Elegant Farmer

 

Our family felt it was that time of year again to venture out to the apple orchard! We decided on Elegant Farmer this time since we heard so many good things about it. Although we really liked Apple Holler last year, we will always choose Elegant Farmer over it in the future. For one, the apples were cheaper since you pay for what you get (in a nice basket instead of cheap flimsy bags). The smell of their cider doughnuts got the better of us, and boy were they worth it! I would go back just to get those. I've heard that their apple pies are amazing, so we're planning on getting one next year. It was so nice having a variety of apple trees right next to each other and not having to go very far in the orchard to pick apples. (Last year we had a 15 min. hayride just to get to the part of the orchard where the apples were any good.) The orchard itself is much smaller at Elegant Farmer, but the apples were good, and we loved that they had barrels full of the delicious zestar apple that they don't grow in their orchard. We picked some Golden Delicious and then cheated and filled the rest of our basket with the zestar, which is our favorite. We had a wonderful time picking apples at Elegant Farmer. I sure hope we're able to keep up this family tradition - it's so much fun!

Lydia ate about three whole apples while we were there - I was afraid she was going to get a tummy ache!

Brynlee wasn't so sure about apple picking at first...

She was sold once she tasted her first apple!

Lydia loves to pick the nasty apples off the ground and put them in our basket. We had to coach her a little bit and show her how it's done.

Daddy's little helper

Brynlee picked the apple right out of my hand just as this picture was taken

 

This little one loved licking & gumming the juice out of her apple

We wouldn't have gotten such good apples if Austin wasn't an expert tree climber

Elegant Farmer's delicious Cider Doughnuts - I highly recommend these!

Lydia practically inhaled her doughnut and then tried to pounce on mine...

Lost Kittia

 Lost Kitten

Looking for a beloved pink and purple leopard-print kitty with huge eyes. She is known as "Kittia" and I can't imagine life without her. Last seen at Walgreens... Please message me with any information about Kittia's whereabouts.

Baby only eats to "Awesome" Song from Lego Movie

One Room A Day

A couple of days ago, my genius husband proposed that I only focus on cleaning one room a day instead of stressing over the entire apartment and never feeling satisfied. Not only did he come up with this awesome solution, but he helped me clean the living room to get me started. He's a keeper! His idea is that deep cleaning and keeping one room tidy is a lot more doable and so I'm a lot more likely to actually do it. If every room gets cleaned once a week, it's never really that dirty. I feel like cleaning is like everything else in life. It's important, but needs to be done in moderation so I focus more on the kiddos and maintain my sanity. Some people can keep their homes immaculate and still be awesome mothers, but I can't do that at this point in my life, and I need accept that. Someday I'll be able to keep a much cleaner home when I don't have little cyclones with sticky fingers and runny noses whizzing about destroying everything in their path.

My mom used to have a picture with a poem in her bedroom that read: 

Hush a bye cobwebs, 

dust go to sleep. 

I'm rocking my baby, 

and babies don't keep!

I'm sure I'll miss the mess someday. In the meantime, I'll tackle what I can and be happy :-) I can't believe I never thought of the one room a day solution before. Thank you Austin! 

Taking a moment to enjoy the clean living room before plotting how to destroy it ;)

My home is never clean for long thanks to these two cuties - but they are so worth it!

Baby of the Year!

I feel like Brynlee deserves some recognition after how good she was during our recent Labor Day trip to MN. She hardly cried during our 6 hour drive out to the Twin Cities. When we were at the State Fair until late Saturday night, Brynn was completely content to snuggle in her Grandma's arms almost the entire time. I could hardly believe it! She is so sweet and content as long as she is held and fed. I really lucked out with this girl. The video shows her reaction to getting home after our trip to MN. She was pretty excited to get out of her carseat! I love this little one's sweet temperament and especially those adorable giggles!