Fall

Fall has always been my favorite season.  How can you not enjoy watching the leaves change colors, sweatshirt weather, and evening strolls while the moon is rising?  There is a reason why I had all three of my kids during this season (OK, so the twins were born before the Fall solstice, but close enough!).

Since having kids, I've grown to love pumpkin patches and Halloween.  You can't beat the festivities at our favorite pumpkin patch, Center Grove Orchard:  Cider donuts, petting zoo, a huge corn pit, a "pillow" to jump on, and the big slide.  We are usually too busy enjoying those things that we never even make it to the hay ride!  Alena is really getting into trick or treating, (read:  gather as much candy as possible).  I love that she's old enough to decide what to dress up as and big enough to walk by herself.  Mom and dad usually end up eating her candy because after a couple of night she forgets about it.  We don't complain. 

When I have time, I like to do most of my baking in the fall because I love pumpkin anything!  This past weekend Alena and I made pumpkin cookies.  Hoping to follow up with pumpkin bars, pumpkin muffins and pumpkin bread in the near future (I have to spread it out before we all get sick of pumpkin stuff!).  Caleb enjoyed the cookies, but the verdict is still out on Lauren.  I also love the smell of hot apple cider-no wonder Yankee makes a candle that scent. 

Who doesn't love jumping in a big pile of leaves?  Alena is so excited to do this this year and keeps waiting for our leaves to fall.  Little ones in a pile of leaves make the perfect picture-hopefully the twins will enjoy it this year.

Fall also means the start of one of my favorite sports-football!  I used to hate football.  I grew up a basketball fan, going to ISU games with my dad.  We never went to football games growing up, and during high school I was too busy chatting with friends and watching the cheerleaders to learn about the game.  Yet, when I went to school at Iowa, I decided to get football tickets because that's what my friends were doing. I soon learned to love the game.  I now enjoy watching college football on Saturdays, (or listening to the games, since we are now cable-less).  Behind gymnastics and track, it's possibly one of my favorite sports to watch.  Tailgating on Saturday mornings became a ritual when we lived in Iowa City and we have quite a few tailgating stories!  

Fall also brings one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving.  For as long as I remember, I have always loved turkey day.  This was such an important holiday for my family that we used to have a "practice Thanksgiving" a few weeks before the actual big day to help prepare and make sure the food was "just right."  Let's be honest, as a family, we just love to eat so it was a good excuse to get together and enjoy some yummy food.  We also enjoyed hours and hours of game playing!  I pretty much started playing games as soon as I could hold up cards and remember my Aunt Pat teaching me how to play "Kings on the Corner"  when I was younger.  I love games and miss having the time to play them.  Alena has quite the collection of games and I'm always encouraging her to play them with me.  I'm looking forward to "family game night" when everyone gets older. 

The only thing I don't like about Fall is it seems to be the shortest of the four seasons.  We're only a month in and the weathermen are talking about snow flurries this week!  I just wished I could make this season last a little longer...