Oh, happy day!

What a fabulous day! Today is October 1st, a day we've been waiting a long time for. Mommy is pregnant and it's been a loooooong pregnancy, but we've been telling ourselves, "just make it to October and we're home free". This morning we turned the page on the calendar and here we are, in October. Woo-hoo!

We've been planning on today being the day we take Cassidy to the apple orchard and what a perfect day it was. We started out at Friske Orchards, by far our most favorite orchard up north. It is owned by a wonderful Christian family and they have such a beautiful, awesome place to explore. Cassidy loved the Noah's Ark, the slide, the goats/sheep/chickens/rooster, the apple trees, everything. We're going to try and make it back again before the baby is born. Here is the best picture of the day: Daddy and the prettiest pumpkin of them all!
We arrived early, just in time for warm, fresh pumpkin donuts with maple glaze and cinnamon sugar (plain for Cassidy). You don't have to be a big donut fan (which I'm really not) to appreciate the deliciousness that these little nuggets of love are. Mmmmmmm!!!

Cassidy needed a little help getting started, but soon got the hang of the donut game.

What little kid passes up the chance to "drive" a real farm tractor?

Loving the slide that comes out the side of Noah's Ark Doesn't every kid need the perfect outfit for a day at the orchard?

These are the tamest, nicest animals.

As big as the biggest pumpkin...just three weeks from today our baby boy will be here! Yippee!

Someone carved this awesome Jesus statue out of an old tree trunk - so cool!

This trike is much bigger than the one we have at home!

After leaving the orchard, we headed to Petoskey and Bill's Farm Market, our new favorite place! Wow! We've heard about this place, but weren't prepared for the bounty we were about to behold. First of all, the view from almost every angle is of gorgeous valleys and trees of every color as far as the eye can see. The colors are just beginning, but boy, are they gorgeous. Can't wait to see what God has in store for us in the next few weeks!

Cassidy tried to lift many of the pumpkins (or as she called them, balls) but most of these weighed more than she does! So she banged on them like drums instead.

We have never seen such a variety or rainbow of pumpkins like this. They also had every variety of squash you can imagine. Add to that some truly amazing fresh produce. We loaded up!

Kitty love

Cassidy LOVES cats. Her gray stuffed kitty is her constant companion around the house. We hear her meowing in her crib each night. She is kitty obsessed! Lately the neighbor cat has been coming around, which of course she loves. Here are some pictures of today's fun outside:

Kitty, I'd follow you anywhere... It's just her luck that Daddy is allergic to cats and Mommy really doesn't like cats, so we'll never have one as a pet! Good thing we have other kitties in our family and neighborhood for Cassidy to love. Meow!

A fun day away

Last weekend Cassidy spent a whole day with Dawn and Josh, Jake (almost 10) and Ruby (6) while we had a date day in Traverse City. Of course, a lot of their day was spent outside: Cassidy's favorite place to be! What a fun day! Dawn snapped a few pictures for us.

Outdoorsy Girl

We're pretty sure that if we opened the door to her in the morning, Cassidy would be happy to roam outside the livelong day. It's become our routine to get her up from her nap, give her a snack, then get her outside. Mommy is too pregnant and tired to chase her so Daddy is the one to follow her around and play (which gives Mommy some quiet alone time to actually get something done inside!). Here are some more pictures of our pretty Pumpkin enjoying her favorite place to be: outside!

Is this Cassidy or a big, scary lion in my backyard? Many hours have been spent in the driveway, searching for that perfect stone.

Scotty is our next door neighbor, and almost exactly one year older than Cassidy. They adore each other and play together very well!

Cassidy is great about sharing her toys with Scotty, playing with the sand table and even occasionally letting him honk the horn on the trike we're borrowing from Kayla.

Having a friend is a wonderful thing!

Fun things we do outside

Cassidy loves to help water the flowers and plants around our house. Today it was lightly drizzling but she still had to get out the watering can! Mostly she just likes to get her hands in the water.

A new favorite "toy" is the hose in the backyard. It's fine until she tries to put it in her mouth...and there happen to be slugs inside so that's a big no-no! Yuck!

Of course, it's hard to say no to this face.

Pumpkin loves to play with balls...tennis balls, beach balls, whatever...but she also thinks everything round is a ball: cherry tomatoes, black olives, etc. Our huge maple tree out back has some barky knobs on it that happen to be sort of round-ish, so they're balls to her!

Eventually today's rain got heavier so Kurt and Cassidy ended up playing for a while in the shelter of the garage....

...but now it's time for supper. Bye!

Pool girl

It was another hot summer afternoon and time to blow up the new giraffe pool! It was so fun showing Cassidy her new toy for the first time. She LOVES splashing in the water in the bath and the lake so we knew she'd love it. What a fun way to laze away a late summer day!This picture is blurry but we had to include it. We have a picture somewhere of mommy as a little toddler, wearing a bathing suit, hair in pigtails, and sticking her tongue out quite like this! We'll have to find that old picture!The sand bucket came in handy too. Instant waterfall!

It took her a while to actually sit down in the pool. That water from the hose isn't warm like bath water! Brr!

Daddy had fun making waterfalls for the Pumpkin too.

You need good soaker balls to play with in the pool.

I think I know how we're spending every last hot day until the end of summer!

A day at the county fair

It was a gorgeous day and we wanted to get outside and enjoy it. We heard the county fair was going on and knew Cassidy would love to see all the animals so off to Petoskey we went. She really loved seeing in person all the animals we usually see only in books! It was a fun way to spend a day but mommy was happy when it was time to head out. They should really put a warning sign on those animal barns, especially the pig and cows: Warning! Pregnant women with extremely sensitive sense of smell should stay away!!! Pheweee!!!

A new favorite pastime

Cassidy has started a new thing in the past few weeks. She'll run down the hall to her bedroom, shut the door, grab a good book and climb into her chair to read. I'll tiptoe down and peek in on her to find her like this. We're so happy that she's found a good friend in her books! (I did, however, think it'd be a few years before she'd be slamming her bedroom door to be alone! 21 months going on 21 years! Ha!)

Granny's new digs

Saturday took us to Traverse City to visit Granny in her new apartment. It was great to see her doing so well. Cassidy spent the whole visit playing with Granny's kitten, Percy. She's in love! "Niiiiice kitty."
Percy was very playful and Cassidy squealed with delight each time he reached out to playfully bat at her.

Granny even got in a short cuddle with her!

Strolling the Streets

Grandpa and Grandma F. came to visit this weekend. Friday night we had dinner in Boyne City and enjoyed a walk through town and down to the lake afterwards. Each Friday night in the summer, Boyne City has a "Strolling the Streets" event with many live musical acts lining the downtown sidewalk. Cassidy was especially intrigued by the flutist! But the most fun of all was swinging in between Grandpa and Grandma. 1-2-3, swing!

Good Morning!

So proud of her jammies and bunny slippers!