Fall Fun

Ahhhhhh! The cooler weather is finally here and the leaves are obviously changing. This is the time of year when life seems to speed up and I work desperately to find ways to slow it back down.

One thing our family does every fall is attend a celebration at a local National Wildlife Refuge. They always have interesting nature-based exhibits, crafts for the children, and a yummy (and FREE) BBQ.

You’ll notice the ORANGE shirts. The children have several “matching” outfits they can wear when we’ll be in a large group of people and I need to find them quickly and easily. These are some t-shirts Grandma purchased for the kiddos–perfect for Fall!

Another thing we try to do is go to a pumpkin patch or corn maze. It’s a great family-oriented event. I have a 10 year old expert map reader and a 7 year old who adores the twists and turns of the maze and the orange beauty of pumpkins in a field. I also have a 4 year old and 2 year old who love anything and everything the big kids do. We rarely go to the same pumpkin patch every year. This year our choice was a bison ranch that also had a pumpkin patch and a maze (we think it was millet, not corn–great height!) My husband is fascinated by bison, so this seemed a perfect fit…something for everyone!

Notice this time they are all in BLUE. Not nearly so easy to see them…probably won’t do that again.

Quite often we just enjoy the beauty of the pumpkins and never carve them. However, we thought this year we would carve them and tell them the Pumpkin Parable. It turns out in the several years since we last carved pumpkins, we have acquired older children who are quite capable of pitching in and making light work of what used to be a rather laborious chore.

The children each drew their own face (Keian wanted Jesus–which sounds more like “Jeesch” in his little language, so we did a cross on his). Blake added a cross and a “J” to the sides of his pumpkin. Melia wanted hair on hers, and Megan had the neatest little crooked-smile mouth for her pumpkin.

Mommy and Megan scooped out the pumpkins while Blake and Daddy carved away. This is the first time Blake has used his personal knife for carving pumpkins. He was very careful and did a great job!

As soon as it turned dark, we all went outside and lit the tealights inside the pumpkins and oohed and aahed over the pretty lights. We had them lined up on the back patio where we could enjoy their light until bedtime. We’ll probably leave them there because last year we had some disgruntled trick-or-treaters steal pumpkins off our front porch. We don’t celebrate Halloween, so our lack of candy apparently incited the crime of pumpkin-stealing. ;O)

So, there you have it…a little Fall Fun! Happy Fall to Y’all!!!