Apple Picking!

It was the perfect day to be outside today! Especially around here being so close to October...sunny and in the 70's?! Gotta take advantage of that!

After Cassandra's nap, we decided to go apple picking! I've been wanting to go for a few weeks now, but every free day that we have has been rainy. Until today!

We went to a local apple farm (which we went to 2yrs ago as well) and rode the tractor out to the fields. They were picking a few kinds-empire, macoun, Cortland, Spartan.  We went right for the macouns and cortlands since those are my favorites! 

Shortly after getting there, I handed Cassandra an apple and she went to town on it!

And of course, once Avery saw, she wanted in on the action too!

Cassandra didn't pick much at all...she mainly followed me around eating the entire time! Once she figured out that the apples came from the tree and that she could eat it, she would take 1-2 bites, throw the apple on the ground and yell "another one!" Little stinker!

Avery had a lot of fun I think. The macouns just opened up for picking today so there was a ton of them. Some were pretty low so she could reach them herself.  We tried getting some cortlands, but they were very picked over so we didn't get any at all.

And the scenery there is so pretty-especially with the nice blue skies!

Cass and I (yep, she's still eating!)

I tried to get a shot of both girls, but ya know how that goes....

On our way out, we picked up some cider to take home and that was it! I think we ended up with about 17lbs of apples or so-not too shabby!  On to make some applesauce now! YUM!

Twenty Months Old!

Today Cassandra is 20 months old-how the time is flying!

Cassandra is wearing mostly 12 or 18 month clothes now. A lot of the 18 month pants are way too long on her though! And she has the problem that Avery has where she needs tight waistbands or the pants/shorts/skirts just fall right off of her!  She finally bumped up to size 4 diapers for during the day. She's still in 4's overnight too. She's wearing a size 5 shoe now.

She is still sleeping well-rarely wakes up overnight and taking a decent afternoon nap. We've had a few rough nights here and there where she doesn't want to go to bed. Either she's realizing it's more fun to be awake or she's overtired...not sure, but we've had a few nights of her crying herself to sleep lately. Naptime is usually pretty easy with no crying, thankfully!

Cassandra's eating is still sporadic. She's definitely in the toddler way of eating-picky one day, not picky the next. I'd say her favorites are still yogurt, fruit (loves bananas), pasta and this month she has really been liking cereal with milk. I can't think of anything new she's tried, but we usually give her whatever we're eating to start with and go from there.

I feel like I'm slacking keeping track of her new words. She literally repeats everything so I have no idea what's new and what isn't anymore! She just never stops talking!  Some new ones for sure: "have fun", "thone" (phone), "I got it", "raining", "jacket", "yucky", "no more", "mirror", "another one", "more please", "cupcake", "sprinkling", "clap", "mornin' Avery". She also yelled at her doll...pointed her finger at her and said "sit down!" That was pretty funny! She sings the "everybody clean up" song, parts of "rock a bye baby" and "pat-a-cake". For animal sounds, she definitely does cow, horse, pig, sheep, monkey, lion, elephant, snake, dog, cat, chicken, duck.

One big milestone this month was that Cassandra started at daycare with Avery!  She has done really, really well! She cried the first 3 times she went and no tears since! She really seems to enjoy it there and randomly will talk about her friends and teachers when we're at home. I know Avery loves having her there and keeps an eye on her too, which is so great!

Here are her pics this month. We did them a day late because someone wasn't being very cooperative for me. And I took them after her bath, hence the diaper only shots!

My faves:

Yelling "Cheese!"

My little jack-o-lantern!

Flashback to Avery at 20 months!

Dress Up!

Today as soon as we got up, Avery wanted to play dress up with Cassandra.

Avery has a few dresses in her closet and she picked out the ones for them to wear. This was Cassandra's first time dressing up at home so Avery was all excited about it. I'm not too sure what Cass thought of it, but she was a good sport and kept the dress on for quite awhile!

Camp Gorham

Over the weekend, I went on a little getaway!

My Sister-in-law recruited myself, our Aunt and Cousin to go on a women's adventure weekend at Camp Gorham in the Adirondacks. I was looking forward to a weekend getaway, but of course it was hard to leave my kids for 2 nights...I've never been away from them longer than 24hrs!  It had to be done eventually, so I took the opportunity!

