Ready to Fall In Love

Fall is about so many things that Arizona isn't. Fall is about beautiful leaf changes. Fall is about soup. Mmmm-mmmm. (I made a batch of homemade potato soup on Monday. I had forgotten just how much this made and we've been eating it all week.) Fall is about long sleeves. It's about darker colors on your clothing. It's about chilly nights where you eat your yummy soup. (Yes, most everything in life revolves around food for me.) It's about those beautiful leaves crunching under your shoes as you walk. It's about jackets. It's about homemade chocolate chip cookies and milk (although for me this this last theme pretty much runs year round.)

To contrast this, fall in Arizona is about so many different things. While most of the people I know are starting to venture inside from their beautiful summer weather, we Arizonans are finally emerging from our air conditioned homes. My Grandma was telling me that her garden froze this week. In return, I told her how it had finally cooled down to the 90s so that we could play in the park without my kids getting third degree burns. The plants, instead of dropping their leaves, can finally bloom. I wear the same clothes I did all summer only I don't sweat quite so badly while wearing them.

So, what's the difference? The only difference really lies with my choices. I can cook soups and bake foods that will fill the house with heat without needing to turn on every available fan. And let's not forget about decorating the house. I think I finally get why my college roommates from Arizona would be giddy over decorating our apartment with pumpkins and gold and red items. It's a fake it till you make it attitude down here in the desert.

So much of how we perceive the holidays really does come from our memories of those seasons from our youth. Growing up in Colorado there was such a contrast between summer and fall, winter and spring.

Growing up here, my kids will really only know the difference between hot and wonderful. All those in between times of year are a bit lost on them. My kids will not have the images and memories that I have of fall. It'll be different for them. Makes me want to move them further north, so they can gain an appreciation of this wonderful time of year. But then I see black ice and people stranded by blizzards when winter comes and then I shake my head, put on my flip flops and walk outside to water my flowers.

O Christmas Tree!

Last night we put up our Christmas tree. We have a beautiful, fake tree that my parents bought us several years ago. I love the tree because it has bendable branches and my mom also helped me pick out all these beautiful dark blue and silver ornaments to fill it. IKEA & my mom made decorating the tree affordable.

It used to be almost like a tree you'd see in a store--perfectly matching ornaments and such. Then, along came Owen and last year he seemed to want to pull all of the ornaments off the tree that were within reach. Only one of the ornaments actually completely broke. The rest of them just needed some new string. I did that this time around.

(not all of us were into decorating the tree)

My tree is starting to look less and less like a perfect store tree and I'm actually still just as much in love because of the memories that these new ornaments are bringing. There's the ornament featuring a picture of Ryanna glued to a frozen juice lid. There is the snowman with a bell for a bottom which Ryanna got from her violin teacher last year. There are two snowmen that have Ryanna and Owen's names written on the back with the year that they got them from us. I'm trying to get each of the kids an ornament each year, so when they get married they can have some ornaments of their own.

I remember the tree at my house growing up had some ornaments I had made. The one I remember most was a bird's nest inside of half of a pantyhose egg container (who is old enough to remember those pantyhose eggs?). It's amazing how decorating can bring back such strong and wonderful memories.

Last year's decorating party!

Watch me eat an ornament!

Cheesey smile!

Ahhh, too cute!