anne in Residence. I had a great time last time and found so many great new blogs! Today we are sharing what we are currently….. picking, preparing, trying, feeling, following.

Picking and Preparing: Recipes! This kind of goes along with the next one, preparing, too, so I am just putting them together. We are preparing for our Thanksgiving gathering this year, who is bringing what, who is coming. My mom and I have a few recipes picked out, and my husband and I have been hitting the cookbooks and blogs for different things to try. My husband and I have a pie project going on as well this month, where we want to improve our pie game. It is going to be a month of planning and eating!

Trying: We are trying to do a fast food free November! Sometimes it seems like days run away with us and this month, we want to be more mindful of our minutes and our time, and what we do in that time. One way we can do this is by eating good food together, not just driving through Taco Bell, which we probably do more often than I want to admit. (but I do love their cheesy bean and rice burrito..) We are just going to try to menu plan better, so on the days that are going to be busier, have easier, quicker meals planned ahead of time, even if it is make our pizzas or homemade Mexican food.

Feeling: Cozy. We are settling into a new fall routine, our warmer clothes are coming out, our wool hats and socks, and we are enjoying filling warm soups and stews, with tea as our nightcap. The nights are darker earlier, and we are embracing this change.

Following: The 30 Day Slowdown Childhood Challenge by Wilder Child! We are on day 3 and so far it has been simple and gratifying. We have watched a sunset together, prepared a meal together, and tonight we are going outside to explore and find some treasures in nature to add to our nature table.

What about you? What have you been up to?

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads

My prayers go out to anyone suffering right now – I feel like every time I turn on the news, something is happening that breaks my heart. Much of my last week was spent glued to the news too – there was a lot going on, and while I try my best to not get over inundated with current events for my own mental health, the past two weeks or so have demanded my attention. The timing of these events coincided coincidentally with a 30 Day Slow Down Childhood Challenge that I joined, and honestly, with the way I have been feeling, it was perfect timing. I needed something positive, and the challenge has forced me to do new things, and focus on my family and family time. And it is time very well spent.

For instance, last Wednesday I was having a rough day. Our challenge was to create a family moondala – something I had never heard of before but we were game. Billy and I are creative, and together make a good team, and it was fun to do a creative project with Wyatt. A moondala is a visual representation of what you hope to do in the next month, or lunar cycle. It can include drawings, bits of nature, whatever you want to represent these ideas. So, I poured myself into gathering the materials we might need, and then after dinner, we gathered around our table and started putting it all together. Billy and I really got involved in it, more than I thought we would! Definitely a case of the parents having more fun than the child. Lol. We had a lot of fun, and Wyatt did too, adding stickers and directing us on where he thought certain aspects would go. It was a hopeful, optimistic project, and it was just fun to sit as a family and make. I would think in families with older kids, etc everyone could make their own too.