Fall Fun

Saturday we visited the playground and ended up playing in the leaves with our friend Simon and then later that afternoon we took the kids to Shenot Farms to get some pumpkins. It was a great little trip. It's a small farm that's up in Wexford. They have a hayride that you take to the pumpkin patch (with a fresh apple from the orchard to snack on). Then you can walk around and choose your pumpkin. There's also a corn maze (we didn't try that out- it was almost closing time and didn't want to have to sleep in the cornfield :-)). They also had little samples of apple cider for you to try while out in the fields. Caleb's favorite part was trying to find the perfect sized pumpkin. He wanted to be able to carry it (which was quite a challenge). We had to settle for a pumpkin he could hold for about 2 minutes before letting it drop. Sadie's favorite part was the apple she got to snack on and the hayride. She also had some fun rolling pumpkins down the hill. I thought it was a little risky having a pumpkin patch on the side of a hill :-)

We got our pumpkins and also picked up some fresh cider and apple butter and other yummy stuff.

Now Caleb is very eager to "put a face on his pumpkin". Hopefully we'll get to that tomorrow :-)

hope you like the pics

update

It's been a while since I posted last. Life has thrown us for a loop starting right after Caleb's birthday. My step-mom, Mona (Grammie M to Caleb and Sadie) was taken to the hospital for testing after having some shortness of breath and what seemed like a respiratory infection. We discovered that week that she in fact had uterine cancer that had spread up into her lungs. It was a devastating diagnosis that sent all of us reeling and questioning "why is this happening?" It seemed like every day we were getting bad news, bits and pieces of hope were being chipped away. The only thing that seemed to keep us all together was the desire to be strong for each other and the tremendous outpouring of love, support and prayers for my step-mom, my dad and our family. It seemed like testing went on forever but finally the doctors came through with some hope for us. Mona had her first chemo treatment almost 2 weeks ago and has come through that well. She has several more treatments ahead of her, plus radiation and surgery but there is hope that she'll stay with us and that is a precious hope for our family. We're treasuring our time together, keeping faith that it won't be short and trusting God that he will continue to keep us in his care.