Picking Up Apples

Before I get to the picking up apple story I want to everyone to see these beautiful earrings Evelyn inherited from my Grandma.  They are clip on earrings and Evelyn thought she had died and gone to heaven when we put these on her.  Also note her missing tooth.  She was very excited about losing her first tooth.

Now, picking up apples off the ground can be a very tedious chore.  Anyone who has an apple tree in their yard knows this.  It seems like the apples reproduce once they hit the ground.  My parents' have three large trees in their backyard and therefore have hundreds of apples to pick up. 

Evelyn has been interested in earning money.  (Grant has too for that matter.)  My mom decided to offer Evelyn a little money for picking up the apples in the backyard.  I don't get to spend much time with my niece so I offered to supervise, which really meant I picked up my fair share of apples too, and I kept Evy motivated to continue picking up the apples.

Erin spent the hour or so playing with Celeste.

I got very creative with ways to keep Evy motivated to pick up apples.  We had contests to see which hand could through an apple the farthest.  It was hit and miss with her, she throws like a girl.  We had contests to see if the "baby" apples or the "mommy" apples could go farther.  We counted how many apples Evy could throw in a minute.  We then counted how long it took her to throw a big pile of apples.  How did the apples get in a pile? I raked them.  By the way it was hard work raking apples.  We sang songs and found gross apples and nice apples.   My favorite part though was when we were almost done and Evy had to lean against the tree because she was so tired!