Leaf Walk

Friends joined us for our annual leaf walk this year.  Such a simple tradition, but so fun.  The kids love having a reason to run around and pick up stuff off the ground.  Fall was beautiful this year, but of course, I didn't take pictures of the pretty trees, just the kiddos!  I think there is a tree or two in a couple of the pictures.

Fall

Fall really has been fantastic.  I had the great idea to take some pics of the kids one afternoon.  Since a pic of all three of them together looked like this:

I opted to break things up:

Pumpkin Patch

Found a local pumpkin patch!

I chuckle every time Alexis wears a skirt.  Determined to look like me (On Sunday, I often wear a pencil skirt with my shirt tucked in), she'll pull her skirt up nice and high with her shirt tucked in. This particular outfit is one of her favorites.  The pink skirt (for obvious reasons), matched with the shirt Mike bought her.  What a sweet combination.

Clearly, you can see how much Tayler loved the wagon.  Yes, the event was a bit chaotic.  In hindsight, it would have been handy having my other half with me on this one, but we managed alright!

Apple Orchard

Took the morning off from teaching pilates and took the girls on Alexis' preschool field trip.  It was the first time I've gone to an apple orchard here, and was excited to check it out.  The girls LOVED it, and it was such great weather!

                                                

                                                

                                                 

                                                 

                                                 

                                       

We liked it so much we went back with the boys on a Saturday adventure.

Weather

The high today was 51. The day after Christmas. In Minnesota. It's the 4th time since 1905 the weather has been this warm. I blame it completely on the fact that we finally broke down and bought a snow blower.

It's been an unusually warm fall and entrance to winter. Well, I say unusual because I only have one other winter to compare it to. And, compared to last year, where we'd already been through a complete blizzard, and easily had 18" of snow outside, this feels a little weird. Part of me felt a little cheated that I move to the "frozen tundra" and didn't even have a white Christmas. But then again, walking outside today in a light jacket didn't feel too bad either.

Heading back in time, I took advantage of one of the awesome fall days we had, put it together with some leaves and two cute little people, and managed to get some pics. Definitely don't claim to be a professional by any means, but I'd rank them above the average snapshot.

I'm not sure when this little guy decided to get so big, but it seems like all the shots I take of him lately remind me how quickly time goes by with these guys, and they literally do grow right before your eyes.

Grandparents

My parents came out for a visit and the kids were so excited to spend some time with their grandparents. Went on some new adventures and one of my favorites was finding a new apple orchard with the best homemade peanut butter and the best Minnesota honeycrisp apples. Conveniently, it's fairly close to home, so we haven't had to travel too far off the beaten path for some local goods. Another find for local produce - just as I had found and was getting used to our town weekday farmers market, it closed for the season, so I was pretty happy to find more local produce for a little longer.

We actually went on a cooler day, but it was great since it wasn't too packed or crowded. Picked a few different apple varieties from the trees LOADED with apples, headed over to the pumpkin patch, and checked out the family farm animals.

Corn Maze

It's been fun to take advantage of traditional fall activities so close to home. One weekend, we had a youth trip planned to a local corn maze and it worked out to just bring the whole fam. Most of these pics include Alexis since Max spent most of his time at full speed keeping up with the youth!