Apple Picking

After living here for 5 years, we finally heeded the advice of friends and went apple picking! We went about an hour through the mountains to North Carolina to Sky Top orchard. I was attempting to avoid the weekend crowds and thought it would be a great idea to go a Monday after Emery got home from school (totally counts as FHE!) However, due to road construction Emery got home about 30 minutes later than usual. Then we had library books due that day that needed to be dropped off. And then we realized we'd get there right at dinner time and so we needed to pick up something on the way. So basically we were racing the clock to get there and get it all done before they closed at 6pm. As soon as we got there we hurried to find the Gala apples which are our favorite. The closest row was pretty picked over, but not wanting to waste time to trek to a further row we attempted to climb a few trees. We filled one basket and called it good. Unfortunately by the time we went back to the main area, the tracker rides were closed and everything else was closing up as well. We lucked out getting the last 7 apple doughnuts (which were really yummy) but there was not apple cider to go with them :( We found some picnic tables to eat our dinner and then the kids played on the playground for a few minutes. Then they politely asked us to leave because they were closing. We didn't get to see the petting animals either. So lesson learned and we will be going first thing in the morning when they open on a Saturday next year! Then we will have time to casually pick apples and not but stressing out about hurrying! And we'll get to do all the other fun things we didn't get to do this time. Overall it was pretty fun and we are still enjoying our bag of apples!

September

September started out hot so we had our final days of using the pool and sprinklers. And then finally we had some fall-like weather! We have LOVED spending time outside as much as possible. We finally got Emery to ride his bike without training wheels, we got Lucy her first bike, and we got me a bike (early birthday present!) Plus we got a trailer for Joel to pull the little kids with his new bike! We are all geared up for lots of bike riding. The kids are very enthusiastic about riding all day every day! Some days we go on 3 separate rides (morning, afternoon, and before bed). I'm pretty sure Emery's 2 favorite things right now are riding his bike and reading. It's great! We went to a local park called Heritage Park to go for a family bike ride one Saturday morning. The weather was cool and we all had a lot of fun. Until Lucy gets a little better at breaking etc on her bike, she'll ride in the trailer with Andy. Hopefully she'll get the hang of it soon though, because when Andy gets bored in there he starts to grab her hair or arm and she really doesn't like that. Then after we went on a little train ride that the kids always love to ride but rarely get to. Hopefully we'll get in a few more Saturday morning rides this fall!

Each Friday night we have "Family Movie Night". I had showed Emery and Lucy some clips of Shirley Temple on youtube (animal crackers in my soup and some tap dancing numbers) and got them hooked. So, we borrowed a huge set of Shirley Temple movies from a friend and have been watching one each week. The whole family enjoys it! Emery and Lucy loved helping Joel install some locks on the kitchen cabinets to keep Andy out of things. Andy is just very curious! We had fun going to watch Joel run at the BMW 2 mile run and the weather was not so hot as last time we came.

Lucy worked really hard at stopping to suck her thumb. We did the bad tasting polish along with a few rewards. She earned a little Princess Sofia toy after one week and a Princess Sofia singing purse after a month. She is still very oral and puts other things in her mouth, but she is getting better. We are so proud of her!

Andrew is loving to push around a push toy (sometimes with Lucy riding on it) as he practices walking! He has taken around 7 or 8 steps together. He is getting better every day!

It's a lot of fun with 3 kids. Lots of times crazy, and messy (see the spilled raisins picture?), but mostly just lots of laughing and having a good time!