In case it wasn’t clear: I am rather enamored with this autumnal season. Today, as I was walking to the church and looking at all the trees in full color along with leaves on the ground, I got so giddy that I started giggling to myself in elation! I love that it is chilly enough for a sweater, but you won’t die without one. I love the smell of fallen leaves! And Halloween is approaching and it is all so marvelous! To me, autumn is a strong manifestation of Heavenly Father’s love for His children. And it is even more fun to live it through the lens of childhood again! Everything is more magical to children, and so having them around makes things more magical for me!

Here are some pictures of the kids a week or so ago just enjoying the leaves in the front yard. We have one tree that dumps all its leaves before any of the others have really started to change. It means we get leaf jumping fun for extra long!

We piled up as many leaves as we could for some real jumping! The parents kept the pile nice and high; and the kids would run from all the the way across the driveway and yard to leap into the pile. This went on for probably 15 minutes.

Fay saw some autumn wreath-making-kits at the craft store and really wanted to get one. I told her the worst words a mother can say, “Not this time.” But she recovered when she had the idea to make her own autumn wreath at home. 
Several weeks ago I had made some simple wreaths out of the vines off our back fence and Fay wanted to help. So she helped with some and made one almost exclusively by herself. She used that wreath and glued leaves and berries she found outside to create her own autumn wreath. It is beautiful, 100% made by Fay, and definitely cooler than the foam ones you could make with the kit! (Though, in all fairness, those did look really cool.)

Also, HALLOWEEN! Things are getting pretty exciting around here! Josh has been cooking up a great themed haunt for this year of which he gave a sample at our ward trunk-or-treat. 

Also, we went to my sister-in-law Chelsea’s work for a Halloween carnival. The kids loved getting to wear their costumes again as well as everything they had there. I was very impressed with everything. There was full on dinner, candy at every turn and so many carnival games that I don’t know if we even got to them all! It was so much fun! Thanks, Chelsea!

Another great and fantastic thing about this season is that some pretty fantastic people were born in the autumn. Yesterday it was my marvelous missionary Mary’s birthday! I love her so much! I’m so proud of all the work she does sharing Christ’s love with people in Romania! Though, I must confess I miss her sharing Christ’s love and Mary’s love with me in Utah. sigh…

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Isn’t she just beautiful?! I just love her all the days!