Singing, Cooking, and Having Fun!

We've had a very busy weekend. The weather has been perfect fall, with cool mornings, highs in the upper 70s, and beautiful clear skies, so we've been enjoying it. The natives have been complaining that it's too hot for September, but we love it and hope it lasts! Friday after work, Jack wanted to ride his bike, so we headed out to go around the neighborhood loop. It took us a full hour, but by the end, Jack had really figured out the whole pedaling thing. Since I was hunched over to hold on to the bike and providing a lot of the power in the beginning, I had a nice ache in my back by the time we made it around back home. Jack can only pedal or steer, not pedal and steer, so I had to keep him from veering off the curb, crashing into cars, and hitting the odd trash cans till out a the curb. Plus, his new thing this week has been singing about EVERYTHING, but he can't sing and pedal at the same time either.  His songs are always the same tune (or should I say lack of tune), and they tend to have few words. This one went something like "I am riding my bike," over and over again. Since I didn't get that one on video, I caught a small clip of another song yesterday to show you what I mean. He will sing about anything (as long as it's his idea. Don't ask him to sing for you!).

Besides errands, laundry, and housework, we had Sam and Lesa over yesterday for a playdate and Halloween craft. I know it's early for Halloween, but we stopped by Michaels and Jack picked out some Halloween stickers that he was very excited to use!  I didn't get to do much looking with Jack and Mike in tow, so I returned to Michaels today and spent a whole hour looking at things, just for fun, all by myself while Jack napped and Mike watched football. Earlier this morning, we also spent several hours doing yard work. We pulled weeds, mowed lawns, and cleaned up the patio. Our neighbor gave us what we thought were some apples from his tree, but they turned out to be asian pears.  Our tree is an asian pear too. It didn't look like it had much fruit on it, but when we got the ladder out and climbed up there, we found quite a few fruits. We gave some to our neighbor, but here are the rest:

 The ones from the neighbor's tree I sliced today and put into the dehydrator, and stewed down some into a "pearplesauce," which turned out pretty good. I'll have to deal with this pile later in the week. I don't really know how to use these. I read online that they aren't great for baked goods because they release a lot of water when cooking, but they are good in slaws, salads, etc...and it worked well enough in sauce.

I also pulled out some fall decorations this weekend:

...and Jack wanted to make some cookies, so we made some chocolate chip cookies, too.

It's been a fun, busy weekend. I wish I had one more time!