Fall

The beginning of fall is undoubtedly the best time of the year.  The air is crisp but the sun still warms your skin.  This weekend was no exception, so we took the opportunity to enjoy a local orchard.  It was so much fun!  We met up with friends Janis, Mike and their twin boys to enjoy some cold apple cider and warm cider donuts.   

Kids from Left to Right:  Olive, Poppy, M and J*

At this time of year the orchard is filled with bright orange pumpkins, apples of all sizes and colors, and kids – actually, there were multiple sets of multiples at the orchard on Sunday.  It’s always fun to run into friends from our Moms of Multiples (MOM) group.

 

Poppy and a goat

Daddy and Poppy Feeding one of the goats

Olive feeding a goat (she didn't understand how to hold the food in the palm of her hand, so she just picked some grass and fed it to the goats)

J

Daddy and Olive feeding the chickens

M

M checking out the pheasant (or peacock - we didn't really know)

Mike and J feeding the chickens

Poppy

J in the sun.  Look at those adorable cheeks!

Olive milking a fake cow

Olive was also getting a little red from the sun, but that didn't stop her from enjoying the pumpkins.

Poppy

Poppy and J

Poppy

Me and Janis

Of course, this wasn’t the only time we saw our MOM friends this weekend.  On Friday and Saturday our MOMs group held its biannual resale event.  It always amazes me how organized and efficient the sale is, especially since preparing for it seems like a never-ending task that lingers on my to-do list.  Thank goodness my mom was here to help tag the clothes and keep the kids away from the safety pins.  Oh, and cousin Lauren and her roommate, Amanda, were able to pull themselves away from their studies at the University of Delaware to babysit the girls for a few hours while Joe and my mom volunteered/shopped at the resale on Friday night (and I tried to catch up on the housework that I’d neglected while preparing for the resale).  As always, it was a wonderfully successful event and all the MOMs (and dads) went home with a sense of accomplishment and a lot less stuff. 

We were lucky enough to sell an entire truckload of the girls’ baby items, but we didn’t come home empty handed.  We got some new dolls - both girls love dolls (which is my mother’s dream come true).  They hug them, feed them and kiss them a hundred times a day.   

The girls are so much fun at this age!  They run around the house and squeal with joy.  But my favorite part of this stage is that they can tell us what they want with sign language.  Don’t get me wrong – they only know a few words, but it makes all the difference in the world.  They know “more” (which Olive does by clapping her hands and pointing to the item she wants), “milk,” “poop” (although they don’t tell Daddy when they have to go, they only tell me and MomMom), “up” (which they also say, but it’s just so much cuter when they put their arms straight up un the air and wave their little hands), and a few other words like “ball” and “baby.”

Reading books is another of the girls’ favorite pastimes and like most kids their age, they want to read the same books over and over again.  I’m not complaining, but I’m glad we were able to pick up some cheap books at the resale that did not have the words duck or dog in the title. 

After an event-filled weekend, the whole family was tired and DIRTY!!!  These girls sure do like to play in dirt!  Here they are just before (their much needed) bath time.

Olive

Poppy

*Janis, who blogs here, and Mike prefer to keep their kids' names off of the internet, so we follow Janis' example and use their initials.