Fall Fun

Hooray for October - my very favorite month of the year!  I love the weather (it's still sunny here!), I love all the fun fall activities, and I love Halloween, which has all the fun traditions of celebrating a holiday without all the pressure to make it perfect.  Here are some things we've been up to lately.

We have been visiting some local farms (one more thing to love about the Pacific Northwest is tons of local farms that are open to the public.)  First stop was apple picking at Apple Creek Orchard.  Look at how charming it was:

Grace mentioned that it was a good thing we didn't go there when Cait was here because there were tons of birds running all over the place:  turkeys, chickens, geese, and ducks.  (Cait is slightly creeped out by fowl!)  

The farmer told us that we could eat all the apples we wanted while picking, so the biggest challenge of the day was to get Declan to finish one before throwing it down and taking a bite of another!

These cute little guinea hens followed us the whole time we were picking.

After an hour at the farm, we went home with a big box of these beautiful Jonagolds (for only $7!)  

So yesterday we made caramel apples.

Blissed out Sam!

I can't seem to master caramel apples - Garreth had to pry his off the wax paper!

And this morning the boys and I made a batch of applesauce, and for a few delicious hours, my house didn't smell like a dog.

On Saturday we went to Bellewood Acres to pick out pumpkins.  First we took a golf cart on a tour of the orchards.

Then it was on to the pumpkin patch,

where the kids chose some very large pumpkins!

Pumpkin love.

And last, but not least, here's my little baking buddy making cookies.