Autumn Traditions and Memories

Our family is so young that we are still really setting up our traditions, deciding what each season means to us and what activities are worth repeating year after year.

Fall is my personal favorite season, and October my favorite month.

We get to go to the Arboretum to play in all the leaves.

We went with our preschool co-op this year.
And Z did WAY better than last year, diving right in.

There is also our yearly pumpkin picking trip. (I cant believe that this trip was a year ago. Or that this one was a year before that. How time flies!!)
The day we set aside for pumpkin picking this year was a rainy one. But it was also the only day that Josh was free to join us.
Never let it be said that a little rain kept the Clarks from a day of family fun! Or that a forgotten sd card kept us from pictures, thank you phone!
We even enjoyed a corn maze, and I just LOVE corn mazes.
We did the kid's maze- and thank goodness too because Zeke wanted to run down every single option. We were in there for quite a while.
Of course October ends with Halloween. I'll admit it's not a favorite holiday of mine, I'm not fond of getting scared or being cold and Halloween tends to dole out servings of both. But Zeke's enthusiasm is infectious so we are really getting into it this year; dreaded pumpkin carving and all.
I stayed far far away from that sticky goop inside.
In fact, so did Mal.
But Zeke and daddy made both a "happy pumpkin" and a "scary pumpkin".
And the was Zeke says "scaaary pumpkin" shaking his little arms, was worth it.

We even decorated our tree with some homemade ghosts. (no pictures, but I'll post some later I am sure)

Seeing it thru the eyes of a child again is making halloween fun. I remember this giant rubber rat we had that I was always afraid to touch as a kid, yet couldn't help it. And the witch we hung by the front door. It had a motion sensor and said something as you passed by...what exactly no one knew. It was an object of much debate every year. Brittany always swore it was saying "pork chop."

I'm remembering my favorite Halloween ever, as well. The one when my dad and us kids all decorated the outside of our house like a graveyard. We really went all out, it looked spectacular. Or at least I though so. I remeber in particular that as you walked up to our front door, there was the wall of the garage on your right. And in that wall happened to be a small hole drilled for a cord or something. We stuck a big spider to a wire and would wiggle it thru the hole when people walked up to trick or treat. I remember being so excited to wiggle that spider! I'm sure all the giggling gave us away but we were convinced we were scaring the pants off of everyone.

Im excited this week to think that maybe we are making Halloween memories like that for our own kids.