So I took the girls out to the garden to finish cleaning it up before winter. It was kind of sad to see everything dead and most the plots empty. I've loved having a garden this year. It always felt so good to get out and dig in the dirt, and then subsequently eat the food that we planted with our own hands. One of the most amazing things has been to see how much our girls have grown, especially Rachel. When we first started our garden Rachel was about 3 months old. She would sleep in the stroller and I would work, as soon as she woke up and started crying we would go find a place for me to feed her, usually the nearby park bench while Lauren played. Today Rachel stood up in a wheelbarrow and watched or played with my keys and when she got sick of that she crawled around in the dirt, squished dirt clods with her hands and chewed on sticks. Lauren has become more helpful and wants to do more, especially when it comes to using the big shovel. She always wants a turn. We look forward to having a garden again, hopefully next year depending on where we are at.
While we are sad to see this season go, we are looking forward to the next wonderful season...
I've always kind of enjoyed Halloween, even though my opinion of the holiday has soured somewhat after living in Russian and Bloomington, where it's more or less just a poor excuse to get plastered.
But, as always, kids make everything better! I think Lauren and Rachel genuinely enjoyed themselves this year, and that makes me happier than I ever was going trick or treating myself as a kid. If you can't tell (even though I'm sure you've already heard), Lauren is Madeline. Rachel got the hand-me-down ladybug costume, but still so cute.
These pictures (above) are from Saturday, when we had our church trunk-or-treat. Today, on Halloween proper, we carved up the biggest pumpkin we've ever had (26 lbs for $10!!). I have to say I'm very proud of the result--I think I've graduated from novice pumpkin carver to journeyman. Check it out!
So we've done a bunch of fun things outside this month enjoying the beautiful fall weather. Here are the highlights:
Fall Sunday afternoon walk
We like the really big leaves
Down on the Farm
Luckily the farm had 4 rocking horses as well as real animals,
Lauren had to try all of them, twice.
Headed out to the pumpkin patch to find our perfect pumpkin
All the pumpkins there were rotting or huge, and Lauren really wanted a clean
pumpkin. Whenever we would look at one she would say "Oh this one is dirty
lets find a clean one." But they didn't have any so here we are with
our whopping 26 lb. (dirty) pumpkin.
This is one of Lauren's favorite phrases as of late. "Did you know that we live in Indiana (she used to say Indinana)?" "Did you know that cake is really good?" "Did you know that doggies are really nice?" "Did you know trees are green?" "Did you know..." fill in the blank, etc. The best one of all that she does every so often usually when I'm in a bad mood or she has just done something naughty, "Did you know Jesus loves you?" Almost makes me cry every time. Some days you just have bad parent days where you don't feeling like you are doing anything right, but every now and then your two year old repeats something back to you or remembers some little thing you've been trying so hard to teach them and you feel like maybe you are doing something right. I love our girls and all they teach me every day. They are so sweet. Some days I can't wait to get them to bed, but most days I'm excited to see them when they wake up and fill the day with all kinds of silliness.
Since our stop at an orchard on the way back from Nauvoo failed we decided to try another one a few days later. We came back with 1 and 1/4 bushels of peaches and then spent the next few days canning and eating them. It was wonderful. The end result: 19 quarts of just peaches, 5 quarts and 16 pints of peach syrup, 8 pints of peach salsa, 8 containers of freezer jam, 7 quarts of peach pie filling, and a delicious peach pie. Yum!
Everything we canned, minus the jam
Ryan made the pie, it says "Fruit of the Gods" with a picture of a peach :)
So as part of our celebration at having Ryan back we went on a little family trip to Nauvoo, Illinois. What seemed like such a trek when we lived out in Utah is now only 6 hours away. We drove out first thing on Tuesday and the six hour drive turned into eight with all the potty and snack/nursing stops. It was a good drive though and the girls were great. Ryan and I racked our brains for stories and fun songs to sing to entertained when they got sick of their other books and toys. We stayed in at a great place called Camp Nauvoo in a bunk house style one room cabin. It was perfect for us, just a set above camping in a tent (which did not go well the last time we tried), we all got to sleep in a bed and it had air conditioning. I think they mostly rent out to large family and youth groups during the really busy season, but we had the place almost to ourselves the first night (the only other people were our friends the Clark's who happened to want to come the same week!) and then a soccer team was there the second night but they were pretty quiet. It was so nice to have a cool place to come back to for naps and in the evening.
The first night we got there we went to check out the temple. It was so cool to see it in person, I really wish Ryan and I had had time to go through, hopefully next time we go. The next day we just took things at pretty easy pace, which was a must with the girls. We went on a wagon ride around "Old Nauvoo" and checked out the visitor's center. Then since we only had that one day we tried to pick a few things that the girls would really enjoy and other "must see" things. The Family Learning Center was one of our favorites. They had several little stations the taught you various things that the pioneers did: weaving, baking, candle making, rope making, pottery. It was really fun to learn how they lived. Lauren also really enjoyed the Pioneer Children Pass Times. They had pioneer clothes to dress up in and little games that pioneer children used to play. Ryan and I thought the tours of the homes and other buildings would have been really cool but Lauren ran around trying to touch everything, so we only made it through one. While the girls were taking naps Ryan and I read through some pioneer journals and the Our Heritage book that the Church put out. it was so amazing to learn about what our ancestors went though and their lives and journey to Salt Lake. It made it so much more real to be there and walk the places that they walked. We didn't get to spend near as much time as we would have liked, at our pace it probably would have taken at least 3 or 4 days. But now we better know how to plan our next trip out there. We had a great time and it was so nice just to spend it all together without any other distractions. I hope we can go again soon.
