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We went to the Columbus Day weekend festivities at our favorite PYO apple orchard and had a great time!  We took the tractor ride out to the orchard and Daddy picked most of the apples as I pointed them out.  Gwen mostly enjoyed eating them, not picking them.  She didn't enjoy getting under the trees to pick an apple straight off the branch for some reason, we were both puzzled.  She did however, enjoy plucking them off the ground to eat, mostly with other people's two-day-old bites taken out of them, which we had to wrestle away from her.  Gross.

After the tractor ride back to the barn, we went inside for some of the delicious freshly homemade apple & cinnamon doughnuts and farm-fresh chocolate milk (though I was quite disappointed that I couldn't drink the apple cider as it was unpasteurized).  Yum!!

9/15/07 - After grocery shopping Gwen decided she was going to help sort and put them all away.  She especially liked the cereal boxes, instinctively I'm sure.  What a great help she was!

10/28/07 - As the nesting instinct starts to intensify I've found that just like when I was pregnant with Gwen, I am getting more of an urge to cook than clean.  Saturday after our nap, I woke up with the urge.  To cook.  A lot.  Immediately.  So right around noon I started with a delicious lattice-top cherry pie (canned cherry pie filling and refrigerated Pillsbury crusts, of course) and followed that up with a double batch of chocolate chip cookies (actually homemade).  Everything was wonderful and fun even though the house hasn't been cleaned in months (literally) so I probably should have been redirecting my nesting urges elsewhere.  As I was baking the cookies, Gwen became quite interested and curious.  Since I'm the farthest thing from a domestic goddess and Gwen doesn't have much prior experience with hanging out with mom in the kitchen, I'm not surprised that she went to the oven, not realizing it might burn her.  But the fact that she imitated using the oven mitt and knew to put it on to go to the stove was hilarious and amazing.  Of course, Elmo took her attention back shortly after her own urge to cook but it took a while for her to tire of the novelty of a giant oven mitt.  I took lots of pictures as it was very cute and very funny.

Gwen loved going out for Trick or Treating with Daddy, both of them in costume, Gwen as an elephant and Daddy as Cal Ripken, Jr., his favorite ball player who allowed him a free costume.  She had a ball collecting candy door-to-door and riding in her wagon while Mommy stayed home to hand out the candy.  Next year I'll take the kids out, as I'll no longer be pregnant and probably much more agile.  Here are some pictures of Gwen in her costume, some taken before and some taken after Trick or Treating.  She started out cranky, not wanting to get into her costume, but quickly settled into the routine of begging for candy.  Maybe she was just antsy to get out and get on the job.