Autumn

Fall is fabulous. I don't really know if there is anywhere else on Earth that does fall as exquisitely as the northwest since there are so many places I haven't been, but here it is just glorious. There are so many species of trees and they all seem to change at a different time so there are colors for a long, long time. It's the onset of sweater weather and three quarters of us really love sweater weather. The final quarter of us loves SoCal summers. Perhaps one day we'll convince her sweaters are amazing. 

Grandma Debbi is so good to send the kids packages for the Holidays. It always makes Aeryn's day. I'm still amazed at how lucky both our girls are to have been welcomed so completely by the other person's family. We are truly lucky that way. When Aeryn sent a "thank you" text she had to include a selfie... which is so funny to me. Kids have always taken selfies, even in the days of traditional cameras with delayed gratification, but I'm sure the reversible cameras and digital displays on most phones just make it that much more exciting.

We watched our neighbor's girls for a couple hours one day and one highlight of the afternoon was playing in the leaves.

I can't blame them, who doesn't love to play in the leaves?

Then to make it actually feel like Halloween, since somehow October has decided it is almost over (seriously, HOW???) some friends of ours orchestrated a pumpkin carving party. Aeryn takes this very seriously as you can tell.

We decided to use real knives this year instead of those cheap, bendy pumpkin carving kits and while it seemed like a good idea at the start, she was actually really scared of using the knife. She asked me to cut the eyes and nose after she drew them on, then used a scraper to put all her other designs on the surface.

For year number 5,487,827,346 (or maybe just 5) she chose to make a cat. This girl is definitely consistent.

After she had completely finished, she saw the drill one of our friends had brought to carve theirs. She is clearly her mother's child and was completely drawn to it. Smart girl... drills are pretty awesome. She tried to smooth out the eyes somewhat and then just took to making random holes in the back of the pumpkin. We'll just pretend it's for ventilation. 

With three days to go I'm not done making her costume. She was expecting her dad to send one and then late last week we found out that wasn't happening and set to work. We will see how it turns out, I am not even close to considering myself a seamstress and costumes always freak me out. Secretly though, I'm glad that I get to make it. As cute as her Frankie Stein was last year, I really missed out on helping her put it together. Here's hoping I get it pulled together and have something to report in a few days...