Butterfly place

Since apple picking was a bust, we went to butterfly place down the street from the farm. It was 80 degrees inside and 45ish outside so my lens was fogged a great deal of the time...

he really wanted to do the scavenger hunt ;)

Miss Leah proves mama was at the butterfly place too ha ha

sneezy butterfly

me too..he had to have a picture taken too (thanks Bruce)

do butterflies wear sunglasses? (thanks Bruce)

checking off boxes for the scavenger hunt

dynamic duo 

bruce's hat made a nice landing spot

one of my favorites

leah and zion the sweety-pie 

Um, is that snow?

We tried to go apple picking one last time, but mother nature got confused....it's still October isn't it?

mama didn't think to bring gloves...

first snowball fight of the season, not quite a fair fight really...

"look mama we are throwing the snow, it's NAUGHTY, ha ha ha ha"

best buds, Harvey is a tad more prepared for snow, in my defense there wasn't any snow at our apartment...

fashionista and her cuddly baby

um, the pumpkins are covered in snow....

brand new to him winter coat, who knew he'd be modeling it so soon!

Gillian: summer hat w/ winter coat, that about sums it up

runnin' around

At least there was a sale on already picked apples....

Fall

We went to Castle Island a few weeks ago. It was quite the warm day...

Apple Cider pressing

Back a few weeks we continuted a tradition we started last year and went to our CSA farm for apple cider pressing. Fun times indeed, and we had friends who live out by the farm so they came along for the fun times!

choosing our bushel of apples

the farm which provides our weekly vegetable pick up 

girl pose

with daddy up to the farm stand

grinding the apples

pressing the apples

a lot of work

calling in the big muscles

friends!

friends some more!

donut delight

happy baby who was just weeks old last time we did this, sniff sniff

a mountain of pumpkins

Butterflies!

As part of homeschooling we ordered catepillars and watched them spin up and become chrsalides and then emerge as painted lady butterflies. They were lovely to watch inside, but after reading that they can fly for 1000's of miles in their life span I felt bad for the ladies being stuck inside. They seemed to be bored and weren;t very energetic. Our haphazard feeding may not have helped....So finally one warm enough day we took them outside to release them back to the wild, all four of the survivors (4 out of 5 catepillars made it)

behold, the butterfly garden

we managed to keep them alive in there. somewhat miraculous

they weren't sure how to be free, We got one to attach to a stick, here is Ollie helping the little guy see the flowers

so pretty!

Bruce enticing another one with a pretty flower

success! 

this one was terribly lethargic and we were worried she wouldn't fly off, but eventually she found freedom exilerating and took flight. mission accomplished!

Ollie's bike ride

Several weeks ago Luke took Ollie on a bike ride which was the highlight of Ollie's month, at least.

dinosaur helmet! grrrr

bike seat attached 

getting buckled in

one terribly excited boy 

off on an adventure!