Signs of the season.....

......the artwork and books have started to include pumpkins....

...all the soaps, lotions, and candles have a new look......

......the fridge is the most exciting place to be for people 5 and under, I don't think the electric company will like us this month.....

......it must be fall and it is only.....

!!!!!!

 And of course one excited 5 year old who could not wait for the changes. 

I am just hoping for the weather to go with it really soon!!

September = Apples

At least around here it does!  On September 10th we went back here to go apple picking.  This year we went earlier then last year and we had a much better selection to choose from and plenty down low for the girls to pick.  We came home with another 20 lbs of apples!  My apple peeler corer slicer was working over time this month with all the apple sauce, apple pie, apple cake, and apples and sausage.  I think I just left it on the counter for two weeks since I was using it daily.  :)


First we started off with eating lunch.  The farm was selling grass fed beef sandwiches.

 Then of course we had to take time to climb the cool tree we were sitting next to. :)

 Then we had to pet and say hi to the horse

 Then we finally made it to the apples:

Our apples getting weighed on their cool old scale:

Then on Monday of this week just before it was time to change out this:

 To this:

We had one more apple event to take care of.  Kaylee had Johnny Appleseed day where everything was all about apples for the day.  Lex and I got to go in and help out with an apple station. 

Here she is at "line the apples up from the biggest to the smallest":

 Apple coloring game:

 Put the lower case apple letter on the big letter.  Lex had fun doing this one too, with Mommy's help. :)

 Making paper apples:

Measuring how tall you are in apples:

Make a necklace out of Apple Jacks:

Then the whole class got to show their apples:

After, Lex and I stayed and had lunch:

And that concludes our apple month.  Bring out the pumpkins!

Still waiting...

....but doing much better!  I don't think I ever mentioned this on my blog but I ended up having to have surgery on Aug 18th.  Remember all this.  The middle of 2011 was definitely a struggle, to say the least, but the last 2-3 weeks I have been really starting to feel like I can get back to life .  After I saw the ENT he said my Eustachian tube was totally blocked in my left ear and it was being sucked in and causing lots of pain and blood to pool behind my ear.  OUCH!  That also was causing all my dizziness, nausea, & swooshing sound in my ear.  So, to figure out why this was being caused he looked at my nose and found my terbinates were so enlarged, also causing all the sinus pain I had been feeling, and then from my sinus scan it showed my adenoids were so enlarged.  The terbinates are on one side of the Eustachian tube and the adenoids are on the other so you get the problem.  So I had surgery to remove my adenoids and terbinates.  Unfortunately this is a very slow healing process that takes 4-6 weeks.  My nose and sinus pressure seemed so much better after about 2 weeks but my ear has taken longer.  I still have days it hurts but the pain is mild compared to before.  I had my follow up appointment at 4 weeks out and my hearing and ear still don't show it is responding correctly, actually showed worse in the hearing, so I go back again on Oct 31 for a recheck.  I just hope I don't have permanent hearing damage.  At least it  does not seem bad enough to where I feel like I am having trouble hearing.  Then I go to the eye doctor on Oct 25th and hopefully I can get that figured out and will be able to wear contacts again.  At least when wearing my glasses I don't feel like my eyes bother me as much since all the sinus pressure around my eye has gone away.  God has definitely been working in me through all this and has reminded me to trust in Him even when I don't understand it.  I find it is so easy to trust in God when things are going well, but when things get difficult I tend to find myself in worry and questioning things like, "why do I just keep feeling this miserable" and "why am I not getting better" and my favorite that I found myself saying all the time is "Is it really possible to feel this bad EVERY DAY?  Yup, I guess so." , instead of just giving Him my worries and realizing that He has a reason for what is going on in my life even though I don't understand it right now.  I will always be a work in progress but I am really trying to give Him my worries, and not continue fall into the anxiety/worry trap that something way worse must be going on with how bad I feel, and just pray for strength to keep going.  I have found it amazing how God can change your attitude.  Jeremiah 29:11 states, "For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord.  They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future of hope."  And thanks to Jesus we can have that future of hope in spite of how crummy things are sometimes. 
So that is where I have been lately, and of course just being super busy with Kaylee in school and how crazy life seems to have become this fall.  I feel like I have a million posts to catch up on and will try to tackle those soon.  But of course I could not leave you hanging without showing any pictures, especially if you are actually still reading this post with all my boring health drama.  So here are a few cute pictures of the girls.

Alexa on her way to dance a few weeks ago:

 And our own personal Statue of Liberty!

Family Movie Night

Last Friday night we had a family movie night.  Of course no movie night is complete without this:

 ....and some of these mixed in:

The popcorn makers

All ready to go!  We watched the new Bambi 2 movie.  Lex usually does not sit through a movie but she did really good.  It was probably a combo of the popcorn, M&M's, and the fact that she was allowed to stay up late that she stayed put on the couch!  It was a noisy movie though and I have never had to answer so many questions during a movie.  :)  A few of Alexa's favorites that she asked over and over were, "Where did the shadow go?",and "Where's porcupine?"  We are still talking about that porcupine!  We all had fun and it was good family time together. :)