our house was wonderfully full this past weekend.

on wednesday, kathy, brandon and nakita arrived in the wee hours of the morning.  and then duke followed suit on thursday night.

it was a great weekend filled with family time, delicious meals, apple and pumpkin picking, walks and laughter.

thank you all so much for coming this weekend.  it was such a sweet time of relaxation and fun.

and of course,ry, duke and i completed a big challenge too.  more on that to come...

lily dressed finn today.  

for church on the 4th of july. 

naturally.

and in case you can't tell, he is wearing two plaid shirts, plaid pants, and a plaid tie.

nom. nom. nom.

do you think he's ready for solids??

(this might be his favorite place right now...to sit here and laugh at lily and finn while they eat.)

sweet boy.

autumn.

i have been in denial that summer is over.  

even though lily is back in school and fall activities have arrived.

even though the evenings have been cooler.

even though we are well into october.

i have denied it's presence.  but, this weekend, it finally hit me that it is autumn.  and it actually felt good.

we went to a crosby's first soccer game and it was so much fun.  lily and finn LOVED running around the grassy field and finn kept saying how much he wanted to "play soccer down there."  (music to ryan's ears!)

we were so fortunate to have our picture taken with cav man. lily had to be convinced to get in the photo.

and then she had one THOUSAND questions about him afterwards. 

"why is his mouth like that?"

"why does he wear those boots?"

"why are his hands white?"

"why didn't he talk?"

"where is his horse?"

we finally realized we had to explain it was just a regular old man in there wearing a costume.  then, these questions ensued...

"where does he live?"

"is he cav man every day?"

"what type of car does he drive?"

"does he drive a car and ride a horse?"

"is he really a nice man?"

it's gonna be a while before we can visit you, disney world!

but, being at the soccer game really made it feel like an autumn night.  it was wonderful.

then, last night, as we drove over the mountain to go camping and we saw how much the leaves were changing, it felt like fall.  

and when we were surprised by how much colder it was there in the night, it really felt like fall.

crosby was a champ on his first camping adventure and lily and finn loved it.  

it was cooler than we anticipated, but we had a blast.  this morning, at 5:45 when finn woke us all up, lily almost threw a fit because she didn't want to have to leave and wanted to stay again tonight.  

(finn was thrilled for this picture!)

welcome, autumn!