Alexandria's preschool class took a fun trip to a local apple farm a few weeks ago.  We have been on this field trip two times before with Blake's preschool classes, and it felt really weird to be there with just one child.

Back when my regular jeans still fit me...seems like ages ago.

Mr. Mills showing us how to properly pick the apples.

Apparently it was a great year for the apples. 

Learning how apple cider is made.

We have a field right next to the church building, that I think is even owned by the congregation, but a neighboring farmer takes care of it for us.  And somehow I have never, not even once, noticed how pretty it is in the Fall.  Alexandria noticed though.

This girl is like moth to a flame with flowers and the color purple.  You can't keep her away.

Almost time for church to start!

Our final wedding of the year this year was a beautiful Fall wedding.  I really loved the colors for this wedding, and we knew Vicki would outdo herself with the decorating, and she really did.  Unfortunately I was too busy with the kids to get many pictures. 

Kayla wasn't trying to get away from Adam here, just the smoke from the candle.

This was after the wedding, and she wasn't really talking on the phone either.

Alexandria took this one.

And this one too, I think.

Yep, those two also.

Releasing the birds.

The mints at the tables at the reception were tasty and cute!

For a few years now we have been invited to our neighbor, Andrew's, birthday party, but for whatever reason we always had other things going on at the same time as the party.  But this year we finally made it, and the kids had a blast!

Matt and Alexandria found the arcade games early in the day.

It was a tricky place for getting the kids to hold still for photos.  

The party people.

Here and there in September...

In the Harvey household, we don't enjoy some of the luxuries of a dad who has a "normal" job with normal hours.  Matt works odd (long) hours, sometimes late nights, weekends, and doesn't have a regular schedule, and since we have never been used to a schedule like that, we don't think much of it.  There are plenty of cons that come with the irregular schedule, but here is one BIG BONUS.  Sometimes he gets to start his work day late and walk Blake to the bus stop, drive him to school or even be here when Blake gets off the bus (and shortly after Blake gets off the bus, Matt works from home).  I know Blake is especially thrilled with days like this.

And in other randomness on this Monday, it rained in September and it had seemed like such a long time since it had rained that Alexandria could not wait to get outside and splash around in the puddles.

Once we got some cooler temps, we scheduled a fun photo shoot with Jackie (and her awesome assistant, Isaiah) in Forest Park.  We had such a fun evening with them!

Blake took this one.  Pretty impressive work for a boy of six.

After we had a yummy dinner at The Boat House, we watched the kids feed the ducks.

Probably better than watching the kids feed the ducks though, was watching Isaiah watch the kids feed the ducks.  I could've watched him all night.

Here are just a few of my favorites from the afternoon that Jackie took.

I love picture days!

Alexandria started Preschool in September.  She absolutely LOVES it!  We knew she would, of course because she has been dropping Blake off there for the past two years, patiently waiting for her turn to go.  She is a bit more attached to me than Blake ever was, so I didn't know if she would be teary the first day when I dropped her off.  There wasn't a single tear on the first day...until I picked her up, and then she cried because she wanted to stay at school.  Those are the kinds of tears I can deal with!

All ready for her big day.

And now for Blake's new trick.  That's an apple, and he thinks he is awesome when he does this.  His sister kinda loves watching him do it too.

In early September we finished up a few projects we'd been wanting to get done for quite some time now.

The boys threw on their "rotty clothes" and stained the swingset, always a long job.  Matt did most of the work, of course.

Alexandria supervised from afar.

She did help me with some basement organization too, but if you walked into the unfinished part of our basement right now, you would never believe that we organized just a month ago.  Total disaster area.  The weather is way too beautiful right now for us to be working inside though.   Plenty of months of cold weather and basement productivity are ahead this winter.

I finally found some art clips for the kids' rooms that I liked and got those up on the wall to display their school work and church papers.

Blake likes to check out his work and explain to Alexandria what they did at school.  It's pretty cute.

I have done A LOT of work on Alexandria's room, moving her toddler bed out of her room and other furniture and assembling her new queen sized bed and two new (craigslist new) dressers into her room.  Somehow I guess I haven't taken pictures of her finished room yet.  Making a mental note now...ok, better make a real note too because my mental notes are less than reliable these past 12 weeks.

During the first week of September Blake's school had a Grandparents' Breakfast before school (if kids didn't have living grandparents or ones that were unable to attend, they could bring any special person with them).  Papa and Ma took the day off of work to come eat breakfast with Blake, and I think it's safe to say that they all enjoyed every minute of it.  Blake got to give them a little tour of his school and show them around his classroom.  He thought it was really great!

Alexandria stayed home, but she thought she ought to be in the picture too.

I sent my camera with Mom, but Blake was pretty excited to have Papa and Ma at school with him, so he did a whole lot of acting silly for the camera.

I guess they had hundreds of people at the breakfast, a really nice turnout, which always make me feel good about people in our community wanting to be involved in the lives of their children/grandchildren.

The kids have been wanting to use the firepit every night for pretty much the whole 100 degree summer, but when the temperatures dropped a bit, we finally got some more use out of it.

Blake's firepit interest is completely centered around playing in the fire, while Alexandria's interests are more centered around eating as many marshmallows as she can in an hour.

Blake spends most of his time looking for things to throw into the fire.

Matt and I like the sitting in a soft chair part of the firepit experience.  Something for everyone.