I spy something orange

And round.

That makes my kids cry.

Carving pumpkins at the Barringers :

Evie helps

Luke helps
**those are the total number of seeds my brave kid pulled out of the pumpkin. He won't touch the "pumpkin goo"

Daddy ends up doing most of the carving and pumpkin-goo removal
***because, frankly, I don't much like touching it either

But we finish them. And they're darn cute.

The end.

There isn't much . . .

that can get my boys off the couch during football afternoons.

except:

a big pile of freshly-raked leaves

and a game of backyard ball.

(seriously, that kid's got an arm).

favorites

Luke: Mom, what kind of car is that?

Ken: A camaro.  Cool car.  (really, like I would know)

Luke.  I think that is one of my favorite cars.  Camaros and Hondas and Toyotas.  And Peugots.

1/4 for American-made isn't too bad, right?

Apples, apples, more apples.

My love affair with fall continues.  This time with the whole family, another gorgeous sunny day and a camera I didn't erase all the pictures from.  Now, what to do with the apples.

Candids

Thanks to Donny, Leanne and one really (really) nice camera lens.  He's such a great photographer.  Despite some ultra-crabby kids, he got some of my favorite shots of the 2 of them to date.

Friday Trip: Apples

My friend Stacey has a plan - to start now with Friday trips to keep ourselves sane this winter. We started out with a few of the nearby apple orchards, along with a bunch of friends and kids. Sad - my camera erased the literally millions of pictures from the day. But thanks to Stacey for letting me steal some of hers. The kids got to climb all over the place, run up and down the orchards, pick apples and raspberries, pet some "munnies!" (Evie's word for basically any animal other than "doggie!") and basically completely tire themselves out on a gorgeous sunny day.

I love, LOVE fall.

Heaven on a stick

We made caramel apples for family night tonight:

Luke, hard at work.

Evie was a big "help" putting the caramels into the bowl.

At least, until she discovered they were good to eat.

Happy kids (thank goodness for chocolate chips)

Finished product.

Picasa the Great

A quick tip for those of you (us) that don't have Photoshop. And don't want to mess around with GIMP for most of your pictures (or you don't have your sister around to explain it all the time). And you want a free download.

Look at all the cool things Picasa can do:

original

cropped + autocontrast
sepia + soft focus
tint
color saturation
my favorite - warmify + soft glow

I thought.

That your own newborns were the most beautiful (or, sometimes, the only beautiful newborns).

I was wrong. Meet my newborn niece (Congratulations, Jeremy and Mindy!)