Fall

I'm glad we got ready for fall last week, because it is here! We had our sweaters on this week, and lots of layers. We loved this picture of Caroline because she's looking so grown-up!

We got the first of our fall decorations up this week- our circle of ghosts outside. Of course, as soon as we got them up, we had a very windy day and half of them were knocked down, so hopefully we won't have to reassemble too many times.

There is no significance to this photo, other than the fact that Katie hopped on Jamie's lap and said "take our picture!" and it turned out cute.

One of the highlights of the week was Katie's first meeting of Daisy Scouts. She's pictured here with two friends singing the "Make New Friends" song, which I sang back in my Girl Scout days. Katie has sung it so many times now that I have caught Jamie and Caroline singing it as well.

On Friday night my sister and her family were coming to town. You can see Lily anxiously awaiting their arrival!

Once Jen, Billy and the girls arrived, everyone had to get reacquanited with Lily. You can see Emma wasn't too sure about her.

Katie, Caroline and Hannah decided to get dressed up in princess gear and had fun twirling around, even though we were trying to scoot them up to bed.

Uncle Buddy had the honor of reading the "princesses" a princess bedtime story.

The next morning, the first of the girls woke around 6:45 (Emma) and the rest were up and crowing by 7:15. We began the long process of getting organized to head out the door to drive to Cleveland for a visit with Grandma (or GG, to the kids). The timing of our visit worked out that we could be there to celebrate her 91st birthday. I am glad she's not on the computer becuase she would probably not like me revealing her age! We made it to her house by about 1 p.m. and took her out to lunch. It was a little zoo-y with all the kids, but we enjoyed it and I think Grandma was glad to get out.

After visiting at her house and getting some of the kids to nap, we had birthday cake and the kids were happy to help blow out GG's candles.

We left a little after 6 to come home and the drive was pretty smooth. Here's Caroline enjoying a cheeseburger while watching a movie- and Jamie and I were thrilled that we were able to pick up the Notre Dame game on the radio just in time to hear the call for overtime.

On Sunday we ventured out for a picnic lunch and some apple picking. The kids checked out the animals on the farm- Caroline liked these pigs- and they all liked playing on the little swingset there.

Of course Caroline took the opportunity to visit the port o potty (and emerged with her pants not quite up). Dad's fixing her up here.

After a brief wait in line, we had a hayride out to the apple orchard.

The kids enjoyed picking apples, although we had to keep reminding them not to pick the ones from the ground. The orchard had a fair amount of poison ivy, so that made things interesting as well.

Jamie was trying to get a picture of the girls with me, but at this point Caroline got mad and decided that "she wasn't going to be in our family any more."

She decided to stay in the orchard.
But, eventually, she agreed to come back with us!

Here she is checking out some animals and climbing on the fence.

We tried to get a picture of the four little girls, but it was not a successful effort.

Jen, Billy and the girls left from the orchard and we headed home for some much-needed naps.

Later that afternoon the girls enjoyed a caramel apple. I fear they are about to be "appled out" as we have homemade applesauce and apple pie on the menu this week!