Aurelia Marie

We’ve been enjoying our little slice of Fall down here the past week. The temperatures have been pretty cold – down into the 40’s,even upper 30’s for a few days overnight. Daytime highs have been around 70 (80,today,though – ugh). It’s that time of year when those of us transplanted to Florida all wish to be up North – kind of like in the song “White Christmas,” only it should be “Red,Orange and Cool Fall” or something. :)

Aurelia got in on the fall festivities this year. She has watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin,Charlie Brown” a few dozen times,and she and Daddy carved two pumpkins for Halloween. Then,she helped Mommy to scrape out and cook some sugar pumpkins for pie,which we finally had last night. It turned out pretty well – really good for a first-go at an entirely from scratch pumpkin pie,I think. We’ve also had our fall garden planted for a while now. That is one cool thing about living down here – a fall garden. It doesn’t get very weedy,it produces some of our favorite veggies (broccoli,lettuce,kale,arugula,onions and carrots),and the dark green pops of color in the back yard are really pretty. We also harvested our first batch of compost from the tumbler to re-set the square foot garden. It was really slimy and fun to dump it all out,sift and then mix mix mix with shovels. Aurelia had a lot of fun with that part,too.

Here’s the proof!

 Square foot garden planted with fall goodies. The chicken wire cover is to keep our neighborhood cats from claiming the box for “other uses.”

Some additional plants on the patio. This part of the garden is a little less pretty – but I had to find some deeper containers for growing carrots,and I had lots of onion starts to plant somewhere. The galvanized tub was along the back fence when we moved in. I was glad to finally get to use it!Pumpkin carving with Daddy.    Rubbing vaseline along the cut edges to keep the pumpkin from drying out. Aurie’s small hands fit easily into the tight spaces. Dressed for Fall Festival at daycare. The skirt is a Lazy Days skirt from Oliver and S that I made last year. Picking berries and finding acorns to collect on a Sunday afternoon. She looks like such a big girl with her hair back. Mommy and Simon (reflected in the large window at the side of the house).

Enjoying the cool weather in her princess dress and “leggings” (made by Grandma and Mommy,respectively). She was really styling in her layers for Bible Class that morning.