We left around 11:30am on Friday and arrived at camp a little after 3pm.  We checked in and got our cabin assignment and went to unload our goods. Upon check-in, we were also given a list of activities they had so we were eager to take a look at that too!

We were in the Cedar cabin:

It had 4 bedrooms....3 of them slept 4 people and 1 room slept 2 people. There were the 4 of us, 2 girls across the hall, 2 women down the hall and a woman by herself. So we weren't at capacity. There was a bathroom with double sinks, 2 toilets and 1 shower (that sort of sucked-1 shower for 9 women!). There was also a small kitchen and living area complete with a wood burning stove. And there was a nice porch off of the back of the cabin.

Our bedroom

After we unloaded, we walked around a bit-this was the lake we were on, Darts Lake. When we got there it was pretty drizzly out-sort of a misty rain most of the night.

Along our walk, some women flagged us down to their room and they had quite the party going on-lots of food, booze and music! They were in the lodge which is a newer building, but their rooms slept 12 people, which is a lot to share a room with!

After our walk, we did a wine tasting that they held and had dinner. Then we went to the campfire they had which was fun-the staff all sang songs and stuff so it was a good time.

Saturday we got up and walked to breakfast. It was a beautiful morning, although still a bit chilly.

Doesn't the lake look beautiful?

The Lodge

After breakfast, I went to a Zumba class, a yoga class, then had a massage done (heaven!). Then it was lunch time. After lunch, I showered and we decided to try out some mountain biking! They had a bunch of things going on at once, so we had to choose what we wanted to do. We went and got our gear:

Me, Gabrielle, Molly

and were on our way! Let's just say that mountain biking is pretty hard and pretty scary at times! It makes you appreciate the psychos that fly down some of those hills! Wow! Along the way, we came to an inlet so we took some pics-it was really pretty!

Selfie!

Molly, Myself, Gabrielle

On the way back, we stopped to take a look at the camp chapel. It's right on the lake and so peaceful.

When we got back from our ride, we walked to the "Pamper Pole" to see if anyone was trying it. If you look below, you climb the ladder and then climb up the middle (shorter) telephone pole. Then once at the top, you jump to a trapeze. Yeah....no thanks! We saw a few women do it and it was pretty amazing!

We also attended a nutrition class, which was more like a cooking demo. They made a soup which was really yummy! Then we went on the jumping pillow before dinner. Let's just say that I learned very quickly that I can't do this thing (TMI Warning!)...every time I jumped I felt like I was peeing-thank you children! I'll now cross that activity off of my list of things to try! I was bummed about that because it was actually fun! Damn kids :)

After dinner we just relaxed. We were all so tired and didn't sleep well the night before. So we hung out in the cabin, built a fire and read some books.

Sunday Molly and Gabrielle woke up to do a sunrise kayaking at 7am. Since I was awake, I went out around 7:40 to take a look. This is what the lake looked like! Yep, that's all fog! So much for watching them!

Can you barely see the kayakers below?

We walked up to get some coffee and on our way back, the fog was starting to lift:

We headed over to the Zipline. I really wanted to do it until we got there. Then I realized you had to climb a 50ft rock wall before you zipline! I've never climbed a rock wall and I really am afraid of heights. I should have done it, but I was a wuss and just watched. Molly did it though:

Molly ready to zip!

Ziplining!

After the zipline, we had a yummy breakfast. Then we headed to the cabin to pack up our stuff. We left around 11am to head home. Before we hit the road, we took a group shot at the cabin!

Molly, Aunt Elaine, Gabrielle, and I

We really had a good time! The food was fantastic and the activities were a lot of fun! Of course we didn't sleep very well, but I sort of expected that. We definitely learned a few things of what to bring next time, etc. They also have another camp on Keuka lake that we talked about checking out as well. Hopefully next year we can recruit a few more gals to go with us!!

Rough Patch

I feel like we hit a rough patch with the kids this week.

I'm not saying parenting is easy, because it isn't at all. Most days are decent though-of course you have your daily challenges (kids fighting, bothering each other, not listening, etc).

But the past 2 days or so were pretty rough and stressful.

Last night Cassandra was quite the beast at bedtime. Let me preface this by saying that she is my "easy" sleeper. PJs, brush teeth, read books, rock in her chair, bed. She's wide awake when we put her down and she rarely cries. Piece of cake compared to how Avery went to bed.

