I have been super excited for Autumn ever since my birthday in July. But I have been trying to be patient and wait for it to actually get here before I decorate for it and celebrate it. I decided back in August (I think) that I would wait no longer than the autumnal equinox (the first official calendar day of autumn) to begin my reveling in the season. I decided we needed to have an autumn kick-off party where we eat and do and see all things autumn, and I was determined to do it even if it was still 90 degrees outside. Quite delightfully, September 22 was perfectly autumny weather! And we had the following fun:
Tablescape!
A couple weeks ago we were at Tai-Pan Trading to look at autumn things and I saw so many lovely decorated tables around. After seeing them I knew I needed to do my very own tablescape. If you’ve never heard of a tablescape, rest assured they are totally a thing, and they make your life happy!
Josh lighting the candles!
I was fortunate as far as the table settings went as we just happen to have all these beautiful autumn colored dishes from our wedding. I did get a few extra things like the napkins, the chargers, the candles, and the glasses just for this; though they will, naturally, make appearances in future tablescapes. And if you think I’m totally crazy for letting my toddlers drink from wine glasses, think again! They are actually “beverage plastics” from the dollar store! I was thrilled with how good they looked for so little hassle and money!
I found the candles at the dollar store and was super excited about having candles on the table. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, find candlestick holders for any reasonable price. I almost panicked. But then, in my pinterest searching, I came across little branchy-style candlestick holders and knew I was saved! What actually saved me is Josh. (Of course!) Because he took the little branch we had from his parents’ back yard and turned them into perfectly rustic, classy candlestick holders! He really is the best!
My favorite part of this picture is the trashed family room in the back! Please enjoy a view of my real life, even while I’m trying to beautify things. 🙂
And speaking of Josh being the best, I wanted to take this opportunity to mention this table he made for me! We got a beautiful brown table and chair set for our wedding, and we loved it for 6 good years. But as we now have 5 family members, we had quite outgrown it. I asked my private everything-man to make me a new table–farmhouse style–and then to help me transform our brown chairs into matching chairs for the table.
Comparison between the old chair finish and the new. We stripped the color from the seats and re-stained them, and we just painted over the brown for everything that is white.
Josh made all my dreams come true again with this table! He really REALLY is the very best ever in the whole world!
Anyway, back to the autumn kick-off party.
Food!
I didn’t get any pictures of the finished food as I was too busy devouring it. But we had butternut squash soup, pumpkin scones, apple pie and ice-cream, and hot chocolate. They were each fabulously delicious.
I have been using a butternut squash soup recipe for a few years and have really liked it until I tried this recipe my brother-in-law made last year. Then I knew I could never make the old recipe again. This was my first time using the recipe he has and I am seriously NEVER going back! This new recipe has such a greater depth of flavor and is more filling as well as all around superior.
We made apple pie using apples from our neighbor’s tree! She always offers apples to us in the autumn and her apples are seriously SO DELICIOUS!!! They are sweet, juicy, and perfectly crisp! The pie turned out so yummy thanks to our wonderful neighbors’ generosity!
Josh doing all the work to harvest apples for us. Thanks, Hun!
The hot chocolate we had is based off the hot chocolate you get at the cafe in Paris called Angelina. A full serving of this hot chocolate is literally 1000 calories, mostly fat, and it is worth every. single. one. of those calories! You just can’t drink it every day. 🙂
Witch Hunt!
Our family so looks forward to when Gardner Village puts out all their witches for the Halloween season! We did the witch scavenger hunt and found every witch! The kids are rather proud of this accomplishment. And they were truly such great helpers!
We tried very hard to get the all posed nicely at the same time, but Portia just had stuff she needed to do, and posing wasn’t among her stuff. I still think this picture still captures their cuteness, though!
Again, Portia had other things to do than join in the picture.
Some final, smaller, things we did in conjunction with the party were watch some Halloween movies, read our Halloween picture books, and I sprayed my favorite autumn scent all over the house!
My sister, Christina, joined us for some of the festivities, and it made me really happy to have another person to share all my hard work with. I genuinely don’t know if anybody else got as much of a kick out of this party as I did, but it really was a delightful thing for me, so I’m glad I did it!
