Autumn in Full Swing (a whole lotta apples)

Hello there Matey!!  Be this the Spanish Main? Arg!

This isn't Pirate Day? Oh, whoops. That was the other day wasn't it? I missed the memo. Apparently is was "Talk Like a Pirate Day" or something like that and everyone was dressing up to get free donuts.

Anywho, only one of us has been dressing up like a pirate but none of us has been eating donuts. We have been eating lots of apples, applesauce, pumpkin pancakes, and pumpkin muffins though. I think we've been spending about 95% of our time either eating apples or studying. Or something like that.  :)

We finally finished digging up all our potatoes last week. We were so pleased again this year with our harvest. We've become potato people. These ones are fingerling potatoes. Our favorite. Yum. Digging for potatoes like digging for gold. Nutmeg is a good potato digging helper. Every time she sees one in the dirt she yells and points, "There's one! There's one! There's one!!" Like its going to disappear if we don't grab it fast enough. It's like a fun game with the kiddos. 

Mr. Mace the other day when I set him down by the door while I unloaded the car. Good times with those pumpkins. Like a bunch of orange balls. 

Doug made a trail for snowshoeing/xc skiing in our field out back, so one night he wanted to go for a walk to check it out. Last year I got some great exercise, just throwing on the snow shoes for 30 minutes. It will be fantastic to get out there again this year. Our own little track. Thank you God for our own little piece of earth.  

And . . . another apple along the way.

And what is Mace up to? Oh, you know, just getting into . . . everything! Busy being nine months old. Here's the classic oh-I-must-climb-into-the-dishwasher-and-unload-all-the-dirty-dishes-for-mom trick. Lucky for me, I've seen this fun trick a couple times before. All I can say is I'm glad there is just one baby digging in the dishwasher. I can handle that.  

So yes, basically my life has been educating little people (and myself), feeding people, cleaning, and seeing how I can make use of the bounty in our yard. Potatoes, basil, apples, potatoes, pumpkins. It's delicious work, you know. It's a rough life.  

Our neighbor stopped by the other to day to tell us to help ourselves to the pumpkins and butternut squash in his garden. Sounds good to me. The pumpkins being carving pumpkins. Our's are baking pumpkins. This week the kids and I headed down one morning to gather some bounty. When we came back to our house we also worked on picking some apples from our tree.  

babysitting his brother

Today Doug and I picked another huge basketful. Apple sauce is on the stove and in the crock pot. Ready to be pureed. Time to get back to work.

I'm so happy to be back here sharing life with you in this way. We'll catch up more later, huh?  Don't forget to keep in touch. I want to know what ya'll are up to too!!

All our love from Wisconsin!!