JEI {7}: Welcome, Fall!

Welcome to the weekly link up, Just Enough Info (JEI).  The internets can be a great source of community, and I’d love to get to know you better!  Feel free to share your answers in the comments or link up if you have a blog.

After some heavy posts on Cee’s escalating health problems and a linkup on miscarriage, I’m ready for something a little more light-hearted.

Fall

Here in the Midwest, fall is definitely here.  The leaves are beautiful!  The air is crisp!

1. Best fall flavor: apple or pumpkin?

False.  It’s a tie.

We have some family friends who let us have apples from their trees, so we put up a bunch of applesauce.  I <3 the free, organic, sugar-free applesauce we eat all winter due to their generosity!

But– this is the time of year the cans of pumpkin go on super-sale, so I stock up for the whole year.  We make “Pumpkin Pancake Crumbles” all the time, so we need a tower of canned pumpkin in our pantry.  I also put pumpkin into soups, especially chili.  It doesn’t end up changing the flavor, so the kids don’t realize I’m sneaking in more veggies.  Huzzah!

 

Her pumpkin chili beard matches her hair!

2. The leaves are changing colors, and the air is crisp. What are you looking forward to about fall?

Honestly, I’m looking forward to putting the kids to bed earlier and having them wake up later.  I am grateful for fewer sunny hours.  It’s easier to convince the kids to go to bed/stay in bed when the sun is MIA.  It doesn’t quite make up for being trapped indoors for the next 6 months, but we’ve got to look on the bright side.

 

 
3. Do you decorate for the season (and which is it: fall or autumn?)

I only say “autumn” if I’m using my “legumes” voice.  “Leguuuuumes.”  “Aaaawtum.”

As in:

“Cliff dear, shall we visit the tennis courts after we finish our legumes on this fine autumn day?”
“Yes, Rosamund.  Just give Fifi to Jeeves on your way out.  We wouldn’t want an unfortunate present on the cashmere rug.”

So…unless I’m having champagne and caviar, it’s “fall.”

 

We don’t decorate much.  I’m not into ghosty/gobliny stuff, and my kids would chew up any lovely decorations.  So we make our own.

In a few days they will have picked all the paint off and the pumpkins will be au-natural.  A few days after that they will be covered in mysterious fork marks and get mushy.  They’ll be done well before Halloween.  This is the life-cycle of a decorative pumpkin on our house.

This is the start to a fall “bunting.”   The kids painted paper in oranges/browns/greens.  Elle drew up some leaf templates and traced them onto the painted papers.  Then I cut them out after the kids got tired of cutting out the first 3.  We will tape them onto string.  Ta-da!  FYI, the leaf bunting will be up probably until Easter.

Random fact:  I was runner up in a pumpkin carving contest before having children.   This isn’t my pumpkin, but it’s exactly how I carved it.  How Jesus on a pumpkin didn’t win, I’ll never know.  I’ll also never know where life would have taken me if I didn’t have kids.  Maybe I could have become a champion pumpkin carver.  #lostdreams

 

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Be sure to visit my JEI co-hosts Jessica, Kirby, and Kerry and any other linker-uppers this week.  You can also follow along with the Zelie Group on facebook. ?