Oh Jensen!

We couldn't get this child to hardly crack a smile when we were paying a photographer to take her picture, but when we get home this is what she does. 

Dora and the Pumpkin

It was a little chilly to trick-or-treat, but we made it to a few houses around Oma and Opa's neighborhood before the kids fingers got too frozen to put treats in their buckets.  Jensen Dora refused to wear her coat because she was so proud of her outfit (even declaring to a passerby that she was beautiful).  Hayden was a little confused as to why he had to wear a pumpkin on top of his clothes, but quickly caught on to knocking on a door and getting candy in his pumpkin bucket.  He enjoyed his first taste of candy after the adults concluded that we were done (we got really cold!).  Dora did wear a wig which we learned to never leave on a chair overnight...it could get confused as an animal the next morning.  Thanks goes to Opa and Oma who carried the little, rather slightly beefy, pumpkin around the neighborhood! 

Just Because...

No reason for these pictures.  I was just paging through pictures from this spring and couldn't resist posting a few.  Our kiddos seem to be growing up too fast....it's good to remember these little smiles. 

Second Annual Apple Month

This year's Hinesley Apple Month was great!  We made apple butter, apple crisp, apple scones (courtesy of Chris!), and apple cinnamon pancakes.  Yummo.  Jensen and I also studied the life cycle of apple trees and watched a movie on apple farming during school time.  This year's trip to the apple orchard was much more successful than last year's trip.  Only one orchard.  No tears.  And we got apples!  We took Aunt Susie with us this year which was fun.  Because of the hot weather and drought in Indiana the apple crop wasn't as good this year, but there was still plenty of golden delicious apples to choose from.  Hayden had a great time running around the lines of trees and fell all over the place despite the fact that he was getting over having Hand, Foot and Mouth.  Jensen was mortified last year when we read a book about going to the orchard where the author wrote that the correct way to pick an apple is to turn the eye upward so it doesn't damage the tree.  We hadn't picked them the right way last year!  She made sure to turn them correctly this year and instructed the rest of us to do the same.