First off, we celebrated Joseph's 6th birthday way back at the beginning of September. He is growing up to be a fine little (not so little) man.

Joseph requested a chuck wagon cake for his birthday. Uh huh! Thankfully, Daddy came to the rescue and built a chuck wagon from Lego because oh my, there is no way I could draw anything of the sort (despite Joseph's assurances to the contrary).

His favourite birthday gift is a crazy contraptions book with Lego technic (this one) which he uses every single day. Oh, and he lost his second front tooth just in time for his birthday...

We've been on some beautiful fall hikes (one of which Dan already shared). While in Saskatoon one weekend, we took a little walk by a man-made lake in a rather fancy part of the city. The boys loved seeing a little otter swim around. The houses around the little lake even had paddle boats and canoes in their backyards. Pretty cool for living in the city! 

We've enjoyed a couple walks to the top of "Mount Tisdale". John Paul made up this huge story about how it's first name is Mount Tisdale, it's middle name is Mount Carmel, and it's last name is Mount Tis. Uh huh. We're not sure either.

We harvested the last of our garden on Thanksgiving weekend. It has been so much fun and so rewarding having our own little plot of earth. We are still eating garden carrots this week (they have been our sole carrot supply for 3 months! and we've eaten tons!). And we still have a lot of potatoes to eat in the basement. The kids have really enjoyed it too.

Thanksgiving weekend also found us visiting with cousins in Nipawin and playing with some new baby kittens. Our kids just love hanging out with their cousins. After two weekends in a row seeing cousins, Joseph has been complaining that they all live too far away and can't we see them more!

A little indoor fun of late involved impersonating Grandpa and Grandma Millette with potato heads and potato head accessories. I love Emilie's cute little lady glasses on the end of her nose!

And my favourites from this photo dump! We have some beautiful paths in Tisdale that we've shared over and over again. The railroad tracks go over a big old wooden bridge, the path runs under it and through the woods and over some bridges. It is so beautiful during the fall. We took a couple walks there this year again and snapped some photos of the kids. Fall sunshine = gorgeous. These beauties are completely unedited, but I wish I had the skills to do a bit of work on them.

Fall Fun, Part 2

Just when I thought I might have a few free minutes, while the boys slept, to post these pictures that have been sitting on here for well over a week now, John Paul decided to wake up. Other business was in order. That over with, he's decided sitting on my lap and drooling on the computer desk is okay, but definitely won't be in just a couple moments. Or, right now.

One of our favourite places to go in Nipawin is the Regional Park. This was our first and only trip this summer. If you want more of the d'tails of the Regional Park, I also talked a bit about it here and here.

So, without further ado, here are some pictures (probably far too many) of what we did with some of our last (so far) beautiful weather this Fall: 

Autumn Fun, Part 1

So apparently today is the first day of Autumn. Otherwise known as Fall. Otherwise known as the best, often shortest season of the year in Saskatchewan. It's my favourite.

August had lots of plus 30 degree weather, then it suddenly became very much Fall around here with the first week or so of September. I was counting on more beautiful weather to make up for our mosquito infested Spring and Summer -- yes, even during our 30 degree weather we still had mosquitoes.

But, after a couple weeks of very coolish weather and sweaters, we have gorgeous sunshine and heat once again.

Good timing, because after having a roofer over to check out our shingles, it looks like they will have to get replaced this Fall after all! We were hoping to save a few dollars and do it ourselves (by "ourselves" I mean Dan and his brothers) in the Spring, but we'd rather not risk a wet attic. So they're booked to come next week.

We have (literally) been celebrating this boy's birthday for almost a month now. It never ends. He got an awesome ball last week from a friend, then a package from my parents, and another gift on Sunday from Dan's Aunty. Much of our conversation around here seems to still be related to "my happy birthday." And we're still singing "happy birthday" just about every day...

Beautiful weather + new ball + skipped naps = trip to the park to play!

We love that Dan's school is so close. Not just because he comes home for lunch every day, but also because we can take advantage of the gym and playground whenever we want. 

Dan did a little stealing from our next door neighbour's apple tree and discovered some really, really good apples. Our neighbour is really shy and reclusive, so Dan figured rather than ask if he could take more, he'd just go over after dark and help himself. But I got up my guts and armed with two brave children, wandered over to ask if we could have some apples. Win! He told us to take as many as we wanted! So we ate and picked a bunch and made some applesauce last week.

Then, yesterday, a lady Dan works with kindly brought us two more big bags of apples. Faced with delicious apples galore that were already getting bad spots, I spent the day making applesauce again and neglecting hemming my poor husband's p.j. pants. But now we have over 20 jars of delicious "organic" (as in, right from the non-sprayed tree) naturally sweet applesauce. We know it's delicious because we all had big helpings after supper tonight.

After over a year and a half of living here, we finally made use of our fire pit this last week. To be fair, it wasn't exactly safe to burn anything in it until about a month ago. We had lots of overhanging dead branches, but between the SaskPower guy and Dan, they were all cleared out. Unfortunately, some of them smelled like burning marijuana plants, but as none of our neighbours were around to smell it, everything seemed ok. We just kept the kids at a little distance while those ones burned. 

I tend to take out our camera a lot when the weather's nice. And sometimes I like to attempt some good pictures of the boys. I really don't know how professional photographers do it. Not the incredible picture part (which I also don't know how to do), but getting kids to smile in photos. John Paul is far more interested in eating grass and covering his face with leaves and Joseph could simply care less. This is about as good as it gets around here:

As you may have noticed, most of these pictures are over a week old. Bad blogger here, I know. I can't keep up with anything resembling a tidy, cleanish house while canning and hemming pants, never mind blogging. So please forgive the lateness and I'll get a part 2 with many more pictures up soon and perhaps even a little bit on our fat nearly 6 month old.

Fall Hiking

We've had some beautiful Fall weather here of late. Interspersed with cold, rainy days, of course. But beautiful all the same. Unlike the Ontario vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows, Saskatchewan's Fall leaves are mostly a bright gold. And while I miss the red, I love Fall on the Prairies. Seeing as mosquito season pretty well takes the place of late-Spring and all of Summer, it's a blessed relief to go outdoors and just enjoy the weather. 

The coloured leaves and crispness are enough to make us remember (dread) that Winter is just around the corner. Last year, we got our first snow-fall in mid-October and it never melted. 

But did I just mention snow?! Not yet, please. 

Tisdale has some beautiful walking trails that wind their way around the golf course, ball diamonds, park, and trout pond. Part of our daily walk usually includes a small section of the paths and a stop at the swinging bridge for throwing rocks. The Fall leaves have made this area especially beautiful and make us feel like we're out for a hike.

Joseph usually grabs a walking stick and meanders his way along the paths, making what should be a 30-min walk into 1-hr. He'll ride in his stroller for the road section of the walk, but loves to run down the hills and pick up rocks on the paths. Not a few bumps and bruises have resulted from this path, but there's no speeding this kid up or slowing him down when he has a mind for something.

Our daily walks by the golf course all Summer included two things: praying a Rosary and searching for off-the-course golf balls. We have a huge bucket with somewhere around 120 balls and a little boy proud of his "guh-golf ball" collection. The look on his face when you find him another golf ball or, better yet, a huge rock to throw off the bridge, is completely priceless. We're going to miss these walks so much when the paths become impassible.