I {heart} fall!

Fall is my favorite season. I love the crisp weather and the colorful leaves and the smell in the air. I love having the kids (and me) play in the leaves and I have some great photos of this in years past like . . .

Last year was our first trip to the apple orchard and the kids loved picking apples -- it really was a great day!

I really am looking forward to going back.

We always make a trip to the pumpkin patch unfortunately the last 2 years weren't so great. Two years ago it was cold and muddy and we had kids who looked like this the entire time:

Last year was okay but the pumpkins weren't in good shape so I'm hoping this time is better -- I wonder if they are ready for the corn maze yet -- they have a haunted one and my kids LOVE scary stuff but maybe they aren't ready for this quite yet. I can't wait to prop Reese up on a big pumpkin for a photo like this:

Aaron is the one who does the carving of the pumpkins -- he picks some elaborate pattern and makes something REALLY scary so much so that if you say to my kids what does a pumpkin say they would scream.

Then there's Halloween. We've been bees and flowers, the 3 Little Pigs, and monkeys.

This year's going to be fun because our whole family is dressing up in a theme but I'm not letting the cat out of the bag as it ties in with our birthday party and I like to keep our "themes" top secret. The kids are really excited about Halloween and their birthday of course. I am too. Reese's birthday is 3 weeks after the older kids so this is a super busy time of year for us but I love it all the same.

I broke down and made pumpkin bars last night with Addison and Caden's help. (Secret Message: save me before I eat the whole pan!!!)

I love pumpkin stuff so much. I had super good pumpkin pancakes at IHOP last weekend and I just found what looks like a fab recipe for them so I think we are having pumpkin pancakes this weekend -- yum yum! I am so in the mood for soups and chili too. I just want to jump right into fall I guess so I'd better get going and dig out our fall decorations and our little scarecrow out of the garage!