More orchard fun!

Miss I wanted to go on the pony ride ...

Miss O wanted to do the corn maze a second time.

Family photo after the first time at the corn maze.

More apple orchard pictures

Last year the girls only picked about three apples. This year they picked all but three of them!

Visit from Grandma Bogie

Grandma Bogie came for a visit this weekend! We took her for a fun-filled day at the Apple Orchard!

Here are ther girls getting their faces painted - a fun treat from grandma!

Our girls

Our beautiful girls at the Como Zoo! - They go through stages. For a few days they will be best of friends, as sweet as pie to each other. Then they can turn on a dime and for a few days do everything in their power to make each other miserable! :)

Fun at the park!

In my opinion, fall is the absolute best time of year to play at the park!

State Capital

On the steps of the State Capital

In the Rotunda

We took a tour of the state capital with a home school group on Thursday. It was a lot of fun! The tour guide did a really great job of making it interesting to preschoolers.

Amazing Changes

Over the summer, we have seen some amazing changes in Miss O. I would like to share some of those with you. We started her on a regimen of pro-biotics, a number of vitamins and minerals, and fish oils. The changes we have seen in her have been tremendous! Her ability to both keep her body calm when frustrated, and also to calm her body down when she gets agitated have multiplied 100 times! She has also developed better gross and fine motor skills, and has been able to concentrate on things that are not "interesting" - by her standards.

I was not completely convinced that the supplements had so much to do with this change, until recently. Since we came home from Boston, she has been having a very difficult time with everything I mentioned above. Then I remembered that the program we had her on suggests that once things have been corrected and you stop some of the probiotics, a number of things can reverse the gut into not working properly again. - Things like stress, schedule changes, and illness. I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out! I started her on the program again yesterday, and today we have a COMPLETELY different little girl! She is her sweet self again! I can tell that she feels so much better, and she has told me she feels better! Praise be to God!

Don't get me wrong - these changes in supplements by no means replace the need to discipline or parent effectively. But they do make it possible to discipline. Yesterday, and for the last few weeks, if she was given a time-out or other punishment, she would just scream, pull her hair, bang her head, tear her room apart - you get the picture. But now when she needs to have a punishment, she is able to understand that there are consequences to her actions, and she is able to "keep it together." No, she isn't necessarily happy with everything all of the time, but we don't feel as though we're walking on eggshells anymore.

The program we are using was developed by Diane Craft. Her website is: http://www.dianecraft.org/
She has really great strategies, and really knows what she is talking about! - As a disclaimer, I would recommend that before starting any type of supplement program, you talk with your doctor. :)

Miss O tubing

There was no fear at all for Miss O! She hung with the big kids and did great!

Miss I tubing

Remember that I posted at the end of the summer that the girls got to go tubing with some friends from church after VBS? Well, I finally got pictures from them! Here are the ones of Miss I. She didn't last too long - it wasn't her favorite thing in the world, but she was a trooper!

The Blessings of Birth Families

We had a great visit last weekend with Miss O's birth mom and birth sister! We just hung out at the house, played games and chatted. It was nice to catch up with them. We feel so blessed to have both our girls' birth families in our lives.