The other day I looked at Maisie and she seemed longer to me. Suddenly sleeves and pant legs are shorter. I'll need to do a bit of sewing just to keep her covered. She has a fabulous pincer grip now. When I gave her porridge with blueberries the other day she carefully went through and picked out all the blueberries to eat first. So, so cute. She did the same thing with pancakes. She is also drinking out of her sippy cup by herself a lot of the time now. Mostly with it the right way up.

I've done a bit of baking lately - those are peanut butter cookies - but haven't started anything Christmasy yet. I think this afternoon will be the beginning of that. I found my Fruit Cake Cookie recipe the other day and have it first on my list of things to make. I'm also hopeful that we'll start putting up some Christmas decorations and maybe even a tree today or at least this week. I always love the decorating. I've usually forgotten half the ornaments I have and get to rediscover them each year.

We're deep into the winter now. It's dark so much of the time we don't even notice and temperatures plunged to -40 last week. Abby makes super quick trips outside and curls up into the snuggest little cinnamon bun on the couch when she comes back in. Thanks to my mum Maisie and I can still go outside reasonably comfortably. Mum got out her amouti for us to wear and is helping me teach Maisie what she has to do to get in and out of it. She's so snug in that pouch, even at -40, that I don't even need to put extra layers on her. I can feel her leaning against my back as she naps. So sweet.

Oh yeah. The cloth chewing. It seems to feel great when she's getting a tooth. Number 4 made it's appearance last weekend.

A quick list of some things I've been thankful for in the last few weeks:

- a birthday
- a big family dinner
- hard frosts
- frozen ponds
- handknit hats and mittens
- tomatoes ripening
- a little sweater nearing completion
- watching Maisie try to crawl (not quite there yet)
- the look of triumph when she finally manages to grab the cat toy she's been after
- produce from the garden
- a little basket of toys and some sewing time
- tiny toes and a Jolly Jumper
- watching Maisie enjoy new foods
- her expression as she tries to get sticky rice off her fingers
- hot tea
- Abby with a new stuffy (or two)

September is a time of change any year but this year it's so much more noticeable for me. Last week Maisie was curious about food and watching us eat; this week she is chewing on pieces of carrot and banana. She's getting bigger and will outgrow some more of her pajamas soon. She's also getting really good at doing crunches and grabbing onto things on purpose. She celebrated turning six months old on Sunday by rolling onto her tummy and being happy there for a full ten minutes. I celebrated by waking up with a sore throat and developing a fever which wasn't nearly as fun and meant I had to put off some plans to met up with a friend and her son today.

We're still seeing some grackles at the feeder but now it is mostly just our squirrel. He comes to the feeder for a peanut and then runs off to hide it. I'm curious how many peanut are hidden in my garden pots. I know for sure he's also burying them in the potato box. Abby and Ollie and Maisie have a great time watching him run back and forth across the deck. Every so often he changes his route and runs down the side of the house instead of the back steps and there is much scurrying to get to the appropriate window in time to see him go by.

September makes me want to make. I made biscuits inspired by welsh cakes (which just means I added currents and nutmeg) for my lunch one day last week and had the leftovers for breakfast the next morning. I made a slight variation on fairy bread with a spare hot dog bun on evening just for fun (by the way I love hot dog buns - they're so soft and sweet and just so good). A friend in my knitting group is recently back from a year in New Zealand and was telling us about some of the different foods they make there. There has been a little more knitting. My Ravelry notebook shows 18 works-in-progress! I really need to work more on getting things finished and less on getting them started. Especially before the yarn for Maisie's winter sweater arrives. I made a little pair of pants for Maisie. I used Rae's basic newborn pants pattern. She says they have a lot of ease so I figured I could make them up as is and see where I need to adjust things to make them Maisie sized. It looks like they mostly just need a bit of length in the leg and maybe a smidge in the rise. Maisie was pretty thrilled about them when I tried them on  her - lots of wiggles and smiles.

My mum came over this afternoon and went for a walk with us. I took the big camera along and got her to take a picture of me, Maisie and Abby the way we usually look when we're out for a walk. We'll have to do it again in the winter. I managed to take a picture of the fireweed along part of the path. I've been admiring it all summer through its different phases. I think I might like the fall colours the best.