A Busy Month

In the month since we've blogged, we've welcomed autumn at full force, Annie turned 18 months, we had visitors from Arizona and South Dakota, and we've generally enjoyed life with an increasingly verbal, speedy, dynamic little girl. Work for Eric is beginning to settle down as everybody in the college moves into their school year routine (we enjoy having him for a bit longer in the mornings!). As we begin thinking of all the festivities of autumn and winter, we are quite excited to have Annie participate more and more fully in our daily and seasonal celebrations. There is, of course, a lot more that I could say about activities and developments for Annie the past month, but I think we'll let the picture do most of the talking!

Annie is enjoying picking out her clothes and playing dress-up. Shoes are her favorite accessory, and she makes sure that all three of us have shoes that she thinks work for the day.


Our Arizona visitors were my sister and her family. One of our first adventures with them was to head to Apple-Cider-Cheese-Fudge (otherwise known as Fireside Orchards).

After checking out the pumpkins, we enjoyed tasty donuts and apple cider,

picking apples (which we've very much enjoyed baking with),

enjoying the scenery--Elliott and Annie were especially appreciative of the pond--

Elliott and Annie also got a big kick out of ringing the bell,

and, singing "Twinkle, Twinkle" and dancing.

The next day, we headed to the zoo. It was a beautiful, sunny day!

We started at the Russia's Grizzly Coast exhibit, where we spent a significant amount of time watching the otters play.

While mornings were filled with outings, after nap time we enjoyed just playing around the house and nearby. Here are Annie and Kate having some silly time together.

We were quite happy to see the three cousins playing so well together!

Part way through the visit, Elliott and Kate's Grandma Kathy joined us from South Dakota. The adults enjoyed her company and help, and the kids all enjoyed playtime and story time with her.

We made good use of the beautiful fall weather to visit a variety of nearby parks. Annie is now determined to always go on the "big kid" slides at parks, she's becoming quite adept at the ladders going "up, up, up" and with keeping her balance on the way down "weeee...".

We very much enjoyed having them all in town!