Fall activities begin!

Last week was the offical start of many of our school-year activities ... hooray! We had story time on Tuesday, a new playgroup in McFarland on Wednesday and Bible Study on Thursday. These activities, along with Kindermusik for Anna, will be our weekly regiment for the next several months ;) I think Anna enjoyed all of these activities, with story time as her favorite. Kate, on the other hand, has had a lot of Mommy time this summer and it will probably take a little while for her to adjust to all of the new places/people/stuff. Bible Study morning was not a happy time for her; she didn't agree with Mommy leaving her in the nursery and ended up spending most of the time on my lap. Oh well, I've got a plan for the next few weeks and hopefully we'll get out of this phase soon.

The best part, for me, of our activities starting last week was that the afternoons were our "free time". So instead of simply waiting and biding our time until Matt got home, we were out and about doing things. On Tuesday afternoon we went to a local vineyard to pick some grapes for more grape juice. We'd already made some grape juice from the grapes in our yard, but when the girls finished off the first quart in about 24 hours ... AFTER me having watered down the juice ... I decided we needed more.

On Wednesday afternoon we went for a hike at the nearby state park, which was LOADS of fun. Granted, the 1.2 mile hike took us over an hour, but the girls had a great time. We went on a nature trail so Anna got a kick out of finding the next sign to read and then, by the end, telling me it was her turn to teach me things. Kate's favorite part, I think, was finding walnuts all over the place, picking them up, and then sticking her finger into the squishy part. They both enjoyed playing "red light, green light" down the path together, too. I've been trying to take mental pictures from time to time of these moments, because I know they are fleeting. Seeing them run down the trail together smiling and laughing ahead of me is one of those pictures I'll hold onto :)

On Thursday afternoon we went to the zoo and then on Friday morning we met some friends at a petting zoo/farm and then just hung out around home in the afternoon.

Busy days, but all of it fun.

We're (okay, it's mostly me) trying to start a Sunday evening tradition of watching the Packers game together while we eat dinner. Since most of their games are at noon, we've taken to recording them and then watching them later. The first week things didn't work out quite so well, but this past week was great. After the initial excitement wore off for the girls, they just played around in the basement for the rest of the game. Anna can fairly accurately identify Aaron Rogers now and when Kate first saw the game, she looked at me and said "running!", one of her favorite things to do.

Here's the results of our attempts at pictures before church on Sunday (and yes, Kate wore a Packers outfit to church; that kind of thing is okay in Wisconsin). We especially like the "Anna tickling Kate" pose :)