Last night was a totally different story. After dinner I got Avery in the bath. Gabe brought Cassandra up for her bath too and something set her off and she was just crying and crying. She tried to escape the bathroom so he shut the door-well, sister lost it. Screamed her head off! We put her in the tub while she was still crying a bit and as he started to rinse her, she got so worked up that she puked in the tub!  So you know what that means-kids out, drain the tub, clean the tub, start all over. At this point I decided not to bother with a bath for Cassandra. She was still crying like crazy. So I sat with her wrapped in her towel and just tried to settle her down. Gabe took her to get ready for bed, and within a few minutes, she was screaming again. After about 15mins or so, he handed her off to me (she was screaming for me). I sat and rocked her and she settled down. However, she wouldn't put her head down or relax. Every time I tried to stand up, she cried. If I mentioned the crib, she cried. Somehow I got her in her crib and refused to pick her up. She finally laid down and I snuck out of her room. Well, when she realized I left, she screamed for me repeatedly! I wasn't going to go in unless she really freaked so she ended up crying for about 15min and then finally fell asleep. I think it was over an hour from start to finish of her just crying last night.

Then tonight she was pretty good until I put her in her crib-then she started screaming for me again. This time it only lasted 5min and she conked out.  I hope it's just a phase. I think she's getting smarter now and realizing we're leaving her and it's bedtime.

And of course, there's Avery. Since returning to daycare, she has gotten quite a mouth on her. She's been pretty sassy with some back talk and it's very hard to deal with. What she tends to do is repeat what I say and says is very nasty:

 "Avery you need to be a better listener." "No, YOU need to listen."
"Avery please leave your sister alone." "No, YOU leave her alone."

Get my drift?! 

It's definitely picked up in the past week or so and most of the time I have no idea how to react to her. We've done time out a few times for saying something nasty, but lately I feel like she'd be sitting there all day! I wish I had a good way to nip it in the bud.

First Day!

'Round these parts, the kids start school this week.

For us, it was a new beginning....Cassandra got to start daycare!

The daycare we send Avery to doesn't take infants. They have to be 18months old to start going there. When we had Cassandra our options were to find someone to watch her, or switch Avery to a different daycare. We loved it there so much that we really didn't want to pull her out. So my Father-in-Law graciously offered his time over the past 19months to watch Cassandra pretty much everyday that I worked (THANK YOU!).

Cassandra turned 18 months at the end of July and the owner of the daycare decided to close up shop. So, we didn't want to send her there for 3wks and then have to possibly start her somewhere else. However, we lucked out and they found a buyer for the daycare and the previous owner also stayed on staff. After they closed for about 2wks, it was time to start up for fall! They actually opened up last Thursday, but yesterday was my first working day since they re-opened.

We've been talking about Cassandra starting "school" for the past few weeks to get Avery prepped for her being there, etc. And I have to say that Avery was really excited for her to be with her.

So now Gabe and I only have one drop off and pick up location which is really nice.  He said when he dropped them off yesterday, Cassandra barreled down the hallway to explore. I guess the teacher went to pick her up and she started to cry. A little after lunch, I received an email from the teacher saying that Cass was doing great! She also attached these photos for me too!

Cassandra and some friends

Cassandra and Avery outside

Overall, she had a great first day. She didn't nap much (we didn't bring her sleeping buddy either) which I sort of expected since she has to sleep on a mat which is totally foreign for her. Of course she crashed in the car on the way home too!  She obviously can't tell us much, but Avery said that Cass had fun and didn't cry much...so that makes me happy! Hopefully the transition keeps going as smoothly as yesterday did!

My Budding Artist

In the past week or so, Avery has really gotten into coloring and drawing. Literally the one day I was home, all she did was color and draw. She didn't want to do anything else!  And I have to say, her coloring is getting really good-she stays in the lines really well now! And I love that I can now figure out her drawings too!

Here are a few of her latest things I've caught that I thought were impressive!

At my Mom's, she wrote Cassandra's name for the first time (I had to spell it out for her)...I was impressed that she new the letters as I said them without anything to look at!

Also at my Mom's, she drew Gabe and I....he's on the left, I'm on the right. I love how my arms are coming out of my head and each hand has about 12 fingers!

And this is from today. She wouldn't let me see this until she was all done with it. She drew herself (on the left) and me (on the right) under the sunshine. And she wrote both names all by herself-I didn't even tell her how to spell it! I have no idea how she learned to spell Mommy but I was pretty proud!