"When the weather gets crisp" .... Favorite Cookie and Fall Pictures

First things first, our very favorite pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipe found here but you have to watch the video as you make them. Ava and I set out all the ingredients and then try to make them along with the video. There is just something so cool about the lady's voice...right Karen.:) Karen was the one that got us hooked on them. I think we made these over a dozen times this fall. 

Now on to lots of pictures:

We had a huge storm hit the end of August and this little guy blew out of his nest up in our backyard tree. Luke found him and thought he was a baby duck. He had no feathers and a giant beak and did look a little bit like a duck. I was pretty sure he was a  baby Mourning Dove (but have since found out he is a Ring Neck Dove. I guess I don't know a Mourning dove when I see one.) His mom and dad never came back for him and so we did our best to take care of him. We used a syringe to feed him Malt-o-meal every few hours, it was kind of like having a new baby.  Every morning I would wake up early to check on him, hoping he had survived another night.  He thrived and grew and grew.  We named him Ducky, then Buckbeak, and now he's just Birdie. Birdie lives in a big bird cage and we let him out a couple times a day to fly around a little and poop on everything.  When you whistle at him he will fly to you and land on your hand or head, he likes heads. He likes Ruthy and will follow her around. Sometime he scares her if he gets to close or pecks her toes. One day I heard her screaming bloody murder and found her trying to hide from him under a chair. We are hoping to set him free this Spring so that he can find some friends and live a happier life flying a lot more and being outside.

 A nice Sunday activity to do in nice Sunday clothes.

 Ava was a great soccer player this year. She is faster than most of the girls in her division when she wants to be.  It's fun to watch her play when she gets her little bursts of determination, no one can stop her.

 The kids taking turns jumping off the cab of the truck into all of the old tomato plants piled up in the bed.

 We cleaned out and tilled up the gardens and picked all of our apples off the little tree. We got a load of apples this year!

 Luke helping Rice cook potstickers in the backyard. They are a good little cooking team.

 The Alpine Loop in early Fall.

 We got almost 20 bottles of grape juice this year. 

 Polishing rocks

This is the x-ray of Luke's broken hand. Can you see the brake below the pinkie by his palm.  He and his friend would ride scooters at the skate park by the field where Ava had soccer practice. One day Luke got a little too tricky for his own good. The funny thing was he kept riding even with a broken hand. His friends mom is a PA and was pretty sure it was broke but did an x-ray to be sure. Then she sent us straight to a specialist. He barely escaped getting pins put in it and after a few weeks in a hard brace and it healed up just fine....even playing flag football. This was his first year playing and it killed him to think of missing out.  So I agreed, as long as he was careful....that sounds so stupid even as I type this. But we made it through the season with no more harm done.

 

Jeremy had fun coaching the defence. (The purple purse is a really nice look for him.)

 My camera has a terrible zoom, so this picture isn't very impressive, but I just wanted to remember how beautiful this mountain is. It's the one I see out my kitchen window. In the Fall the Aspen trees on the very top glow bright yellow when the sun comes up in the morning. 

 She's just so sweet when she's asleep.

  Luke and Ava's school pictures 2013-2014