(Did I just type “10″ for the month?! HOLY SHIT. ITS OCTOBER.)

Jada, our 12 week old black Lab puppy.

We got her yesterday and so far she’s been so good. She hasn’t had any accidents inside and she hasn’t chewed anything up. She’s great with the kids. She DOES want to torment the kitties, but one scratch to the nose and she ignores them.

I love her!

PS: That is not a choke hold I have on her. I was petting her neck. Repeat: not a choke hold.

PPS: I fail at this ‘wordless’ thing.

That is all.

This past week, my mother-in-law stopped by wanting to know if we’d go to the pumpkin patch with her. My friend Crystal was over, so it was quite a full car with two carseats and three adults! We headed to Ontario to an Amish farm. There we got about a dozen pumpkins, half big and half tiny (baby pumpkins, Mariah says). Gabriel enjoyed crawling amongst the piles of pumpkins while Mariah chased after a puppy. When we finished there, we headed to the Bent ‘n’ Dent where I found two awesome sippy cups for Mariah for a $1.00 a piece. One of them is goblet-style and the bottom has a Dora in a snow globe. The other is a regular sippy cup but you can stick a colored picture in the inside of it. Mariah loves coloring photos to decorate her cup with. Then we went to Linda’s so Mariah could see her grandpa for a bit. She fed the cows plenty of apples, one of her favorite things to do.

After that, we headed to Jollivette Family Farms to get some apples. I also grabbed Peach Butter, caramel for the apples, peppers, nectarines and some frosted pretzels. Two days after that, Linda taught me how to make apple crisp from scratch. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it’d be! And delicious. I can’t wait to try my hand at peach crisp next. For some reason, I’m just in the mood to bake lately. I want to make cookies, crisps, cakes, you name it. Must be the holiday season that’s approaching…

If anyone has any good baking recipes (especially holiday-themed ones) send them my way!

Here’s some photos from the day:

More here.