Home Delivery

Since we have so many apples from our expedition yesterday, String Bean and I loaded up her mini-Radio Flyer wagon and delivered apples to some of our neighbors.

Donna, an elderly lady who lives directly above us opened the door and was delighted to see String Bean. We enjoyed a brief visit before we went to see Nancy. Nancy was not home, so she will be surprised to find apples on her door step. Finally, Mary, who lives across the hall from us opened her door to String Bean holding a large shiny red apple out toward her. With glee, Mary accepted this apple and three others.

String Bean loved the field trip out to visit the neighbors. It was fun to see her learn the joy of sharing with others.

Apple Orchard

Royal Oak Farm Orchard is a new family favorite. If you live in northern Illinois or the Chicago-land area, we highly suggest it for a fun, fall, family outing!

String Bean discovered today the joy of eating an apple straight off the tree. I am not sure we'll be able to turn her back to applesauce or yogurt with apples in it ever again. Mr. Bean mimicked what we both assume String Bean was thinking while sitting in a red wagon chomping on a fresh apple, "How come you guys never told me about apples before? This is great. I am almost 2 and you never shared this wonderful food with me. If I had only known I would have been eating them all along!"

I hope to share photos with you soon! (This orchard is a Nut family favorite, too!)

Battered and Bruised

I just pulled an apple out of the refrigerator. I proceeded to almost drop it and did the whole juggling a single object thing. I failed miserably and my apple smacked down on the kitchen tile with that sick sound that only an apple hitting the floor makes. Images of bruised apple filled my mind as I watched it roll from one end of the kitchen to the other, out into the dining room, under the high chair, past the hutch, and stop just short of hitting our chinchilla's cage.

After rinsing it off, I took a few bites. Of course, String Bean wanted some. After she attempted to chew the skin, she spit it all out at me and left me alone with my battered and bruised fruit.

I was only able to choke down half of it. Something about the overly juicy, brown, bruised parts grossed me out.

It's a Trick for us.

Halloween, that is.

As I've mentioned before, our Peanut has Prader-Willi Syndrome. (Yes, I'm going to link every time.) The biggest health risk for those with PWS is life-threatening obesity. The obesity stems from a very slow and different acting metabolism and is coupled with an insatiable appetite. In other words, people with PWS will grow morbidly obese on a normal diet and always be hungry besides. Peanut has just started to gain weight quickly and we are in the process of changing our family's nutritional outlook.

When it comes to the candy holidays, we parents already have a problem, and then comes Halloween, the worst of the candy holidays. The whole celebration revolves around candy, even the alternative events. Trick or Treat? bags of candy. Trunk or Treat? entire cars full of candy. So what are we to do? Walnut is well versed in the joys of Trick or Treating and has been talking about this Halloween since last Halloween, nearly salivating at the thought of so much candy. But, we can't have it in the house. We just can't. We can't let Walnut and Cashew have what Peanut can't have and there is only so much sneaking that we're comfortable with. Some one suggested to Filbert that we only keep a 1/4 of the candy we collect, but that is still too much for Peanut to have and we need to break the candy tradition sooner rather than later.

So to that end, we are going to an apple orchard for Halloween. Royal Oak Farm. We hope to make it a yearly tradition. Walnut, Peanut, Cashew and I went there last fall with my co-blogger Mandie, the unblossomed String Bean and our friend Fancy Aimee, who totally rocks on car trips with small children.