Actually, the lost tooth and apples have nothing to do with each other...
Jacob came home from school today with a big smile and a missing tooth! He said it fell onto his desk while he was doing handwriting practice. The teacher gave him a baggie for the tooth and now it's under his pillow awaiting a visit from the tooth fairy! Isn't it funny how teeth falling out can be such a big event?
Now on to the apples...
Last weekend we were blessed with beautiful, autumn-like weather, so we took advantage by heading down to an orchard that we usually don't visit until September or October. The great thing about going in August is that besides apples, we also got to pick red raspberries! We picked 5 lbs of raspberries, not counting the ones that we ate along the way (especially Hannah!).
There goes Mary sneaking one:
Since Sunday we've had raspberry muffins, raspberry pancakes, a raspberry cobbler, raspberries on our cereal, and still enough for a couple of quarts in the freezer!
After PB&J sandwiches in the car, we moved on to picking apples, which of course we had to sample as well...
The other advantage we found in going in August was that there were way more apples on the trees, and lower to the ground so the kids could actually reach them! Some of the varieties aren't ready to be picked, of course, but we came home with a 1/2 bushel of Jonathans and 1/2 bushel of Galas, which will last a while.
Maybe we'll go back in October to get more apples and pumpkins and gourds, but this was a fun treat for the end of summer!
with Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Dianne:
and with Grandpa Bob and Grandma Emilie:
Eating tacos:
Mary on her new bike... she rode it around the living room for about 5 days, until we got tired of tripping over it, and now it's in the shed waiting for Spring! That's the trouble with winter birthdays.
Time for cake!
Jacob running his new steam engine:
The happy engineer!
And all of us at church on Christmas morning:
I gave Brian this sweatshirt, and Mary took this picture of us (no kidding!):
Hannah loves to sing, and now whenever she sees a birtday cake she sings "Happy Birthday" in her own language, of course. Here's her rendition (it's a little loud):
Hannah opening her presents...
Blowing out her candles...
More cake, please...
And here are Jacob and Mary on Friday, getting ready for Halloween with their pumpkins:
Here they are at the zoo:
I thought it should be called "Disney's Zoo-Boo," since half the kids (including ours) were dressed as a Disney character! At least we didn't see any duplicates of our costumes, since they're homemade (a must for Halloween costumes, in my opinion!)
Here are a couple cute pictures of Mary, the ballerina: 
She's looking so grown-up!
Now on to the apples...
There goes Mary sneaking one:
Since Sunday we've had raspberry muffins, raspberry pancakes, a raspberry cobbler, raspberries on our cereal, and still enough for a couple of quarts in the freezer! 
After PB&J sandwiches in the car, we moved on to picking apples, which of course we had to sample as well...
The other advantage we found in going in August was that there were way more apples on the trees, and lower to the ground so the kids could actually reach them! Some of the varieties aren't ready to be picked, of course, but we came home with a 1/2 bushel of Jonathans and 1/2 bushel of Galas, which will last a while.
Maybe we'll go back in October to get more apples and pumpkins and gourds, but this was a fun treat for the end of summer!
Here's a picture of the prized train set that we gave Jacob for his birthday. He's already perusing the catalogues and picking out the steam engines and accessories that we wants to add to the set.
And, a few cute pictures of Hannah. Here she is in her favorite reading chair:
And looking cute in the front yard on a beautiful day!
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