apple juice

We are so lucky to have friends with an amazing home with their property full of apple and pear trees. Brad has been lifelong friends with the family so he has been picking their apples and pears to make juice all his life. None of the kids live at home anymore and the parents are too busy to deal with all of their bounty alone,  so we are always asked if we want to come get our fill. Not only do we get to make juice but we get to talk to the neighbors llamas, alpacas and horses. What kids don't want to "hang" out with farm animals?? We get to feed them scraps and whole apples out of our hands.

This year we have been so busy with fall soccer and other things. We were asked weeks ago if we wanted to come do apples but never had time. Kenan was home for 2 days before heading back to San Fransisco so we made the time last night to go over after Brad got off work and do what we could before dark. There are still a lot of apples that will go to waste. Depending on weather, etc. we may try and do apples one more time.  Here are a few pics of our fun.....

cold continues

It is now day 5 of being completely stuffed up. It seems like every fall I get this same cold. I was pretty lucky last year and that was about all the sickness I had. I am definitely over the zero energy and aches. After dropping Laila and Landon off at school Lydia and I went to the drive thru at mcdonalds so I could get myself orange Juice. Yes, getting out of the car to walk into the grocery store for a full jug would have been too much for me. I envision the rest of the day going something like this; laundry, increase piles of used tissue, put in dvd after dvd,  and be too distracted with my own misery to realize the gingers are pooring glue on my bed...oh wait that happened yesterday when Brad got called out to work.

While Landon was at school today Lydia wanted to do "homework". She sees Laila and Landon doing school work all the time now so she has decided she needs her own. This seemed like a good time to get out the dry erase book and pens. She had fun tracing letters. She has just started to trace her own name at school so she is kind of fascinated by it all for now.

Wet weekend

I have had a yucky cold since last Thursday so the only time I got out of the house this weekend was for Laila's soccer game. The rain has finally hit so it was a wet one. The girls finally got a taste for what real soccer is about here in Washington. We had been spoiled with such an amazing beginning to fall. The girls won 3-2. It is amazing how much each girl has improved since the beginning of the season just a month ago.

It was our turn to bring snack for after the game. I let Laila have a little fun after school on friday putting stickers on the girls snack bags.

Laila playing goalie. She loves it. However, she needs to work on being more aggressive. She let one get by her because she didn't want to get down in the mud. I "nicely" yelled to her that she can't be afraid to get a little dirty. The next play she was on the ground:)

check out the dirty legs..haha

Landon had it made in the pop up tent fully enclosed. Meanwhile Lydia is dancing in the rain being her crazy self.

A ball from the game next to ours went on the field and Brad quickly went out to grab it and ended up flat on his back:) I shouldn't have laughed as hard as I did because not two minutes later I was talking to a parent and walking backwards and tripped over Lydia who was playing behind me. I didn't fall flat on my back but I had a wet butt the rest of the game.

I love watching my girl play. I am starting to worry though that I am becoming one of THOSE parents. Ya know the kind that stands up the whole game....can't keep her mouth shut....?? yikes.

Quick shopping trip

This morning Lydia and I dropped Laila and Landon off at school and headed to Olympia. I wanted to check out the new TJ Maxx that opened in Olympia. I had never been to one but have heard a lot of great things. The store didn't open until 9:30 so Lydia and I went over to Target basically across the street to waste some time. I could waste hours in Target but we only needed a half hour today. I needed to pick up 3 more 8x10's for the kids' school pictures this year. I also have been wanting to find some cute shoe size boxes to put all of our dvds in. I am tired of all the plastic cases that take up too much room and never have the right dvds in them anyway. I am going to buy some paper dvd sleeves and put them all in alphabetical order. I am not super excited about the ones I bought today but they were a good price and do the trick.

They are clear with black floral print. Hard to see with bad pictures taken from my phone.


