Our October Fun List

 I want to get back to living more in the season. I had a big bucket list for summer and I was pretty disappointed that we did not get to even half of it, mostly due to my laziness and inability to get it together! Somehow making the list ends up being more fun than actually doing the list, but I am trying to do better.  I do not want fall to slip away unnoticed. So I came up with a dozen seasonal things to do in October. If we can do more than half of these, I will think we did pretty well!

A List of Twelve Fun Ideas for October

1. Go apple picking and make an apple pie. *We did it!*

2. Make cider donuts. I like this recipe, because I prefer to bake donuts.

3. Carve jack-o-lanterns and roast the seeds. *We did it!*

4. Plan costumes and go trick-or-treating! Grace says she's too old to trick-or-treat, so we will be making her up a somewhat-orthodontist-approved treat basket. *Costumes planned*

5. Drink lots of apple cider. Can't get enough of it. Ever. *I can't call this "done", but it's ongoing*

6.  Make jar luminaries and/or pine cone spiders for Halloween. *We did it!*

7.  Read fall themed books with Rose. She loves anything Halloween, but my personal favorite is The Ox-Cart Man.   *Another ongoing one:)*

8. Make pumpkin soup. We like the apple and bacon variation here (it's number two on the list). *We did it!*

9. Try a corn maze. We have never done this for some reason. *We did it!*

10. Take one last trip to the beach on a warm fall day. Or a cold one. Either way. I need to see the ocean.*We did it!*

11. Do our lessons outside every chance we get! *If doing lessons on the sunporch counts, we did it!*

12. Make some Halloween footprint art with Rose-because it might be the last year I can get away with it. *We did it!*

You can see we are a bit food-obsessed around here, but that's how we roll. I have a bunch of other stuff bookmarked too, like a pumpkin sugar scrub, witch hat cookies, and pumpkin silhouettes, just in case, but I did want a relatively short "master list" to choose from.  I am very much a planner, but I don't always follow through with my plans. So I am going to ink in 2-3 of these ideas when I write up our weekly plans. Then, we are going to make them happen.

 I am getting a bit nostalgic lately for my kids' childhoods, even though they are still children. But there are just a few years left for my older ones to make those childhood memories with us after all,  and only a relatively short time left of having kids we can refer to as "little". We are already past the baby/toddler/preschool ages for good, and it makes me teary just thinking about it!

So I am thinking we need to make those memories, now.....lots of them.... along with lots of photos....come laziness, bad weather, or getting behind in school work.