A Touch of Fall

It so doesn't feel like fall here, but I decided to dig out my piddly fall decor anyway. All I have is a wreath and some garland. What do you think?

Besides the fact that I don't care for my front door and wish it was in the budget for a new one (really, I should just be thankful that I have a front door). What's wrong with a faux oak door (it's metal) with a lovely oval window, you ask? Nothing, I suppose. It's just not what I would choose if I could choose. Anyway, back to fall! I'm finally getting into the spirit of it. But I'm not ready for baking season - it makes my house too hot!

So I'm not one of those creative moms that always does fun crafty things with her children. I only do it on rare occasion, like when Tripp was out of town last week for 4 days. I devoted Tuesday afternoon to fun craft time! No need to pat me on the back, I already did it to myself. First we made pumpkin ice cream pie. It was really simple. Here is the recipe. Next we got ready to make rock jack-o-lanterns. We went outside and gathered river rock from our back yard. We (mainly me) painted the rocks orange. While we waited for the several coats of paint to dry, we had pizza delivered and ate dinner. Then we enjoyed our pie. Once the orange rocks were dry we (mainly me), drew faces on them with sharpies. Then after the kids went to bed I hot glue gunned green rick rack to the top of each one as the stem. Here is the finished product, gracing our front walkway:

Ryan wanted to put them on our bench too, to scare the birds away so they don't poop on our bench. I told him that they weren't very scary and that the birds would probably just poop on the pumpkins.

Pretty cute, huh? So next on our journey to getting into the spirit of fall was a trip to the pumpkin patch. I was expecting (for those of you in Vancouver) an experience like "Bizi Farm"! Where you go ride out to the pumpkin field in a tractor and actually get to pick the pumpkin right from where it was growing on the ground. Then you go to the petting zoo and play on the hay pyramid. Not the case here in AZ. The pumpkins are already picked and neatly displayed under a tent area. No animals to pet. But there was a hay pyramid! And the pumpkins are freakin' expensive! I got 3 little ones (one for each kid) and one big one to carve at the pumpkin carving party we were going to. Here are some pictures from our trip:

Emily was slapping the pumpkin, she liked the sound it made! Also please notice - my little girl finally has enough hair for 2 cute little pig tails! I'll be taking all pictures of her from the side or from behind from now on. I love it!

We went with our friends who have kids the same age as ours. Here are the boys on top of the hay pyramid: And they had a hay maze for the kids to run around in too:Then there was this huge barrel thing that the boys had fun in:
Emily didn't like getting hay on her hands, it interfered with her thumb sucking. The last thing they did was ride this cow train thing that is pulled by a tractor. It was really cute - the cars went up and down. The boys had so much fun!

Ryan

Casey
Emily

I forgot to take my camera with me to the pumpkin carving party, but I wanted to show you the masterpiece. It was a joint effort by Tripp and I. I cleaned it out (the boys refused to touch the pumpkin guts). And since it was so big, we carved 3 sides of it with different designs:

Tripp did these first 2. This one says "Cat run over by a short bus" (this is the strange humor of my husband)
This is my side, it's hard to tell what it is. Looks much better at night with a candle in it!And last, here are 3 little pumpkins I got each one of the kids. I painted their names on them with fabric paint.

I've probably exceeded my picture upload limit! Better stop here!

Happy Fall!