Pictures galore!

Ah, fall in western Pennsylvania. Usually my favorite season of all. But this year it came out of left field. There was no slow fade from summer, not pretty autumnal blue skies. Just this gross, rainy, soggy weather, and heavy winds. So far our leaves are still clinging to the branches, so at least we have some gorgeous foliage to brighten our days. Oh, and a million acorns littering our property. We must have the fattest squirrels in the universe. This may explain how, when we first moved in, I mistook a squirrel for a grey fox. Seriously.

Our last sunny day outside we spent cleaning out the garden (except for my sunflowers, which are holding on despite the temperature drop), and mowing the grass. And this led to figuring out what Finn is allergic to: fresh cut grass. The boy who lives for mowing the lawn with daddy, who begs "twactor! twactor! twactor!" all day long is allergic to cut grass. Sigh. Hopefully he'll grow out of it. He mowed the lawn with Steve one last time this past weekend and with full pants and sleeves he managed to not have a reaction. Hopefully he'll grow out of it. On the other hand, he's pretty happy that he can have oat-y cereal again, since I took it all away after his breakout of hives.

Since it's been so yucky, we've been baking up yummy treats. I tried my hand at vegan chocolate cupcakes, and I must say, the results were marvelous. And Finn thought so too. Since they contained no raw eggs I didn't feel quite as bad about letting him lick the batter spoon. O course then he kept bringing the spoon back to get reloaded with ooey, gooey goodness. And i was left with a chocolate covered toddler as well as a trail of batter from the kitchen into the living room.

Later that night while I was making spaetzel for dinner, he turned into a monkey. A cupcake seeking monkey. I never heard the chair being pulled out from the table, or the thud of little feet climbing. Darn kitchenaid mixer is a blessing, but it sure is loud. As I turned it off I heard "Mummy! Cakey!", and sought out the tiny voice. Low and behold:

And Finn was gracious enough to take a break outside to model for me for his 19 month pictures. Unfortunately this was almost a month ago and now I need to concoct something for his 20 month shots.