Dirt Road Mama: Fall Things

Even though autumn means Daddy going back to school, which makes everyone sad around here, fall activities really are so much fun. Once the reality of "back to school" sets in, and we focus on being thankful that we have summers together, we really love all things autumn as a family!

Starting with...the Dunkin pumpkin muffin. Okay, maybe this is just a Mommy thing and not a whole family thing, but I am obsessed enough for all of us. I may have mentioned this before, but I am convinced that God made this baby arrive in December this time so that I would be in my glorious third trimester for pumpkin muffin season at Dunkin. I mean, MONTHS of guilt-free muffin eating? If that's not a blessing straight from the Lord.

And EVERY year, I attempt at making my own "Dunkin" pumpkin muffin. And fail. I mean, they're good...they're fine...you might even say delicious. But they are sub-par in my mind because they never reach the Dunkin gloriousness. Sigh. I'll try again next year...

I'll tell you who loved these muffins...Reagan Kate. She swiped one and came waltzing into the living room holding it with both hands like she had found gold on the kitchen counter. Later, I caught her trying again...little stinker. ;)

This is really just a recent project we crafted, but it looks so fall-y to me with the decorations and things, so I'm throwing it in here. I saw something similar at a friend's house, and fell in love with it! So we (Hubby) made our own. :)

I wanted a way to display current pictures that was a little more stylish or "pretty" than a cork board, but not as permanent as picture frames.

I love how the chicken wire looks with the barn wood. Very us. :) I also used random wood stain that we had in the basement and stained plain clothes pins to make them a little prettier also.

I had these leaves I made last year (with just paper and water color) and couldn't figure out where I wanted them to live in our new house. Then I saw our new picture display and thought I would make it look like they "fell"! :)

Reilly is obsessed with pumpkins. All things pumpkins. Pumpkin books. Pumpkin picking. Pumpkin patches. Little ones, big ones. Pumpkin carving, pumpkin painting. She even made it her business to teach Reagan to say "pumpkin", and was SO proud when she did it. So we made our earliest trip ever to the pumpkin patch, and will be going again in October when it's a bit more appropriate. :) But she was so excited to have pumpkins in the house, and we are kind of inherently against buying pumpkins at the grocery store. So we bough some mini pumpkins, and some pumpkins just for painting.

While Reagan naps, we usually have some special "big girl" activity that we do each day that Reagan is too little to participate in. This keeps messes (and whining) to a minimum, and allows Reilly to feel special and have some nice Mommy-Reilly time doing "grown up" things. Sometimes we paint, cut with her scissors, bake or cook, or do another more intricate craft.

This day, we pumpkin painted. :) We used regular acrylic paints that I always paint my signs with, and then covered them with "pixie dust" (diamond glitter) when the paint was still wet.

You can't even truly appreciate how pretty these looked with the glitter on them! They are so shimmery and sparkly in person. The perfect princess pumpkin, in our opinion. :)