All the fall things

Summer is slowly disappearing here in Michigan and I am trying my best not to cry as the warm weather slips through my fingers.

Okay, it's not that bad. I do enjoy autumn and all the beauty it brings with the changing scenery.  We had a beautiful stretch of warm temperatures for a few weeks which has helped me embrace the thought of our approaching winter.  Now the cooler weather is starting to creep in and Arie asks me every day if it's "gonna snow yet?" He can't wait to build a snow fort and his excitement is helping me get in the mood for colder days ahead! While the weather is still warm enough, though, John, Arie, and I are spending as much time as we can outside while we can!

Arie was sporting casts on his feet for the past three weeks; they are part of some physical therapy he is doing to address his toe walking and tight muscle tone. We got a lot of gasps and "What happened?!" when we are out and about, but rest assured there were no broken bones in there!

He coped pretty well with the casts but we were ecstatic to finally get them off yesterday! He's hobbling around on his new feet, getting the hang of the range of motion in his ankles. It's pretty cool to see him walking on flat feet for this first time!

Casts aside we have found many things to enjoy this fall! Arie and I kicked off the season just like we did last year: raspberry picking with friends.

It was cool on our raspberry picking day but we were still able to enjoy a picnic for lunch. Doesn't food just taste better outside?

A few short weeks later we were picking apples! Arie and I went once with friends and then again a few days later when John was able to join us. Apple picking is both the last contented sigh of summer and the first deep breath of fall; it serves to create such wonderful memories for me and I hope for my boy as well.

When we went with friends we joined two other moms who brought two kids each. I'm still laughing over our trip! With the exception of the baby, all our kids must have ate at least their body weight in apples and picked the same. Despite many reminders to "place the apples GENTLY in the cart" the majority of mine came home bruised. It was, however, still magic to watch those little ones race through the orchards, chins and hands sticky from juicy apples, bubbly giggles rising from widely smiling lips.

I was so proud that I at least managed to keep the bag of Jonagolds (good for baking) and the Honeycrisps (good for eating) separate despite their identical appearances… but then as Arie and I drove home and turned a particularly sharp corner I heard the unmistakable sound of 40+ apples rolling around the trunk. Sure enough when I got home and popped the trunk open I saw the bags had come untied and all the apples were mixed together!

We spent the next week taking one bite of each apple to determine which kind it was. When we collected enough bitten Jonagolds in the fridge we did what any good apple picker would do... make an apple crisp!

Our second round of picking yielded bags of Fuji and Cortland apples which made the most delicious apple sauce, just like my mom made when I was growing up! Arie and I had a blast in the kitchen turning those apples into sweet sauce; another fall memory made.

I'm sad to see autumn slipping so quickly by, but I do have a very good reason to appreciate the change of season: in the end of October we will be transferring our embryos! I was able to book my transfer this week and it is October 29. Doesn't that sounds like a GREAT day to get pregnant? I think so. Do you think it will be too early in the game to use pregnancy cravings as an excuse to binge on Arie's Halloween candy? ;-)

xo