Commonground Fair Fun

As usual, we had an amazing time at the Commonground Fair this year, marching in the garden parade, visiting all the animals, seeing all the beautiful handmade crafts, sampling yummy organic food and just enjoying music and family time. This time of year and all the festivities of Fall really make me "fall" in love with Maine all over again!
Kasper snacking and showing off his cute little belly!

AnaSofia doing the earthworm dance.



The boys!

Soren's attempt at a staged photo (there are 20 outtakes and this was the best - ha!)

Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Such joyous weather around here - we are frolicking into fall skipping and jumping!!!
Soren has been doing a lot of work bringing in firewood, luckily he has a sweet little helper. Reminds me soooo much of my Dad and I when I was little.
Notice the cool gloves (thanks FarMor and FarFar - we use them for gardening too) and the binoculars (she likes to make "observations" with them - and likely make the neighbors nervous!).

And we still make a trip to the lake everyday. Lately AnaSofia has been pushing "Dolly" all the way down AND back by herself (makes for great naps!) in her buggy. FarMor and FarFar got it for her for her 1st Christmas and it is used SO MUCH. FarMor has also knitted many outfits for Dolly. Notice they have matching outfits (AnaSofia has matching white pants but has to put in her own mix somewhere). FarMor made matching sweaters, hats, socks, pants AND purses. Each purse has a pad of paper and pencil. AnaSofia loves to take hers out and make more "observations". As in, "Oooh, Momma there is a bluejay, I am going to draw an observation of him and the tree." Really sweet.

And of course we always relax a little and make girlie time for finding shapes in the clouds and painting our "toneynails" for the first time.

Of course the boys are never far behind...

And quite often RIGHT in your face!!!

A Special Birthday Celebration...

We celebrated a very special day this weekend, our neighbor's 77th birthday. Richard and his wife Marion have been such a wonderful blessing for us. They are the nearby "relatives" stopping in to say hello on weekends, allowing us to walk over and visit anytime, carrying the kids around, calling on Soren's way home from work so he can pick up some "extra" food they made for dinner - just being all around amazing. Sadly, Richard was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. Even at 77, he seems too young and healthy to me to have to deal with this again (he has been in remission from esophageal cancer for 6 years). He is such a strong character who owns his own roofing business and has done countless metal roofs this summer, even working these past few months through his radiation treatment. He is also such a quiet, private person and I am always trying to find a way to let him know how much he means to us and that we are thankful for them in our lives each day. His prognosis looks grim and we are all taking it one day at a time but were so happy to have this weekend to celebrate an important day with them.

AnaSofia made him a paper mache bowl (an idea from our Handmade Home book), we had a lot of fun working together on this project.


Marion and Kasper (with his silent SCREAMING look - MOMMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) hee hee.


Playing with Far.

Kasper to AnaSofia, "Can you PLEASE ask Momma to stop making matching outfits?"


Make sure to be kind to your neighbors, a little can mean so much...

Poor Man's Baseball

Baseball, well anything outdoors involving a ball, is big around here. I decided AnaSofia needed to learn actually how to play baseball rather than just golfing the ball around the yard so I whipped up some "bases" and dug a birch branch into the ground! We are having a lot of fun with it.

AnaSofia is really good at stealing the bases.

Our little spectator in the "bleachers." Far managed to squeeze him into this outfit I put into the "donate" pile. I love how the belly and all are squeezing out against the fabric! Nothing is better than kissing baby chub!

Blue Hill Fair

The kids and I ran away from home for the day to enjoy one of the joys of late summer in Maine - The Blue Hill Fair. It is on the coast (hint: incorporate a trip to the beach), it has TONS of rides for little ones, the food is killer AND there are tons of animals. Oh and did I mention they have a dollar day? I spent a dollar for us to go and we parked so close the guy who decided to park behind us needed to be reassured it wasn't illegal to park there. Yes, the joy of Maine!

We stopped to enjoy the working waterfront on the way down while eating our snack.


I love this photo, this is the pained Kasper look that I too often see, "really Momma? I am SO over this and willing to SCREAM if you won't rectify the situation now. NOW!"