September's here!

I'm so excited it's September. It's the beginning of my favorite time of year. I think mostly because it's my birthday month (barely), so my enjoyment of it goes back as far as I can remember. But it's also when I'd get new school clothes, start thinking about my Halloween costume, and it wasn't so hot anymore. And it meant Thanksgiving and Christmas were on the way.

I still get excited about my birthday since it's always nice to know you've made it another year. And I look forward to Halloween so I can eat candy corn and cider and take my kids to the pumpkin patch and trick-or-treating. But I also love the turning of the leaves and now that I'm an adult I know the new season of my favorite shows is about to start.

Here where we live, September means it's time to talk about horses. The Little Brown Jug takes place here at the local fairgrounds, and runs simultaneously with the county fair. They shut down school for it and people even hang flags on their houses commemorating the event. As if more excitement is needed there is also an annual horse parade, so we decided to take the kids.

I was shocked at the number of people who turned out for this event. It was more pepole than we saw at the July 4th parade or the Christmas parade, so we thought it must be a pretty big deal. It wasn't. Xander soon realized we weren't lying when we said no one was going to throw candy. Jordis had more fun collecting leaves. We sat with one of my friend's whose husband is in the same line of work as Jason, so they talked shop. And I'm pretty sure all 4 kids ignored each other. But I did take a few pictures.

There was a 5k before the parade and Jordis watched intently, joining in with the adults in clapping for the runners as they came by.



Mounted patrol



These little guys were my favorite.



Something about the day made the kids really tired. We went to run an errand and they were both asleep before we got there.



The kids also helped me in the kitchen this weekend. My friend Jen has pear trees and when she came to visit the other day she brought me a bag full of pears.



I thought we'd make a pie or bread with them, but Xander said we needed pears with chocolate. So I found a recipe for a chocolate pear tart. It was actually called something fancier, but for the sake of the kids I called it chocolate pear tart. The kids cooperated better than usual and I didn't have to make either of them leave the table, so that was a plus.

They each picked what they wanted to pour into the bowl and grudgingly took turns stirring.



As excited as they were about it they didn't care for it too much when I let them try some.



But they had a good time and Jason and I have a sweet treat.