Fall is here, hear the yell

At dinner, Miriam's hair was a mess. Her ponytail had become quite mussed and she had more than a couple leafs entangled in her rapunzelesque locks. 

"What did you do?" Grandma asked. "Get down and roll around on the ground or something?"

Well...

Yes. That. Exactly that.

But first she raked.

The kids had a lot of fun playing in the pile of leaves they raked together. Raking is one of those chores that, if done correctly, feels more like playing than like working. Mary Poppins might argue that there's an "element of fun" to be found "in every job that must be done" (emphasis mine) but while I'm sure that's true for many—and even most jobs—I'm not sure that it's true for every job.

For example, washing cloth diapers really isn't a favourite job of mine and I've yet to find any real "fun" part about it (though perhaps I should just turn it into my hobby which would make it enjoyable by definition of being a hobby). I don't mind hanging them out on the line after they're clean, and I don't mind changing diapers, and I've spent my fair share of time evangelizing the merits of cloth diapering. However, scraping off waste into the toilet and cleaning the diapers really isn't fun, like, at all.

Still, most jobs have an element of fun to them (I'll give Mary Poppins (or the Sherman Brothers) that) and raking is one of the jobs where the fun is a little more obvious. The kids don't even mind putting all the leaves into the yard waste bin when we're finished raking and playing in the piles because they get to take turns getting into the can to tamp them down—fun!

Here they are enjoying the spoils of their labour:

Fall is certainly here in all its glory and I'm loving it!

I had never really been a fall-lover until we moved here. Now that fall means 60–80°F (15 to 20°C) weather that lasts for weeks and weeks, I'm all over it. It's like we get to have Canadian summer after having a Carolina summer. And second summer is awesome. Except it's not summer...it's fall!

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving the day before the actual day, since Andrew was due to fly out of town that Monday (the 10th—my sister's birthday!), so on Sunday we put together a Thanksgiving feast, got our Thankful Tree up on the wall, and had a wonderful Thanksgivingy time together. 

Pro-tip: Thanksgiving leftovers for days is wonderful when your husband goes out of town for two weeks, especially if your children remain excited about Thanksgiving leftovers for days.

"What's for dinner tonight?"

"Thanksgiving leftovers."

"Again?"

"Yup."

"Hooray!"

Between that and stuff we have on hand in the freezer I've hardly cooked a legitimate meal (and there was much rejoicing by all parties).

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday (the 9th)...

I couldn't resist this one of Zoë sucking on a carrot, Miriam staring greedily at something, and Benjamin doing...whatever it is he's doing... 

Here's a more normal shot of him:

And here's my Thanksgiving plate (because taking pictures of food is something people do now, right?):

I realized, after I sat down, that we'd forgotten to prepare sweet potatoes. I even had one—precooked!—in the fridge from a meal I'd made earlier in the week. We didn't get around to eating that one at dinner and I thought to myself, "I'll save this for Thanksgiving," and then I didn't even use it. But we managed to use it later, so it all worked out.

For some reason, Zoë was offended when I handed her plate to her. She screamed at me and then slammed her head down right into all her food and ended up with a lovely smear of cranberry sauce on her forehead. (Kids are weird).

We finished off the evening with pumpkin pie (of course), which everyone enjoyed but which, perhaps, Zoë enjoyed the most.

My point in telling you about our little Thanksgiving celebration was simply to boast about our beautiful fall weather down here. Because while we were celebrating with our doors and windows open, letting the balmy 70°C breeze air out the house, my friends in Canada were all posting pictures of the snowmen their kids were building! 

Winter is fine, I guess (just kidding; winter is the worst), but if I had to choose a repeat season to replace fall, it would be summer every time. And that's why I'm so happy to live here where fall is more like post-summer (unlike in Alberta where fall is more like pre-winter).