Happy Fall, Ya'll

Fall has to be my favorite season. I love the cool, crispness of the air. I love how clear and bright the skies are. I love the soft, crunchy scuttling sounds you hear when your outside and small animals are scurrying about doing their thing. I love the smell of wood smoke. I love how the trees change colors. I love the leaves that fall down and polk-a-dot everything around.

I had a gorgeous fall wedding. I had so much fun sitting with the girl who did all my flowers and decorations and brainstorming how we could incorporate the fall colors into my wedding. There were pumpkins and baskets and cornucopias and sticks tied with pretty ribbon. And rather than throwing flower petals or blowing bubbles, the guests rained brightly colored leaves on Joshua and me as we made our dash to the get-away car. Ahhh...and our honeymoon? We went to Vermont. Talk about color! And we were told we missed peak season by about two weeks, but we never knew it.

I get the bug to decorate and do crafty stuff in the fall. This year, despite being quite pregnant, has been no different. We have filled vases with acorns, scattered leaves on tables, tied harvest colored ribbons around candles and vases. My craftiness this year has tended towards useful household projects. Lots of crocheting has kept my hands busy and filled my head with ideas for Christmas gifts. Learning to do some canning has also been a day-filler. And I get so tickled to see the jars of canned stuff lined up looking pretty and yummy! It really is a pretty simple process, or the stuff I have taken on has been. Which is good. Otherwise, I might be daunted and never try again!

Telling you all of this doesn't really do much to describe the post and pictures at hand, though. Soooo...I will put a sock in it and get to the real reason most of you visit this little section of bloggy-land. The kids!

I haven't been doing crafts with the kids much since we moved. In fact, only a couple of times has it occurred to me to break out anything besides crayons. Today, however, I pried open the long-closed drawers of the craft cabinet (a three drawer Steralite container with wheels!) and started pulling stuff out. Craft aprons, paints, paint brushes, and wooden cut-outs.

The kids were so excited that I almost wished I had left all the stuff put. Questions flew at me at warp speed, shrills of excitement, and then more questions. Loudness. Energy. And I am supposed to be resting, trying to keep Baby Anna in the cooker for another week or so. This Loudness and Energy just about broke my resolve to let my Pint-Size Picassos do their thing.

I made it to the kitchen table with all the goods in tow and Granny was already spreading out newspaper. Each child got their painter's palette and paintbrushes. We looked out the window and discussed the leaves and how they were multi-colored. Granny even grabbed a handful for each kid to examine as I laid out a couple of painting guidelines. *One paint brush per color (because Mommy has this OCD thing about that). *Paint stays on the newspaper. *Remember, if you mix the colors too much, everything eventually becomes brown.


Then, I let them have at it. Thomas and Sarah Grace each had leaves and went diligently about transfering color onto those little wooden cutouts. They each had five colors and five paint brushes. I think Thomas mostly kept to one color per paint brush. Occasionally he mixed things up, intentionally or not. Sarah Grace still had two clean brushes at the end of our painting session, and a lot of mixed colors.


And then there was Elizabeth. She had two colors and one brush. Because why fight it? She dipped her paintbrush into the orange paint like a pro, examined if for a moment (to check that it was the right hue, of course) then popped the paint brush into her mouth.


I wish I'd had the camera at that moment, but in all my preparedness, I did not.

I laughed and tried to wipe the paint off and out of her mouth as she made distasteful noises about the flavor of the paint, then showed her how to properly utilize the paint brush. She caught on and was well on her way to artistic perfection within seconds.

We painted until the leaves and pumpkin were all covered, then set them aside and the kids painted on the newspaper. Finally, the fun had all been wrung out of this activity. But check out these masterpieces!!!