After breakfast this morning, we went apple picking in a nearby orchard. It's becoming a fall tradition now that we've settled into New England. We picked a bag full of golden delicious apples to use for baking and another bag of gala apples to eat fresh. I think I've eaten more apples these past three months of my pregnancy than I have in my whole life until now! Norah always likes to sample the produce while we walk around the orchard. Below are some pictures from our trip to the same orchard last year. My parents were staying with us in '07, so Norah's Grandpa Evans came along last year and they walked around together. You can see a little of how Norah has changed in a year.



-Check out and read the book An Apple Tree Through the Year by Claudia Schnieper with your kids this time of year. Like the title suggests, this book follows an apple tree through an entire year. The text is simple and the detailed photos and diagrams show how the buds turn into flowers that then grow into apples, how growers will care for the trees through different seasons, how certain birds and insects use (or damage) the apples, etc. Includes several relevant vocabulary words for older children throughout the book and the definitions are collected in a glossary. This book is a useful tool for families who would like to turn the activity of apple picking into a more formal lesson without using a dull textbook.

I caught Norah lying in a sunbeam this morning and snapped a picture of her.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
Psalm 91:1

It's usually considered an insult to live in someone else's shadow, but I am not sure I ever want to be far enough away from God to cast my own image onto the earth. The first, if not the only, place Norah goes to when she feels threatened is the back of my legs, wrapping her arms around one or both of my thighs, getting as close to my side as she can, often succeeding in getting nearly underneath me. I imagine that if I ever had to act out on her behalf, fight someone who attacked her or something like that, she would be safest there while I handled the threat. So, this is where we get to stay if we live with God, right up next to Him or at least, always safely within the reach of his mighty, protective, capable hands.

We are reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder aloud to Norah. The book was the base of the popular television series "Little House on the Prairie." One of my best friend's bought the series of books for Norah's fourth birthday.

The story starts as the family prepares for a long winter. I am already fascinated with what I've learned about the ways settlers preserved their meat and stored their food. They'd wait to slaughter their pigs, for example, until the ground was cold enough to keep the meat frozen. They'd make a smoker or "smoke house" out of a hollow log with a roof and door, slowly burning wood chips inside to smoke their meats dry. They'd also hang their spiced hams, dried herbs and vegetables in the attic, which happened to fill their homes with all sorts of pleasing scents. I am convinced this is why we still associate the smell of strong spices with Autumn. I'll have to resort to using Glade Plug Ins to get the same effect in my house this holiday season. The book has helped me recognize more of the origins of our traditions and realize how much farther removed we are from the way things began.

Our house is so far away from our church and Dwayne's work, yet with it, God is teaching me that he knows exactly what he is doing with my life. We had to move all the way here to even afford a home when we were looking a few years back. Real estate in New England is unbelievable, so we thought God was holding something back, not letting us afford something elsewhere, something in the more affluent areas. But, this location keeps proving to offer so many things that are important to me, in particular. God has used our home to prove to me that he cares about the little dreams I've silently and sometimes even doubtfully sent up to him through the years.

Living here, I get to teach fitness classes at the local YMCA while Norah plays with other kids in the day care for free. It must be one of the best YMCAs in the country and it is only ten minutes from our house. I've wanted to teach fitness classes since my first step aerobics class as a teenager. I also get to work for one of our community's newspapers whose office is about five minutes away; another job I wouldn't have found unless I'd moved here and writing is something that I've wanted to do and even prayed about since I was a pre-teen. I wasn't sure how I could ever be mom and work in the ways I wanted to or why I even had the desire to do all these things at once, but, by living here, God has helped me make all my dreams come true in a way only He could orchestrate.

When I think like this, I am reminded of the song "No Sacrifice" by Jason Upton. He sings to God, "To You I give my life, not just the parts I want to. To you I sacrifice these dreams that I hold onto." And, when God handles my life with such care, I realize, "This is no sacrifice" and say willingly, "Here's my life."

Sometimes I think I have struggled to give my dreams to God because I thought if I gave them away, I may never see them come true. Or, I thought that if God made my decisions for me they'd be the kind I might not be able to live with. But, I think it may actually be that God asks for our dreams so persistently and earnestly because He just wants to help us make them come true.

One of the most rewarding parts of being a parent is hearing (and then laughing) at the things your kids say. It rained all day one day last week. Looking out the window, Norah said, "I think I know how it's raining. Maybe God is throwing the rain down. Maybe God has alot of hands so he can throw the rain everywhere."
Tonight, on the way home from church Norah asked, "Do you know who the very, very, very first Americans were?" "Who?" we ask, expecting her to say, "Native Americans," since that is what she is learning about in K4 right now. But, instead she said, "Adam and Eve." Her dad and I just laughed. As patriotic as we are in the Boulden household, that is just taking our American sensibilities too far. Unfortunately, we had to correct her.

I took a photo of a doodle Norah made on what we all affectionately call her "Draw Thing." She called this work "My family at my family birthday party." Some of her more recent pictures of me show a bigger trunk, or rather, a very large circle above my stick legs. Also notice how big her dad's head is. Too funny.