Fall is coming...

I LOVE the summer, it is almost my favourite time of year- warm sunny days spent at the beach, endless hours outside, camping, BBQ's, growing a garden. However, fall is starting to grow on me, not so much the rain aspect but I love the colours as the leaves begin to change, we also get to have Thanksgiving, go on our annual trip to the pumpkin patch, dress up for halloween, and have an excuse to sit inside and be lazy all day. I love cuddling under blankets with my kids, drinking my tea and baking yummy treats and now trying a whole bunch of fun new crafts. It also gets me closer and closer to Christmas which is my favourite time of the year- and now that Alivia's birthday is Christmas Eve, there's even more reason to celebrate (but that is still 3 months away).

To kick fall off Jaxon and I made a tree mural we put in the kitchen window... and I LOVE IT! Using coffee filters and watercolours we painted about 8 of them and let them dry. I cut out a tree using brown cardstock and taped it to the window. Once the filters were dry I folded them and cut out leaf shapes, using a gluestick we then stuck it to our tree. It is so beautiful to look at and enjoy as we eat our meals together.

This idea was also from the Frugal Family Fun Blog, here's the link: http://www.frugalfamilyfunblog.com/2010/09/autumn-window-display.html

I made a batch of blueberry muffins last week, they were the most delicious muffins and the biggest muffins I have seen! Got the recipe from my mother in law, here it is:

mmmmmm... so yummy!

I also have to share this link to a local lady in Langley who makes these bandana bibs because her bibs are just too cute and Alivia now has one- I wish she was around when my drooly Jaxon was a baby! It's Macbibs here's her link to facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/MacBibs/169909919746194

A friend of mine gave me the one for Alivia but I will definitely get more!

Alivia is getting quite the personality. She has become VERY vocal and very noisy, both when she is happy and when she is upset. Making all kinds of sounds, always blowing raspberries and pulling funny scrunched up faces and big smiles. She will definitely let you know when she is not impressed and a loud shriek comes out of her- this mostly happens when Jaxon takes a toy away from her.

Jaxon has moved on to the letter B now. B is for Bird. We always have lots of birds at our birdfeeder so he definitely got this letter quickly. Just yesterday he was playing and was singing his ABC's- which is the first time I've heard him attempt it. It went something like this "A, B, C, D, H, M, O, W, H, E, C, D and a few more, but he got the first 4! It was very cute! We haven't yet done any other crafts for our letter but I'm hoping to paint with feathers this week and make cute pinecone turkeys (since they are a bird and it is also Thanksgiving!) I'll let you know how it goes.

On Saturday there was a garage sale just up the rode from us and after getting a tip from my mother in law that there seemed to be lots of kids stuff Jaxon and I checked it out. We got some great finds- a picnic table for the kids which will be awesome for next summer, a magna-doodle, which Jaxon loves, and a couple of diggers. The coolest part was one of the diggers is an exact replica of the machine we are borrowing right now and the one Jordan and Jaxon have been working in. It is basically identical- since we have bought it (for $5) Jaxon has not stopped playing with it, it goes inside and outside, when he plays outside in the dirt he makes noises and moves dirt around, inside he moves cars and blocks. It also has working lights and sounds, definitely a great find!