Fall is in the air around these parts. As I write this post it’s a beautiful, crisp autumn day. I’m looking out the window at the breeze blowing through our trees and the late afternoon sun casting alternating long shadows and golden beams throughout the backyard. Ahh. I love fall.
Even though the recent weather has been achingly warm and beautiful, making it seem like we’ve stolen another week of summer, there is a definite “fall-ness” in the air. Here are the top ten ways I know it’s fall in our house…
1. Almost every walk turns into a “nature walk” with my preschooler. We come home with as many beautifully colored leaves, acorns and sticks as two pudgy fists can carry.
2. Consequently, many of our afternoon art projects use our nature walk finds as inspiration. Everywhere you look in our house, you are wished a “Happy Fall” from one of our projects. We’ve created placemats, bookmarks and framed artwork with the treasures from our backyard.
3. My potted petunias and salvia have been replaced by mums, grasses and pumpkins on the front porch.
4. I’m consistently choosing the Choco Truffle and Kumquat colored FuzziBunz cloth diapers first instead of the Mac n’ Cheese or Apple. Watermelon remains my favorite (and still the poop diaper!), but I think it’s just as appropriate a fall color, as it is a summer one. Don’t you?
5. I’m scrambling to find a suitable jacket for both kids. The baby was really a baby last time it was cold enough for a jacket. I always had her bundled in her car seat. So when the first cold snap came, I panicked because I didn’t have anything warm for her to wear outside. I’ve since gotten a hand-me-down fleece and purchased a coat, so I think we’re ready for fall (and winter – eek!).
6. Dinnertime is earlier. I love letting the kids play outside on summer afternoons and when it gets dark later, we eat dinner later. We wouldn’t eat until 6:30 or 7:00 on some summer nights when the neighbors were outside socializing or we were having a good game of baseball. Now, it’s fully dark by 7:00 (we’re on the eastern edge of the time zone), so dinnertime has gone back to 6:00, or even 5:30 if daddy won’t be home to join us.
7. I’ve gotten my crock pot back out after a summer hiatus.
8. My favorite pumpkin bread mix is back on the shelves at the grocery store (and restocked in my cupboard!). Man, I love that stuff – add a handful of dried cherries, nuts and chocolate chips to the mix and it’s pure heaven.
9. I’ve started to rearrange toys and move things to the basement. Because we spend a lot more time in our basement during the cold months, I pull some toys and activities from regular rotation now and stash them in the basement. This way they are fresh and new again when we’re forced to be down there in a month or two instead of outside.
10. I have to remind myself to breathe and stay in the moment a little more often. Even with young kids, life gets more hectic in the fall with playdates, preschool commitments, meetings and longer work hours for my husband. I have to try a little harder to stop and appreciate (and point out!) the tree blazing with fall colors or the pure joy on my preschooler’s face when he describes his day at school. I try to put away all distractions (both physical like cell phones and mental like what I need to get ready for tomorrow) during dinner. We talk about the best and worst parts of our days at dinner and that really helps bring it all into focus.
We are lucky to live in a place that experiences the seasons and we are right in the middle of my very favorite one now, so I had to share it with you. I’ll leave you with this quote I read today:
“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.” - Stanley Horowitz
I hope fall has entered your home as graciously as it has ours.
What’s your favorite part of fall? How do you know fall has arrived in your home?
Sarah is a mom of two and blogs about her adventures in motherhood, cloth diapering and everything in between. Catch her “Cloth Diapering Unwrapped” series on the FuzziBunz blog every Tuesday.
