October 2018 — those lovely roots

October is awesome for so many different reason. Whether or not your favorite season is Fall (mine is Spring), you can’t deny the beauty. The colors, the cinnamon, the pumpkin, it’s intoxicating.

With kids it’s just way funner. Never before have I been so motivated to decorate my house, bake treats to the point that my kids are sick of them, and obsess about all of our Halloween costumes. Even mine.

What’s some activities that we hit up this month?

This year we raked the leaves in the yard into a big pile just for the sake of jumping in them! Plus they are prettier left on the ground anyway. We even took a big rake to the park and made a HUGE pile of leaves to jump in! Crunchy leaves and leaf jumping is ubiquitous with Autumn and should be enjoyed like hot chocolate and marshmallows.

Apple picking at Nathalie’s beautiful old house. I save lots of $$ on not buying apples this month, instead I just shop here

Sunderland pumpkin patch!! It was only $2 per person, cheapest kid entertainment that I have found so far…

This blessed corn kernel pit where Leif could have happily lived out the rest of his childhood life, even with the corn kernels that found their way inside his cast, clothes, and butt (mine too).

They even had an actual, bona fide corn maze. It was up to my kid to lead us out. Is it just me who slightly panics when I find myself in one?

Okay, so this was a beautiful, wonderful pumpkin patch. So much fun. Want a true story? As I was turning to leave with my arms full of pumpkins to buy and I couldn’t see up down or sideways, I rammed my toe into a pumpkin. You see, I was wearing flip flops because I couldn’t imagine in my imaginary mind what kind of dangers would befall me whilst wearing flip flops in a pumpkin patch. Anyway I stubbed my toe so hard that pumpkin skin was jammed inside of my nail and I needed four shots and a bit of surgery to get it out. Long story short, wear closed-toed shoes to pumpkin patch.

Treats… OMG I made so many treats this month that I think my family was begging me to stop.

Let’s see, I made caramel apples, buttermilk caramel sauce, oatmeal cookies, nutmeg-spiced cookies, and apple cupcakes… Yum! My favorite were probably the ‘fraidy cat sugar cookies and sugar skulls!

We also went to lots of library story time activities and a trunk-or-treat in town. I love story time because I just drop my kids off in front of the volunteer who reads books to them for a half hour while I sit in the corner. It’s very relaxing.

We also made tons of homemade Halloween decorations including Victorian bats, Dollar Tree Ghosts, Dollar Tree wreath, and Victorian spider webs.

And then I fretted and obsessed about mine and my kids’ Halloween costumes because for some weird reason I absolutely looove to make homemade costumes. It’s very satisfying.

Finally me and the kids took lots of pretty walks and pretty pictures of anything crunchy, gold, or red.

We also decided to paint our pumpkins with glittery paint pens instead of carve them. Really it’s because I actually dislike pumpkin carving as I usually end up ruining a perfectly good pumpkin with a whole lot of hassle.

Little miss’s spider costume… Ever since she was born she would do this really funny thing with her arms when we laid her down on her back and she would stretch her arms out to both sides and she reminded me of a jumping spider. Cutest thing ever.