September

My little mycologists.  They ran off to explore when we stopped halfway up the mountain (Aster needed to eat to help pop her ears).  When I saw their collection I broke their curious hearts and told them we weren't taking unknown fungi home.  The result?  I have 20 pictures to help identify them.  I call that science class.

Gauge is such a cute hiker!  The grass was often over his head, but he just plowed on, following his sisters everywhere.

Ahhh.  And here's the reason we went further up the mountain than our usual haunts:

Wild raspberries grow wild along all the creeks at the top of the mountain.  Unfortunately everyone in our valley go berry hunting.  So our handfuls were a bountiful harvest.

Cairn braved the brambles with me and scraped her arms a bit.

Aster slept through most of her first hike.

Gauge just walked in and captioned this one: "There's me walking in the grass and i have blonde hair and blue eyes"

September...  I turned 32.  Next year I need a bigger cake so we can see more than just candle glow.

Gauge is the cutest big brother... even when its frustrating.  He gets right up in her face and stays there saying, "Hi Aster" the whole time.  Or he'll walk up to me and try to pry Aster from me so he can have a turn.

I had once promised myself not to take naked baby pictures because mine was put on display in the entry way when I was 12.  But they spent the last end of the summer digging this "pool" and were so excited to swim in the rain water it captured.  I didn't know until I went to snap the picture that he had tried to get into his swim suit, failed, and went to play in his birthday suit.

They set up a table and chairs in the field to eat second breakfast.  They were just moving in on the cherry tomatoes when we had to clear out quickly for the tractor that came to plow up the wild tomatillo plants in front of the cotton.