Fall Fun Has Begun - Apples

Fall fun has begun! I absolutely love apple picking within the first couple weekends the orchards are open. The apples are plentiful and the people are not!

We had rows to ourselves to pick and take our time. We ended up with one bag for baking and one bag for eating.

Jackson ate the first apple he could and was very focused on eating for a while. Both J and Em were very proud of the apples they picked on their own.

 Emerson was thrilled she was able to eat apples. She told Grandma and Grandpa over and over again that she "ate whole thing" and "ate two apples."

We did the apple donuts and the kid activities before leaving. Both kids were sound asleep within a few minutes to start the drive home. A great family morning to start fall!

Trick-or-Trunk

Batman and Superwoman prepare for battle...

 This was our first year participating in a Trick-or-Trunk, and I could not be happier that we did.

It was at J & Em's school so J had been talking about it for weeks. In case your not familiar with the concept it is a chance for kids to trick-or-treat by going car to car. Parents park their car, decorate their trunk (some really go all out) and then pass out candy. It is great for a small community, like their school.

My mom had the amazing idea to make our trunk into the Batcave. 

Cookies or Sprinkles

 Jackson likes sprinkles. He likes them on his donuts, on his ice cream and...on his cookies. 

Fall is here

Apple picking was first on our fall agenda.

Last year once Jackson had an apple to munch on he did nothing else. This time he ate two apples and picked about four. 

 He really enjoyed himself and was willing to share the apple he was eating with us. 

Despite all the apples, the tractors may have been his favorite part of the day. 

Something I was extremely excited to try with all our harvested apples was homemade applesauce. Jackson practically lives on applesauce and fruit snacks so I knew he'd be thrilled to help make it. I mainly went off a recipe of a friend of my mother-in-law. It turned out DELICIOUS!

Crockpot Applesauce

Peel, core and chop as many apples as will fill your crockpot 

Add 2-3 tablespoons of brown sugar

Add cinnamon to taste (I let Jackson shake this in so I have no idea how much we used, but it certainly was not a little bit)

Cook for several hours till apples are real soft and stirring them together mushes them up. We left ours with some larger pieces but everything was soft. 

Baby sister made her debut at our garden recently. The weeds have overtaken it, the tomatos plants are wilting and producing less and the pumpkin vine has snaked through the plot. We are pumped to have two pumpkins growing that we should be able to pick right in the beginning of October. They are a smaller variety so maybe not for a jack-o-latern but festive non the less. Jackson was real excited about them. To help curb his urge to pick it we let him rub it for good luck. You can see him doing so above in his adorable Mickey gardening gloves. 

Looking forward to more fun fall activities soon!