First and foremost are the COLORS of fall! We live tucked up by the mountains and HOLY color! Every day I was excited to get in my car to run my daily errands, and see how amazing the world looked!
And let me tell you, my new neighborhood (the one we're building in) is absolute heaven this time of year. Oh this picture doesn't do it justice. I think I will spend many years to come trying to capture the magnificence of fall in this neighborhood. I would take the kids over to the lot just to wander the neighborhood, sloshing through the mounds of leaves and feeling bathed in colored light filtered through the trees!
Fall makes for the ideal time for family pictures! Thankfully the stress of fall family pictures season is gone for me now that I don't do the professional photographer thing anymore. Now I just get to enjoy a couple shoots for my family. Love doing that!
I even jumped into a picture or two. Aren't my sisters beautiful!
Of course I had to get a few pics of my busy brood in all the fall foliage too!
But what I LOVE most are the many traditions we've established for October.
Like our annual trip to the Lagoon Frightmares.
We go right when it opens (before the freaky stuff starts crawling out).
Bry and I love trying to convince the kids to go on the big rides. We may have paid Ty to go on this one :)
And we're very aware that our equilibriums just aren't what they used to be. I may need to take a Dramamine next year.
Tessa hasn't gotten old enough to join us on our Lagoon trip. Next year we'll probably bring her and leave Knox with Nanna. He was pretty bored by it all.
We also love our traditional evening at Cornbelly's.
So glad Nanna could come with us. With 3 busy boys, 1 opinionated girl, and a baby, the extra hands are always appreciated! Plus Tessa's favorite person in the whole world is her Nanna.
The Beast must be conquered every year. This year they declared it NOT scary. Usually they come out screaming!!! Sad.
Yes, sadly I think they're getting a little old for a lot of the stuff here. There were a handful of things that they were excited to do though.
Like racing their brothers around the track.
The big kids may have to stick it out for a while though, cuz the little ones still think it's fun.
This happy baby of mine shouldn't be denied our fun traditions just because the big boys start to outgrow them.
And once we couldn't brave the cold evening anymore we warmed up with dinner at JCWs.... just like we do every year.
And then there's one of my favorites, the pumpkin patch tradition.
This year we had to find a new one (Farmington had an awesome one but its a bit too far away).
I had to search to find what I wanted. A patch. A real patch. Not just some big playland with a pile of pumpkins for sale in the corner.
And I found it! The boys love hunting for their perfect pumpkin. And work so hard to get it back to the wagon.
Even princess Tessa went hunting.
Knox just got to watch it all from the wagon.
This patch had everything we needed. Great pumpkins, an actual patch, a hayride (check out Tessa's new "smile"),
And even free donuts and cider. We'll be back next year for sure!
We also held our cousin Halloween party, which we combined with cousin Gavin's birthday party.
We had lots of fun halloween foods (we went a little healthier this year), and lots of fun games, like ghosts on a straw,
Pin the smile on the jack o lantern,
and our family favorite, donuts on a string! I have a picture of my sisters and I when we were little doing this exact thing!
Cousins (and traditions!) are the best!!!
My 35th Birthday wasn't nearly as fun as Gavin's party. Bry was out of town. Hunting. That's all I'll say about that.
I DID create the world's BEST (no this is not an exaggeration) Mint Chocolate Cake for my birthday though.
And the last Halloween tradition is carving our pumpkins. I love that the kids like to do it themselves now.
They drew the faces themselves and then with a little help from Bry and I they cleaned 'em out and carved 'em!
Some pumpkins just got a couple drawn on faces (YOU try carving that face out!). I've learned to just let go of the idea of those awesome pinterest looking pumpkins. These ones are pretty awesome too.
Tessa wanted a sad one this year. Sadly, I never got around to getting candles in these cute pumpkins. Never saw them all lit up. But the kids never noticed, so nothin' to worry about!
And we started a new tradition this year. Taking Nonna out for a Halloween dinner and show at Gardner Village. So fun!
Oh so much tradition and so many great family things to do! Halloween season is the best! Well I guess Christmas is pretty wonderful too. Nice to have even more to look forward to.
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