A Beautiful Autumn Day

It is such a beautiful day. The sun is shining and it's warm enough to go outside in a long-sleeved shirt and soak up the warmth from heaven. I love it!  Especially after last week's abrupt weather change to rain and wind and cold temperatures! We had to turn on our furnace before October! It was a sudden and depressing jump into Autumn, and I love Autumn! I am so happy that it is back to our Introduction-to-Autumn weather this week.

I love how the two trees in our front yard are so different. The one is already full with red leaves, while the other still has green with some slight changes. It's interesting how they change so suddenly, too. You never even notice it. One day you wake up and they are red and orange and yellow! 

 

It's a beautiful Blessing. 

 

How He just does these things for us and we don't even ask. 

 

Like the changing of colours.
The deepening of reds and oranges.
The sunlight streaming through the blowing leaves.
And we're just living it, seeing it, and it's a gift we receive every year without our asking.
And our kids and laughing and enjoying this free gift.

 

I love Autumn. I love the crispness of the season. The way it pulls you in. Makes you huddle in sweaters and find a place to retreat to. There is something about this season that makes me want to pause and reflect. And receive. 

 

 

 

I had to Laugh at my Youngers this afternoon: Rhys is carrying in one box of ziploc freezer bags because that is all he feels he can carry (maybe it is all he can manage, but I'm sure he's carried bigger and heavier things); meanwhile Eden is dragging a heavy bag of groceries across the lawn and there is no way she is letting someone else help her! They are both proud of themselves. So was I. I wish I had taken a picture, though! When I put away the groceries, the bottom of Eden's bag was all shredded! I love how they both were helping me in their own little way. 

 

Abi pulled out her natural talent of entertaining the children while also getting them to do something useful. She had them all go outside for a contest, which she claimed would have a prize at the end for. All they had to do was see who could rake up the biggest pile of leaves! That's not work, that's fun!!!  

 

Rhys won, but I didn't get pictures.  

 

I did get pictures of them playing and jumping though. That's just as good.

Jumping and twirling, woohoo!

I was trying so hard to get a picture of the leaves falling onto the kids' heads, and I must've taken a good 20 shots, but they never seemed to turn out!

But then look what I found when I downloaded the pictures?  It worked!!! So cute! (and, no, Bryn didn't turn into a new child, that's our neighbour Josh!)

"Ready? One, two, three, throw the leaves!"  Eden loved to throw them onto her head!

Today was Hot Lunch/Dress Up day at the school where the kids were supposed to dress up as Farmers. The night before, I was reminding the boys that they had to pick out "cowboy clothes" but I was told that cowboys were not farmers. But really, aren't they one in the same? For dressing up, I mean. I suppose a farmer could farm crops, but still, they would dress similarly, I would think. Whatever. Here is Kai, dressed as a FARMER, sitting on our toy John Deere, looking quite fitting.  (he didn't want to wear his rubber boots because they were dirty. I thought that would make it more authentic!)

 

Welcome to Autumn!