Anna's Windy Leaf Dance

This was such a moment of joyful free expression for Anna that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try to capture it and pass it on to you. It's never quite the same on video as it is in person, but this gives you a glimpse of how her spirit moves.

She is so alive, living in the moment, reveling in the wind and blowing leaves around her.

I love how she moves, how free she is to express what she is feeling with her whole body and embrace the world around her in all its raw glory and life with all of who she is. I can't tell you how long she stayed outside, dancing barefoot in the blowing leaves and the first drops of rain that were starting to come down. But she did eventually get cold and come inside for some warm Stone Soup that we'd made for lunch.

Leaves

It makes me so happy to look around these days and see the incredible colors on all the trees. Well, not all. Some of them have already lost all their leaves. But some of my favorite trees are at the height of their glory right now, this Oak tree included, with my favorite three little girls walking underneath it.Silly girls.

Spunky girls.

'So cute you want to eat them up' girls.

Grinning in the leaf pile.

Buried in the leaf pile.

Rolling in the leaf pile.

Throwing the leaf pile.

Jumping in the leaf pile.

Even Mama buried her bare feet in the crunchy leaves.

Making gravel and leaf angels-as opposed to snow angels in the winter.

Can you see it?

The play never stops. It just changes.

Anna swinging standing up, a video per her request:

These girls play together. All. The. Time.

Can you believe, with all the Fall colors and frost we've had, that this is still what it looks like in our herb garden on the south side of our house? It is November, after all.

Enjoy every moment of this glorious Fall right now.

Halloween

This year we actually let the girls dress up for Halloween, went to a party at a friend's house and went trick-or-treating! I know, I know, that sounds funny, we let the girls dress up. When do we not let the girls dress up? They dress up everyday, a couple of different times! But we're not so into Halloween. We've always avoided it. But this year the girls had been asked at least once a day by everybody they know for probably the last 3 months what they were going to be for Halloween, so they came up with an answer. Mitch and I are not so into the true meaning of Halloween, nor are we into the girls consuming unlimited amounts of candy, so we've always just tried to make it a special day in other ways and had fun connecting as a family. But this year we did it all! We had a fun time.

Ruthie was the cutest giraffe I have ever seen (stated by a totally unprejudiced mama).

Then we had a Sugar Plum Fairy (who had wings on some of the time), and Snow White.

Here they are watching a dry ice bubble form. Pretty fascinating. Drop some dry ice in a bucket of water, get a wet, long strip of rag really soapy, run it around the edge of the bucket and then, holding it stretched out tight in your hands, run it over the top of the bucket from from one end across to the other, leaving a soap sheet behind covering the opening. Then watch! The active dry ice in the bucket releases air bubbles that push up your soap bubble and a huge soap bubble is formed! Watch closely because pretty soon (especially if you're watching so closely you're breathing on it)...
POP!

Even though Anna was expecting it, she jumped every time:)