Octoberfest

Despite our early snow for the season, followed by way too much rain, we otherwise have been having a beautiful fall season.  This is absolutely my favorite time of year.  It's why we got married in October and why we went to Banff in Canada for our honeymoon instead of Jamaica (Ok, so Russ had a lot of say in those things, too).

Last night, we went to my parents to celebrate my sister's birthday.  The theme was Octoberfest.  Our family Irish Stew consists of Russ' Irish background, Caleb and Asher's Chinese background, then me, who is German-and-a-couple-other-things background.  So, last night we celebrated a birthday with bratwurst, German potato salad, spaetzle, and sauerkraut.  Yum! I guess when it comes down to it, my family really is just a bunch of foodies. My sister is a fabulous cook, and she and my mom prepared much of the food. 

 

I wish I could take credit for this apple dessert.

 Russ and I had brewed some homemade beer for the occasion.

  

Caleb has been working very hard on his speech at school, and we are definitely seeing progress.  We have made a book at home of pictures of things he likes so he can practice the words.  Then, when we work on a new word, we add the picture to the book.  This week, we added pictures of 'waffles' and 'water', since we have been practicing saying W's.  It's slowly coming along, almost like learning to say every word as if it is brand new.  Many of the pictures we started with were of family.  For a long time, Caleb has talked mostly with vowels, so we have needed to work on the consonants.  For instance, my brother Matt would be called "aa", and my neice Maesa was referred to as "ay-ah".  My family is one of those whose names all start with the same letter: M.  So, we have had great practice with our M's.  Anyway, my birthday sister's name is Martha, but for years, we have called her by her nickname, Marf (don't even ask how this started, I have no idea).  Caleb would always call her "ar".  Since practicing his letters, though, the other day we were looking at pictures and he was sounding something out:  Mmm-aarr-fff.  Marf!  We were so happy to hear a full and complete word, very clearly.  So now, it's Marf-this and Marf-that all day, since he loves to say the name.  And, I'm pretty sure he loves her quite a bit, too.