A typical mid-October day

I think the neighbor cat can sense when we're outside. Within minutes, he's over at our house following around his biggest fan.

Cassidy is starting to think this is her kitty!

The Leaf Pile

More and more leaves are coming down each day and today there were finally enough for a decent leaf pile...at least for a little person like Cassidy! She had sooooooo much fun "jumping" into the pile and making it rain leaves on her head. Ah, the simple pleasures of life!

Hiking with Daddy

We have been blessed with the most gorgeous fall weather this year. Today was another great day - lots of sunshine and about 70 degrees. Kurt loaded Cassidy into the hiking backpack and took off for a good part of the afternoon and took these beautiful pictures of the colors near our house. Happy autumn! Cassidy had fun grabbing leaves off the trees as they hiked.Two peas in a pod

Nearby neighbors have a donkey and a mule - so fun for Cassidy to see!

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!