Wee Folk

Look what I found in the garden on Halloween.

A gnome.

Who, shockingly, left that hat on for the entire time.

And a fairy. A camera-shy fairy.

I've heard that fairies are often camera shy.

They seemed to be having a good time out there.

Enjoying the mild and dry weather.

Which we were all grateful for.

They were very excited to go trick or treating.

The gnome enjoyed putting the candy in his bucket and then taking it out of his bucket, never once trying to eat it.

The fairy enjoyed taking it out of her bucket and putting it in her tummy. But you know fairies...they have quite a sweet tooth.

Pumpkins

What autumn wouldn't be complete without a trip to the pumpkin patch?

On a lovely Sunday last week we packed us up and drove an amazingly short distance to this lovely little place to get some pumpkins.

We got a real horse drawn hay ride out to the patch. Where we set to work finding that perfect pumpkin for each of us.

And a ladybug. Which was infinitely more exciting than choosing a pumpkin. For a while, at least:

And, yes, those are pearls you see peeking out of her sweater. Sadie enjoys nothing better than being Fancy. Only fancy clothes need apply every morning when we are dressing. So of course we wear pearls to the pumpkin patch!

This one thought sitting amongst a field of pumpkins was a blast:

And he even chose one.

But I think the most excited person may have been Dada. He wandered far and wide, searching for the perfect pumpkin.

And he came back with three!

Sadie led us to safety out of the corn maze. Thank Heavens!

And apple cider, apple cider donuts and fresh-baked cookies were on the menu. Sy had his first chocolate chip cookie.

Sadie had her 334th chocolate chip cookie.

And not to worry, they both ate every crumb.

Apples to Apples

We were out in the yard the other day. Enjoying our fall. 'Cause this year we are having a lovely autumn. It's great.

We had been pumpkin picking and apple buying and everyone was chomping down on an apple.

Silas in particular loves apples.

If he sees an apple he starts pointing and fake crying until you hand it over. And, of course, since he has no molars it is my job to eat off the peel.

Which makes him go ballistic: You're eating my apple! I can't believe you're eating MY APPLE! he yells.

Or at least that's what I think he yells. It's more like little angry fists that clench and a red face with Aaaaah. Then I give him his bitten apple and he gets to work on the middle.

Then, of course, I have to repeat on the other side of the apple. You can imagine how that goes.

So, he we are, with our apple. This apple has been in the dirt, leaves and muck. And whenever I take it back to try to clean it guess who flips out? Yep.

So when I hear a little splash as I am taking pictures of Sadie I am not surprised to see he is throwing it repeatedly into the dog's outside water bowl. See the water on his face?

And after my first reaction of "yuck" I thought: Well, at least that's now a clean apple!

Well, if the possibility of dog spit on your apple doesn't negate any washing off of dirt and grime, it's clean.

And he didn't seem to mind. So I ran with it.

If you knew the number of things in my house that have recently had a swim in the dog water bowl you probably would think twice before coming over.

Or asking to borrow my toothbrush.

And, sheesh, the begging I had to do to get this one to sit for some pictures! She either made crazy faces or chomped her apple the whole time, as she is entirely too busy to sit around and look at Mama.

The only way I could get her to look at me was to say I was going to go take pictures of Silas like it was no big deal.

For once sibling rivalry works in my favor!

Look at that face.

This picture is entitled:

What Sadie's Face Would Look Like if She Were A T-Rex. It really is. She told me.

And here she is. Right after I told her she was a nincompoop. She likes that word.

Happy Autumn!

Up and Around

Silas has eschewed crawling in favor of walking. It was a multi-month process.
He had to test the waters and, I suppose, get fast enough to make it worth his while. It was just this past week that I thought, Hey, I don't think you've crawled all day long.

He's up.

He's down.

And he's still working on running. Which means I'll have to start chasing.

And although I was looking forward to his walking, I'm alright with holding off on running for a bit.

Friends

We said goodbye to a couple of good friends today who have the audacity to move to Wisconsin. The nerve!

And we got a picture of all of us. Well, minus one kid who was too tired to sit and another who is out of town.

Aren't they a good-lookin' bunch?

Summer, I'm going to miss you.

We all will.