Autumnal Wrap-Up

In my mind, the autumn is already over. Is that how you feel? I know Thanksgiving is still a week a way, but I have been listening to Christmas music on my iPod for two weeks now, and my mind is already in Christmas mode. I am not one of those people that believes in giving Thanksgiving its own sacred space and not mentioning Christmas until the 4th Friday of November. Perhaps it is because I am a retailer, and we start talking about the holidays in September. I love Thanksgiving (what's not to love about a table full of food?) but I think of it more as the entrance to the Christmas season, which I adore.

So before we move on to posts about holiday decor in our new home (real tree this year? we have a banister that is presenting a new design dilemma, etc...) I thought I better blog up a few autumnal events that never got mentioned here.

1. First and foremost, October brought a lovely visit from the Petersons. Lovely. And too short. And action packed. There was not much sitting around. There were trips to Powell's and delicious muffins and trips to the zoo.

We took the requisite trip to the Tillamook Cheese factory.
Interesting thing about the cheese factory. If you go on a Saturday, they are not making cheese.
See the empty production lines behind us? They are less impressive than the working production lines. Amy and Logan were sorely disappointed.
Luckily, there are still all you can eat cheese samples to try.
And we had lunch there and ice cream so it wasn't a total waste of a trip.

So we headed to the beach.
It was cold, but beautiful as always. We played in the sand, and built stuff and pushed Noel on the swings (mostly that was Amy, because I lose patience for that activity in about 45 seconds.)
We had races with Uncle Jayson and Papa:
And while "getting our feet wet" Jonah fell face first into the water and had a wave crash over his head. The special part was that we had packed extra socks, shoes and pants for the boys, knowing that boys+ocean = getting too close and getting your pants wet. However, we did not pack an extra shirt, not anticipating that one child would go completely under.

2. Noel's third birthday.
Fortunately this coincided with the Peterson visit as well, so Noel was good and spoiled. Noel's cousin Isabelle has a birthday a few weeks after his, so there were gifts for her as well. And then because we are push-over parents, there was a present for Jonah too. Is that wrong? We just didn't think he would understand why everyone was getting presents except him.

We also thought it would be fun to do a pinata. We bought the pinata and stuffed it with crap from the dollar store. We then realized that we hadn't really planned a couple of key elements, i.e. where to hang the pinata and what to hit it with. It was too dark at this point to go outside and hang it from a tree, so I held it on the end of a broomstick. Then I stood behind the counter so as not to get hit with the bat and create our own "America's Funniest Home Videos" moment. Then the kids hit it with a plastic golf club. Which wasn't really strong enough. So eventually we had to just set the pinata on the ground and let the kids beat until there was a hole in in and then we just shook all of the stuff out.Noel's cake was Little Einstein themed.

Aren't you getting impressed with my cake decorating skills? I think I need to upgrade to professional grade dyes for more vibrant colors. Don't you agree? Anyone want to get me those for Christmas?

3. Halloween.

Jonah was superman. Noel conceded at the last second to wear a pirate hat.
Jonah did NOT want to take this picture. This was the smile he did when I yelled "If you don't smile you don't get ANY candy!" We did a bit of Trick or Treating and then went to Chanel's house were there was a zone's worth of missionaries and a roasted pig.Isn't that what you did on Halloween? Roasted a pig and ate it with the servants of the Lord? You know us...always doing the same old traditions!

4. Cardboard Airplane.
We made a cardboard airplane. What? That's really all I have to say on the topic.

So happy fall. I need to go plan my pie selection for Thanksgiving at the Taylors'. I believe there should be one pie per adult in attendance, so I think I am bringing 4.
1. Pecan
2. Apple
3. Eggnog
4. Banana Cream? Triple Berry? I just don't know. Thoughts?