Fall is here!

I love fall! I truly love everything about fall. We are so blessed to live in a part of the country where we get to enjoy every season. Only one of those seasons is dark and cold, but beautiful in its own way, a very white and still way.

Every year in a little town northeast of here they have a huge Applefest. As much as we would love to enjoy this festival we are pretty sure that the kids would only love it for about an hour, and we would all end up tired, broke, and crabby. So, the first year we were here we started doing our own Jones Applefest. We do have two apple trees on our property, but since we just planted them this summer they are clearly not going to produce apples. Lucky for us the Newman Center has two great apple trees on its property.

Gianna is enjoying some apple crisp. Yummy!

The star in the middle of an apple!

Homemade applesauce for the baby!

Our harvest, and there's more on the trees.

Is there a baby in the house?

Birthday Girl

Last week we had a birthday girl in the house. Miss Emma turned 6! I cannot believe that my second-born is already six years old. Wow! Emma is all that a six-year-old girl should be. She remains to be sweet and giving and just super wonderful. She's still a bit clumsy too, but she has a great sense of humor about it all. Depending on the intensity of the fall/crash/stub/bonk/hit she just giggles and shakes her head.

We had a great day on her birthday. We took the day off of school and just enjoyed the day. We had a party the next day with some great friends.

Can't get enough

I just can't get enough of this little one. Okay, so I was the same way with all of them, but it's getting harder to get the older ones to slow down enough to take pictures of them.

Guilty as Charged

What do you do with a baby who is super kissable?

Why yes, you kiss her!

Under protest!

I simply can't work under these conditions. Even the baby has joined the "other side".

Lost and Found

As Ma Ingalls always says, "All's well that ends well". Isn't that the truth.

This evening I had one of the scariest moments in my mothering "career" thus far. I lost Gianna. Not a we're-all-home-and-I-just-don't-know-exactly-where-she-is-in-the-house type of "lost". No, the real we-couldn't-find-my-precious-baby-girl-anywhere type of lost.

We were at a neighbor's house and the kids were playing with their friends. The friends that I've prayed my children would have. They live 4 houses away, they are sweet, we love their parents, they all get along. But I digress. The kids were playing, running around like crazy, and the adults were chatting (minus Brett who was practicing at his office). Veronica was getting a little cold so I decided I would take her and Gianna home. The other kids were going to come home when their friends had to go in and eat dinner.

Long story short, we can't find Gianna. The older kids hadn't seen her. They all said they thought the others were playing with her. No Gianna. I make a circle around the house. No Gianna. Go up and down the street. No Gianna. Through the alley. No Gianna. Start panicking. No Gianna. All children and adults at the house start looking, start yelling her name, start circling around each other hoping the other has seen my precious fwee-year old. No Gianna. A little boy who I don't really know finds me and says, "The boys are looking for Gianna, but Gianna went home!". I completely blew this little boy off because a) he didn't know Gianna b) Gigi couldn't get inside our gate because she can't reach the latch so she would be standing outside the gate and clearly she wasn't doing that. Circling more (faster now), yelling more, panicking more and more. Called Brett, friends went over to our house just to check.

GIANNA!!!!

Crying and rocking in the recliner in our living room. She had been left behind by the older kids, got sick of waiting for them to play with her, got cold and took herself home. Apparently the latch on the gate was not latched all the way, and I had left the back door unlocked because I hadn't planned on staying very long. So, Gigi crossed the street by herself (thank you guardian angel) and went inside where it was nice and warm.

She is now peacefully sleeping in her room that she shares with her sister. In the bottom bunk. In our home. Soon to be in our bed because her feet will be cold like they tend to be most nights. And my heart couldn't be happier.

On the plan for tomorrow's lesson: stranger danger, keeping an eye on our siblings, crossing the street with an older sibling, learning our address and phone number, etc...