I Heart October

Fall...it's finally here. I feel like summer is insufferable and lasts forever. I have to practice putting on thankfulness in the summer because I could complain non-stop about the heat, if not.
But Fall...or Fell, as Rusty calls it, because instead of the beautiful changing and falling of the leaves some parts of the U.S. have, we just wake up one morning, and the leaves fell. (Rusty lived in Connecticut once upon a time, so he's actually experienced real Fall. Like in Stars Hollow. I'm going there someday.)
But despite us having "Fell", instead of Fall, the dawn of October still makes me happy.
The cool mornings and evenings bring me great joy! Thank you Jesus for cool air and not sweating!
Pumpkins! Bright orange and yellows and golds! Putting up my Pre-K October banner on the calendar board was exciting.
My kids have been asking if it's Halloween yet, about every 30 minutes since October 1st. That might get old.
In October, we have the famous FALL FAMILY FUN DAY!!!
On FFFD, we go to buy our pumpkins, and it's a full-fledged photo shoot. What's cuter than kids in a pumpkin patch? Each child gets to pick their own pumpkin to carve or decorate. I like to pick the albino deformed looking squashes. No one seems to appreciate them but me.
Then we come home, do the pumpkin thing...which I think I've made an executive decision not to carve them this year. I know, that sounds crazy, but after you carve them, they look so fun! And then two days later, they are a sunken in pile of mold and pumpkin guts that leaves a permanent mark on your front porch and scares away children. This is not festive! It's a real October downer! So I think we will all paint ours this year, removing the risk of fatal knife wounds from the FFFD, and our pumpkins can live forever! Yay!
Then, to conclude FFFD, we make caramel apples, which is something we look forward to all year. If you know me, you know I don't mess around with food. If we're going to make caramel apples, we're going to do it right. I don't buy those nasty sheets of caramel in a box and drape them over an apple and call it yummy. No. We make dipping caramel, and then roll the apples in it and heath topping, nuts, whatever we like. It's so good! I have been perfecting this enormously sticky event over the last few years, and I think I have it down now. We do it in the backyard.
Treston's Adoption Day is on October 29th. This will always be a very special day in our lives! A year ago this month was a scary and roller coaster time for our family. There was a time we didn't know if this adoption would happen, and I was seriously considering picking up in the middle of the night, packing us all up in a mini-van and re-locating to Mexico under new names. These things seem logical when you think about one of your children being taken from you. In fact, it's the most logical thing in the world.
In God's goodness, we didn't have to become the Hernandez family in Monterrey. We were able to make Treston a Bacak last October, and it was amazing to see God's gracious hand on our little boy's life. We'll celebrate it every year!
Also, this October, I think we are planning to have a Pumpkin Painting Party for the kids and parents on our block. We are wanting to know our neighbors better to be missionaries where we live. I don't think we've done a good job of this so far. But I was thinking an event like this might be a good start. I want to build more relationships with my neighbors, and painting pumpkins is where I'm choosing to start. I'll let you know how it goes.
Finally, what I like about October, is all the food you can put pumpkin in.
Pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin biscuits, and pumpkin Pie Crunch dessert. Oh my goodness, you don't want to miss that this October! I will be posting some of those Fall recipes soon.
Happy October people! Enjoy Fell this month!