Fall Traditions

We have two trees with large leaves in the front yard so when the leaves all drop we'll rake them all up into a huge pile. My two daughters and the neighbor kids all come over and play in the leaves. They jump into the pile, toss the leaves into the air and just have fun playing around. Its one of my favorite photo opportunities of the year.

My husband and I will be married 23 years in October. Our children are 21 and 17. We've been going to the same pumpkin patch, as a family for the entire 23+ years. *My DH actually started going there when he was in college so closer to 25 years. They know us and know we will be there the last weekend in September! It's a family farm and the pumpkin patch actually started as their kid's 4H project which has not turned into a huge family friendly farm/pumpkin patch.

I saw a pumpkin in ladies home journal that was so eye catching. Open and clean the pumpkin out. Then spray paint the outside black. Then they did just a leafy vine cut out, where the leaves were cut all the way through, and the vines just a little ways into the meat of the pumpkin. Soooo pretty!

I love going to the cider mill, decorating the house with fall decorations, raking leaves, driving in the country to see the fall colors, and I love the smell of fall. We love Halloween and planning our budget for Christmas shopping.

It's a little soon but on November 1st we put up a huge turkey on the wall without any feathers and everday the chidlren write or color a picture of something they are thankful for on a feather and we tape it onto the turkey. By Thanksgiving day the turkey has numerous thankful feathers!

Harvesting the small crop from our garden and preparing it for winter. Visiting the local pumpkin patch and picking 6 of the most "perfect" pumpkins. Eating apple cider donuts, drinking hot apple cider on a chilly day. Going for walks in the leaves. Collecting acorns (no, we're not squirrels). Taking photos with the kids at a local park...the flower gardens there are amazing! Celebrating my oldest child's birthday.
We tried visiting an apple "orchard: last fall and while it was merely a couple of over-picked apple trees it was still fun to see the kids collect the apples. Afterward we visited the animals in the barn, had a picnic under the trees, drank apple cider and ate apple cider donuts. Now if only we could find an actual orchard around here!

Baking pumpkin muffins and apple pies.

my family use to do a bonfire every year but as my sister and brother and I got older we stopped. I talked to my mom about starting it up again but she thinks we should wait intill my son is a little older. We are trying to turn hiking into a tradtition. We live about 10 miles from a nice state park. We tried to trails today and loved them. I also make a lot of things with pumpkin during the fall.

We pick apples and make pies, apple butter and apple sauce. Drink cider and eat fresh donuts. Jump in huge piles of leaves. We've painted pine cones a couple of years and put them in a large glass bowl as a center piece for Thanksgiving dinner. Corn mazes are fun. Carve pumpkins and roast seeds.

Around here, one thing is apple orchards (home of the newest apple the Sweet Tango)....U of Minnesota comes up with alot of apples. Honeycrisp is my favorite and they did that one too!

Corn mazes (altho I never have done one)...pumpkin patches...the fall leaves are lovely. The crisp coolness in the air (after the long hot summer we have had..it was 90 like 3 days ago!), the crunch of leaves will come soon enough. My dacyare crew and I are observing the squirrels right now! They are goofy and funny as they dig and burrow in my flower beds and mulch looking for treasures! The geese are flocking and headed south soon. I bake alot with pumkin and "spice" things (I have a super easy pumpkin spice cookie recipe that kids love and makes the house smell so good! Take a spice cake mix and add a can of pumpkin..not pie filling, actual pumpkin...in place of all the other ingredients..so no oil or water or eggs. Bake as drop cookies..blobs on a cookie sheet or parchment paper. SUPER good. Add a blop of cream cheese frosting if you wish. YUM!) Now I need to make some!

I love fall and winter in Minnesota. I embrace the cool then the cold. Spring is OK, but its muddy and messy and makes me miserable and sneezy. Summer I hate with the heat and sweat (altho I am going to miss my saturday morning Farmers Markets...another 2-3 weeks and its done..sad face :-(. One great thing aobut a place like MN..we do get ALL 4 seasons.

We always take a drive down the coast to the pumpkin farms in Half Moon Bay and wander through the pumpkin patches, buy a few gourds, and then head to the Ritz for a light meal on the back patio. Simple, but always relaxing. If you go, make sure to time it so that you avoid the Half Moon Bay festival weekend - much more mellow during other times.

I grew up in the panhandle of Texas. Flat open yellow prairie as far as the eye could see. The name of my town- Amarillo - actually means yellow! It's pretty ugly. Every fall my parents would take us to the mountians of New Mexcio to see the leaves change colors. Breathtaking reds and oranges, a little nip in the air at the base of the mountian, snow at the top. I didn't appreciate it growing up, but ow I long for those mountain drives. So, naturally fall is my favorite time to go camping. It's no longer the mountains, but there will be a nip in the air and beautiful reds and oranges on the drive.

Great question - i love to hear about other families traditions :)
Each year we got to the same pumpkin farm which has a lot of fun activities including a corn maze, animals and a magician... We find someone to take a family photo in front of the pumpkin tower and take pics of the kids in front of the "How tall am i this year" cut out. Then we pick out a pumpkin or 2 and take them home & carve them!
Once most of the leaves drop from our 2 big maple trees, we rake them up into a huge pile and play in it for a while :) then rake them onto tarps and drag them out to the curb to be picked up.
We also love to go hiking on a trail that has an "eternal flame" falls on it... there is a natural gas source behind the waterfall, its beautiful and i love hearing the crunch leaves under our feet as we hike!
And we love cool weather fires in the firepit in our back yard... roasting marshmallows & drinking hot apple cider. Yum :) Anything pumpkin or apple flavored is delicious!

Well, living in AZ, we don't get the "fall" colors as cactus is the same color all year round! LOL! But I love to "over" decorate the outside of the house and the yard. We have lots of inflateable decorations that the kids love to set up outside. I also have a crazy collection of pumpkins and turkeys for some reason so I stick them all over the inside of the house. I don't decorate a lot in the house but we have a lot of fun being overly decorated outside. And we do that for each holiday although its easy to find decorations for Halloween and Christmas.