Rain, Apples, and Crawling

So...it rains a lot here.  Haha, big surprise, eh?  We are on our 12 or 13th straight day of rain I believe, and apparently this September was the wettest on record in Portland!  (Previous record was set in 1920).  That strangely makes me feel a little better about being waterlogged.  I guess the rain usually doesn't really start until late October and then it's just a constant drizzle until April, but we've been having pretty good downpours off and on for 2 weeks.  Whew!

(Rain makes me want to bake - this could turn into a real problem...)

So we've been inside a lot and if the sun ever comes out, we now know we have to throw on our boots and coats and head out while it lasts (for 5 or 10 minutes, but hey, it helps).  I don't mind the rain though - yet.  It's been fun to listen to it and have it really feel like Autumn.

Speaking of...it's apple season!  After not buying apples all summer, we bought a 20 lb. box of Honeycrisps (for $23!!!) a couple weeks ago and they have been amazingly divine!  This girl at church has the hook-up for all things food and now I get weekly emails from this awesome wholesale produce guy and we have been eating these apples night and day.  They are huge and gorgeous and crisp and sweet and everything a good apple should be.  I finally found a place to go apple-picking around here too, so I think we'll do that soon.  There are a lot of orchards around, but not many that let you pick your own. Eli has been wanting to go ever since we went last year though, so we better do it! :)

(Random old phone picture - so nice to have Anna sitting up in the cart now! And can I get three cheers for Costco's giant carts?)

In other news, our not-so-little baby girl is CRAWLING!  Seriously, Anna?  Yeah, she's barely 7 months, and she started officially crawling on Sunday after approximately 2.5 days of army-crawling.  Not cool.  She's way ahead of her brothers at this age and I'm afraid she'll be walking long before she hits her first birthday.  She is one busy girl!  Anna has also finally discovered the joys of eating. :)  She pretty much attacks the food I give her and is especially liking oatmeal, pears, brown rice, apples, squash, and avocado.  She will not be spoon-fed, but I really don't mind that.  She goes at her own pace and manages to suck oatmeal off her hands and of course makes a royal mess in the process, but it's all good!  I just wish it was warmer so I could strip her down when she eats...

So that's the latest here!  The sun should make an appearance this weekend, so we're looking forward to that.  Our yard is like a forest right now, but it's been too wet to mow, so that's on the docket for this weekend too.  And of course we will be watching General Conference on lds.org!  We are really looking forward to it!