To fall, or not to fall?

At the beginning of September, the weather really did get chilly - I swear I had every right to think it was all over for summer, and after about 10 days of long pants and long sleeves, I finally accepted that fall is here, and I packed away the summer clothes. We went for a long quad ride and the bite in the air was really harsh - after the first few miles, I really regretted not wearing long underwear! The scenery is always really nice at this time of year, even if the weather isn't.

Two weekends ago - the valley was starting to turn


We had rain, and then a rainbow on Sunday - this is actually a double rainbow, if you look you can see another rainbow above the really bright one.

touques, long pants, sweaters and layers - it was COLD!

So, that was the beginning of September. I'd post first day of school pics, but they are sideways and I am too lazy to turn them. I am sure everyone's wondering if we have TV yet. Yes we do. Its crappy and half the channels still don't work. But its ours, and we love it. We're watching The Deadliest Catch right now. How did we ever survive without it?

Mornings are going a lot better than I thought - actually, its not as rushed as it is on my days off! I started packing lunches and getting clothes ready the night before, and getting up 15 minutes earlier and all that seems to work well - usually the kids are still sleeping when I get out of the shower so I wake M. up first, get her cereal ready and her clothes and toothbrush, and when she's done eating, I get C. up and do the same thing. They've been really good with that, and most mornings the baby sleeps until its time to bring the big girls to school - so I take her out of the crib and right into the van, drop them off, and I come back and get her breakfast and dressed, hair done, etc. and leave for work. We usually have a pleasant drive except that I've had to give up my morning talk radio for Fred Penner. I drop her off at the sitter's and she's been okay with that - a little whiny but I think its all a show and she's probably fine as soon as I'm out of sight. Then, off to work and if all is right in the world, they'll have coffee ready when I get there.

Its getting darker, earlier and its so much harder to drag my ass out of bed when the sun is barely up. Somebody tell me when the time is going to change because that will complicate matters in a HUGE way. This darkness in the a.m. thing has me thinking - its probably going to be soon, right?

The baby is starting to talk a lot more, and really - she's not a baby anymore, she's a two year old. Or, almost. I am wondering about her language development. Its so interesting that she only bothers learning words that she thinks she needs. And I wonder - how does she learn a word like 'mine' that she rarely hears (how often to parents say 'mine' in conversation with a baby?) - but words that I use one million times every day like 'WAIT!' or 'STOP!', or yes, no, milk, eat, drink, sleep, shoes, etc. - I've never heard her say any of those. She calls shoes, socks. Even though we've just been through summer and we haven't really talked about socks in months. And we talk about shoes every day. But shoes are socks.

And, she knows the cat's names. Her older sisters have been around the cats for 5 and 6 years, respectively. And I don't think either of them can tell you which cat is which, either or both of them is Casey, or maybe Percy. Never mind that the two cats look completely different - but the big girls have never bothered to really know which is which. But the baby knows. And with her pronunciation, I really, really would prefer her to just call them both Casey. Just so you know.

Due to the fact that I packed away 99.9% of our summer clothes the week before --- we had a BEAUTIFUL weekend. You all can thank me later for bringing summer back. I accept cash and gifts.

Anyway, even though the weekend before was freezing cold - last weekend was certainly hot enough to wear shorts, and a tank top. There wasn't even a chill in the air - it was gloriously warm and we and another wonderful weekend out on the quad. The kids joined us in the evenings for bonfires and hot dogs.

She'll only go near the quad if its not running. If its running, she screams.

Beautiful day! - here we're parked on the sandy riverbed.

Short sleeves! Capri pants! Bare toes in the sand!

And to think all week before they had been saying it would be so cold and miserable, and might even snow. Now, for this coming weekend they're actually predicting warm weather - so I'd better get out my mittens. We're going to the lake and I'm planning to make a few batches of salsa - it will probably be one of our last weekends out there this season so we'll make the most of it.