Fall, fall, fall

Fall is my favorite season, hands down. I recently was talking to someone about fall, and they said that it was depressing because it reminded them that winter was coming, and that at least with spring things are moving in a good direction.

Fair enough, but I still love fall the best.

Is it the cooling weather? Or the wind and the leaves, or the warm apple cider, caramel and apples, leggings and pumpkins, soups and bread? YES! When I gush like this, I almost feel like a traitor to my homeland of Hawaii - the land of ONE season - to be loving all of this good mainland seasonal swoon.

Here is how we enjoyed fall this week:

My mom and I took Gigi to meet our friends Kim, Kinsey and Kaitlyn and enjoy some pumpkining in Apex.


Marcos, Gigi and I went to a double birthday party for sweet Noah and Ellie, and there was a gigantic bounce house. Gigi's true love, however, was the tiny toy house. And the chocolate cupcakes.


And then we hosted a pumpkin painting family night for my work friends Lisa and Rachel, and their darling families. I put out small pie pumpkins in our weed patch out back so that the kiddos could pick their pumpkin from the "pumpkin patch", the kiddos made a beautiful mess painting the pumpkins on the back patio, and then we herded them out to the park for run-around time. It was so nice to spend weekend time with my work friends and their families - such amazingly quality people! After park time it was back inside for white bean and chicken chili with rice, and we finished off with a food craft project of dipping apple slices into melted caramel and rolling them through chocolate sprinkles for dessert. I was so pleased that the evening went so smoothly and that we all enjoyed ourselves so much. I have found that part of the art of entertaining in a very small space is making sure there is a time and space flow - particularly when kiddos and dinner time merge on your turf.