Gleaning

Last week my mom invited us to come pick apples and make applesauce. My parents do business with a couple different orchardists that let them come pick the apples left over after they harvest for free. It is a pretty awesome deal! It was a really beautiful day and the kids had lots of fun picking apples and running around in the orchard near my parents' house. We got lots of apples and made some really yummy applesauce!

 Darcy trying to keep track of the buckets

 

 Ezra getting a lift from Haley

 

 

 Hanging out in an apple bin

 

 My Grandma makes an excellent hand model!

 

 I am bummed that none of these pictures had both of these funny boys in focus, but they were so cute anyway. They were trying to throw the apples with rotten spots in them over an apple bin, and I'm pretty sure nothing in their lives has been funnier to them. They were laughing so hard and being so very cute.

 

5 Months!

 Some things we want to remember about Parks at 5 months:

- 16.2 lbs. according to my scale. 38th %. We have just started feeding him rice cereal.

- He is so quick to smile and often doubles over in his joy.

- I have been thinking his sleeping at night wasn't so great, and then last night he went to bed at 8:30 and didn't wake up this morning until 7. He had gone 12 1/2 hours between feedings. I'm guessing it was just a fluke, but hoping I am wrong.

- I know for sure that he isn't so great at naps. For the last couple weeks he has been taking 45 minute naps, every single nap time. I am so frustrated about it. I have been letting him cry it out, but he is pretty relentless. I really need him to take better naps.

- He loves rides in the stroller.

- He has rolled over a few different times from back to front and from front to back, but he isn't doing it really consistently. He doesn't seem to care about it very much, but I assume he'll start to really get the hang of it soon enough.

- He is a fan of the bumbo and the bouncer.

- He is definitely noticing when I walk away from him, and sometimes it is just not ok with him at all.

- He's gotten tougher from all the wrestling he does with Darcy and Ezra and he handles it pretty well for the most part now. They love him to pieces and he smiles so big when they come and talk to him.

After I took these I was looking at them and thought they looked really familiar. I looked back through old pictures and realized he had work this outfit when we took pictures at three months. I didn't realize he was still fitting in something he wore at three months. That seems crazy to me.



 I just can't get enough of the smiling pictures.

Darcy's First Day of Kindergarten

Darcy started kindergarten last Monday. It was a big deal around here. She was excited about it for months before, but the night before she started saying she didn't want to go. That was not good for my already unsettled nerves. We both had a bit of a rough go that first day (and really for a few days after) but somehow we managed. She cried until her teacher took her hand and lead her inside to check out her new classroom, but she did it!

I am sick to my stomach because I just realized I deleted all her first day pictures from my SD card on my camera. There were some I really loved. I thought I had already put them on my computer. Nope. Not so. I am so sad I lost them, but happy that I at least have this one I took with my phone and sent to Drew that day.