After Target we went to TJ maxx. I found some cute clothes for the kids but nothing they needed. I didn't realize it was such a small store. There weren't as many options as I was envisioning. It reminded me of Ross actually. I ended up only buying Lydia a cute shirt with ballerinas on it that she "had to have." We had about an hour left at this point until we needed to head back to get Landon from school. We went over to petco and got Laila a new glo fish and some fish food. The kids got a really awesome fish tank last christmas and each got their own fish. Laila's died not too long after we first brought them home. She was upset when hers died but not enough so that we never replaced it. I think she will be excited when she comes home from school this afternoon. Petco didn't take very long so we went to Barnes and noble right next door. I love to stop there and look at all of their childrens books. I especially like to go there during different seasons and holidays. Today I wanted to try and find a fun new halloween book. There were so many to choose from but Lydia and I decided on The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything

I think this will be a fun one. I am excited to read it to the kids before bed tonight. Last year my mom bought them Room on the broom.

This is actually one of my favorite books to read to them. I highly recommend this one for all ages.


We were about to check out and this caught my eye

We have a few fall decorations but nothing for Halloween. I am not into goblin, vampire, mummy, etc. decor so I loved how simple and cute this is. I think it works well in a home with young children. :)

Since we were at Barnes and Noble Lydia and I just had to get something from Starbucks for the drive back. Lydia had cocoa which she dumped all over herself on the way home. Yay for wearing brown pants! I had my very first ever pumpkin spice latte. I needed to taste for myself what all the hype is about. I thought it was pretty good but nothing that my hubby has to worry about us going broke for.

8 and 6

Monday afternoon Laila and Landon had their yearly checkups. They are both up to date on their immunizations so it was nice knowing all they needed were their yearly flu shots. It is nice being able to do both of their checkups together each year. I think it relieves some nerves when they are not doing the tests alone. However, I know soon it won't be appropriate for them to be in the same room.

Laila is 4 ft 2 inches tall and weighs 57lbs. That puts her in the 50th percentile for height and weight. I was a little surprised by this. I have always thought she was on the taller side and people have been commenting lately that she looks much older than she is which I hate of course. Landon is 3 ft 9 or 10 I can't remember  now. He weighs 53 lbs. This puts him in the 49th percentile for height and 75th for weight. Last year they commented on how he was a little heavy for his height even though he didn't look it. This year they didn't say a thing. He is just a well built little boy.

They both passed their hearing and vision tests beautifully. Landon messed around a little with his hearing test. At first he just kept going back and forth between raising his hands instead of really listening. Luckily our nurse is very sweet and patient. When the nurse got done doing her part she said "ok have them take their clothes off down to their underwear"...Landon said, "but I'm not wearing underwear." That's my boy! Apparently he decided not to put on any underwear that morning. This is not the first time this has happened. I guess I need to be checking from now on. When the doctor came in they answered all his questions about how they are liking school and if they take their vitamins. Landon even complemented Dr. Karpel on his tie. Dr. Karpel is pretty serious and I have never seen him laugh but he got quite the kick out of that. He said he isn't used to getting complements from his patients on his clothes. :)

This year I chose to do the flu mist for Laila and Landon. They are old enough to follow directions and sniff when told to. They were so relieved. As my kids have become older they have become worse at receiving shots so it was a relief for me as well. Poor Lydia got her flu shot though. We weren't sure she could sniff the mist up correctly. I didn't want to waste the mist and then have to pay for that and a shot. She ended up getting poked twice. I underestimated how strong she is and she flinched at the last second on the first arm and the needle grazed her arm. Laila woke up this morning with a sore throat and a headache. It is possible that it is side effects of the mist. They told me before hand that they see more side effects with the mist than with the shot. However, nothing serious.

Applesauce

This morning after dropping Laila and Landon off at school, Lydia and I walked a few blocks down to Jays farm stand. I decided I wanted to make applesauce in the crock pot to fill my house with that delicious apple cinnamon smell. I love being able to walk down and get apples for 69 cents a pound and not have to worry about picking apples without any blemishes.

Lydia is the perfect age to go on walks/adventures with. Unfortunately, she has always been miss independent and won't hold my hand at all.

She insisted on bringing a backpack with snacks and her baby. Half way through the walk she took her coat off to wrap around her baby. It was a cold morning too!

    I don't have anything fancy to cut and core my apples so I spent awhile preparing them for the crock pot.

                                            My house may not be clean but it will smell heavenly.