I ♥ Fall!

Fall is my favorite season. I love the weather (the temperature isn't too cold, but I can wear my cozy clothes and the air is so crisp!). I love the food (soup, squash, apples, apple cider, pumpkin anything...I could go on and on!). I LOVE the colors. And so one of my absolute favorite things in the world is fall in New England. Honestly, I think that is part of the reason God brought me here - because He knew I would so wholeheartedly enjoy the magnificent colors of His creation.

Our First Fall Family Adventure - too bad Ryan's hood slipped down!

And even though they are too young to remember, I want my babies to enjoy fall - especially fall in New England. So today we went on our First Fall Adventure (we might have done a few earlier, but they were sick, so we stayed in for the most part). We went to get pumpkins!!!

Daddy couldn't get both babies to face the same way for this picture!

Note how happy Allie is at this point.

I did my research of various pumpkin farms & decided that the 1)most economical 2) most rational with 2 babies way to go was a roadside stand of some sort. While a hayride to a field to pick our own pumpkin sounded like fun - I had a feeling the babies wouldn't hold out and we would be stuck with screaming children in a hayfield somewhere with only a slow-moving tractor to get us back (and we would have had to pay for that stressful experience). Lucas and I set out as we have on our most memorable adventures - with no specific destination. We figured we'd find someplace with pumpkins eventually.

When we first set them down, Allie leaned over to touch a pumpkin and fell over. She was fine again for about 4 seconds...

We headed toward Concord (because we had an errand to run there), past Walden Pond, past the Louisa May Alcott House, and near all sorts of historical hotspots like the Minute Man Bridge - the close proximity to all of these fabulous places is another reason I love living here. And then we found the roadside stand where we decided to stop. I wish I would have taken more pictures of the stand (the variety of gourds & the way they were displayed was seriously breathtaking! And there was a greenhouse that was once covered with plastic, but the plastic was all torn & dirty, and it sounds ugly, but it was oddly beautiful and absolutely perfect). I discovered, however, that holding a baby and two mini-pumpkins leaves few hands for photography...

...and then she screamed!

We got 2 little pumpkins (1 for each baby...I always remember having 1 for each kid when we were growing up, so I felt like I should follow the tradition) and 1 big pumpkin (the daddy pumpkin - since mommy is going to decorate the baby ones). I could have spent ALL day looking over the veggies - especially to find some yummy ones to make into baby food - but we had errands to run and more adventure to experience.

So Ryan had to chill on his own because Sis wouldn't go near the pumpkins!

See, we wanted to get Halloween costumes for the kiddos. Originally we weren't going to get costumes (because why spend all that money on something they will wear once when they aren't going trick-or-treating), but then we decided to go to Brooksby for their annual Halloween Open House (to see the residents & introduce them to my babies)...and then we decided to go to visit the NICU on Halloween (to see one of our favorite nurses). And we felt like with all of this going out, they should probably have costumes.

So, we went to the Mall...and didn't find what we were looking for at all. But we did find Chick-Fil-A!!! And we had an absolutely wonderful lunch that was reminiscent of fabulous Tuesday nights in seminary. Then we went in search of what we wanted (I was a little bit of a mommy on a mission). In the end, I didn't find exactly what I wanted, but was happy with what I found (you will see it later...I have to build a little suspense!). And we had a fabulous First Fall Adventure!!!