106.

Our sweet Anderson has been fighting a fever since we came home from the pumpkin patch on Sunday. It's been frighteningly high at times, at 106 on Monday night and 104 last night. He's a trooper, though, and hanging in there while we all wait for him to feel back to his old self again.

pumpkin picking (in a heatwave).

Yesterday was a first! We went pumpkin picking, and when we arrived at the patch, the smell of sunscreen made it smell more like a summer day at the beach than a fall day surrounded by pumpkin, cider, and bails of hay! Nonetheless, we picked our pumpkins -- all five of them -- and we think we got some good ones. All 38.2 lbs of them!

lunch bunch.

Andy is staying at school for an extra hour today, so that he can eat lunch with his buddies as part of the "lunch bunch." Here he is with his lunch box on his way to school this morning:

Happy Friday!

gelin'.

I tried putting some gel in the boys' hair. I think they look pretty cute, no?

crisp.

I'm referring to the air and the apples! We had the perfect weather for apple picking here this weekend. We were in a beautiful setting, right next to the water in the Hamptons. And do we have apples! 20 lbs of them! We will be making apple pies, apple pancakes, apple streudel. . .the list goes on! So I'd love to hear if any of you have some favorite recipes! We have a huge variety of apples too: Empire, Golden Delicious, Stayman, Mutsu, Gala and quite possibly others. . . I can't even remember! I'd love, love, love it if you would post recipes or links to recipes in the comments section below!  Thanks so much!

17 walnuts.

Andy (from back seat of car): "Mum-Mum, I wanna tell you tumthing. About teventeen walnuts."

Seventeen walnuts. We have a numbers puzzle in the playroom that speaks. Only we are missing a piece. The "17". So everytime the light goes off in the playroom, the puzzle announces: "Seventeen (pause) walnuts." It's been going on for about four months, but Andy just realized it the other day. And to him, it is the greatest thing ever. "Do you hear that?", he'll say as he turns the light on and off. So, the fact that he was thinking about it when we were in the car, nowhere near our house, and needed to tell grandma about it, is just hilarious to me. His mind is a crazy-interesting place.

And so is our house. Here's a little taste of the cherry on top of the sundae that was this week. T.G.I.F.

Happy Weekending!

feeling gray.

Some of us are feeling a little bit under the weather here today (mainly, me), so we are going to be taking it easy on this hazy, lazy, rainy day. Hope you have a great weekend!

bronx zoo.

This weekend we visited the Bronx Zoo with friends. We had a great time with our friends, but I think we could have probably been anywhere and done that! I think collectively the kids' favorite part of the zoo was riding the Monorail -- it was a great way to see a lot in a reasonably short amount of time. It really is amazing to see all of those exotic animals in the middle of the Bronx! That said, I think the zoo may have been a little overwhelming for the little guys (and maybe me, too). But it sure was a beautiful day, and being outside on a beautiful day is really the most important thing!

back to school and back to pool.

Andy finally had his first half-day back to school on Friday and his first full day yesterday. I don't have many pictures to show for the entire week because the memory card was full on my camera. . .bad mommy. But here are a few shots I squeezed in from Friday, the first swim class on Saturday, and the first day of school yesterday. As you can see, Andy wasn't thrilled about having his picture taken on Monday. C'est la vie!

a quilt for andy.

Here is the first half of a little lap quilt I'm making Anderson for Christmas. I'm not 100% in love with the fabric, but I do think it turned out okay, and it's cute for a little boy. It's not a surprise project, so, unlike my beach quilt -- which is completely assembled but remains in the waiting-to-be-quilted stage -- I have Andy over my shoulder every day reminding me of the work to be done. Comments like, "How my quilt coming, Mommy?" and "You working on my quilt?" really keep me in line! I'll post more pictures of the finished product, once I get there. . .