Fall!

On the radio this morning the broadcasts mentioned that last year on this day the high was 83 degrees; today's high is 43. I think we went straight from summer to what feels like winter ... crazy weather! This past weekend I had to dig out all of our winter coats, hats, and gloves just so we could go to the pumpkin patch. It's a good thing that I picked up some winter boots for Anna a few weeks back!

Last week we had some random fun, along with some challenging days. First the fun!


Since last week was fire awareness week, our local fire department had an open house at the fire station. We thought it would be fun to go, but opted out of the pig roast part of the evening. Kate seemed to enjoy all of the action and Anna had a great time.



I think Anna's favorite parts were seeing Sparky (the fire safety dog character, in case you didn't know), watching the bigger kids get to spray a fire hose at cardboard fire cutouts, and getting to pull the cord that made the bell ring on the fire engine. Then the fire hat was a huge hit for a few days, too :)



Another fun part of last week was that Kate got her first experience with food other than milk. She got to taste some cereal in the middle of the week and did surprisingly well with it. She's sort of figured out that she should open her mouth for the spoon, but isn't very regular with that skill yet. And she's definitely still working on getting the food to the back of her mouth to swallow.


Kate also got to try sweet potatoes on Saturday, but I think we're going to hold off on those for a little bit, or at least not give her quite so much next time. Kate woke up at 4 a.m. on Sunday just to poop and get a fresh diaper; then she didn't want to go back to sleep. After we finally got up for the day, she pooped another three times by noon. Who knew sweet potatoes could do that?


One more fun part of the week was our trip to the pumpkin patch. It seemed a little silly to go somewhere to buy pumpkins when we have three beautiful ones from our own garden, but there's just something special about the wagon ride and a big pumpkin field. Anna told us she wanted a "yittle" pumpkin and she took FOREVER to pick hers out :)


And finally, some of the challenges. Wednesday was a rough day for Anna, probably because she had a cold coming on, but of course I didn't know that at the time. A few too many meltdowns for Mommy's idea of fun. As for Kate, I think we're finally coming to terms with the fact that this child is just going to be consistently inconsistent. One night she'll sleep through and the very next night she'll wake up several times. We're pretty sure that she'll go back to sleep on her own now, provided that she's not hungry and doesn't have a poopy diaper, but of course that will probably change, too. The only thing that seems to be predicable about Kate is that she smiles and laughts at almost anything. Silly kid!