Mitch's Poem

The leaves were hurrying and scurrying,

chasing one another around.

Until some of them got tired and stopped to rest in the corners.

-mitch

That's where 3 little girls found them.

Hope you're enjoying your leaves, too!

Lantern Walk

Thursday evening we had a lantern walk at Anna's school. It was a beautiful time of celebrating the changing of the season. The lanterns are symbolic of each child carrying their inner light out into the world and bringing love and compassion to those around them. We all gathered in the evening at her school, after dark with a full moon shining. After gathering in the cafeteria, hearing a story and practicing the lantern songs, we all headed silently out into the dark with lit lanterns for a walk around the property.Josie and Ruthie had made lanterns with me at home so they could participate as well.
Their lanterns, glowing in the dark:

I wish you could have had the perspective we had of hundreds of lanterns glowing in the dark moving silently along, stars and a full moon overhead... It was incredible. At the end of the walk we all gathered in the field and sang some songs that the kids had learned (and had attempted to teach their parents).

Beautiful evening, beautiful lanterns, beautiful children.

A Full Halloween

A photo gallery of our action packed, fun filled day.

Anna's Kindergarten class went to Munson Farm Pumpkin Patch today and Josie, Ruthie and I got to tag along.

Stairstep sisters standing in the circle:

Two sisters, fast friends, running free:
Ruthie in the corn patch (she didn't like it much, she got lost in there for a bit when she couldn't see me, poor girl. Easy for the adults to see over the short stalks, but not a two year old):

Anna and Josie in the corn patch, mud about 2 inches thick on their shoes:

Ruthie found some corn!

"We have worms on our corn, Mrs. Kiley! Isn't that so cool! Mine has three worms!"

Class picture + Josie and a beautiful view of the mountains in the background. Can you beat the scenery around here? It doesn't get any better than a crisp Fall day (yes, it is Fall around here again), all the orange colors in the foreground, and the snow covered mountains rising up so close. Anna and Josie are in the middle row on the left, both in purple:

"I want this one, Mom!"

"That one's a little heavy for you, Ruthie, let me carry it"

Carving the pumpkin, cleaning out the goop inside:

Josie wanted to save and roast all the seeds for eating (anyone have a good recipe?):

The finished product, casting a ghoulish glow over our steps tonight:

Leaf pile fun this afternoon, Josie jumping in:

Anna's turn!

Bury me!

Where's Ruthie?

Anna, in her 'Nature Detective' costume complete with hiking stick, sun hat, good hiking clothes and shoes, magnifying glass, bag for treasures, creature identification booklet, bandanna turned cape that is covered in animal footprints for identification. (This Summer and Fall the girls have been earning their nature detective certificates by completing different activities at some of the Boulder Parks and Open Space areas around here. Their prizes arrived today in the mail, along with their certificate of completion saying they are officially Nature Detectives. Thus the Halloween costume featuring all the new prizes.)

Ruthie said she was a butterfly. Can you see the wings? What butterfly doesn't need a pink leotard and fuzzy purple hat?

Trick-or-treating around the courtyard! Josie was a ballerina (that was about her 5th costume of the day. The others were a Nature Detective, princess, pumpkin, and butterfly. Oh the fun of dressing up!)

Anna and Ruthie playing piano with our little friend Violet, aka Tigger the Tiger, who came over to play for a bit while the rest of her family went through a haunted house:

Stickers! What better place to put them than all over Daddy's face!

Lotsa love all around at the end of a full day.

I hope yours was packed with as much fun and lots of hugs as well!

Heavy Snow

Two days ago we were all running around barefoot, the girls were playing in the creek, laughing in the sun, 80 degrees.

Today, winter arrived.

We had to find all the coats and hats and mittens and scarves in a hurry from where I had tucked them for summer storage.
So many colorful leaves are still on the trees.
We had been enjoying the crispness of Fall, a bit of change every day, something new to discover as the earth was preparing for the change of the season.
The suddenness of this storm littered the ground with branches, huge limbs, cracked trunks of trees.
These little girls noticed and continued in their play, making use of overhanging branches to hide under and make a secret house. Don't worry, I didn't let them play underneath any trees today, but the supple, heavy laden branches of the bushes in the courtyard were home and hearth.

Josie is a nonstop blur. This pretty much captures her in her snow play:

The best part of my day was biking Anna to school as she lounged in the bike cart, chattering away about all the beauty she saw and heard around her. A fresh morning, a beautiful winter wonderland so incredibly different from the world a day before.

Josie's Pictures

Josie has a new camera and boy oh boy has this budding photographer been enjoying her picture taking over the last few days. I wanted to share some of her photography with you. It's a fun way to walk through her day with her, see what she saw, the things that were important to her or beautiful to her today. You can literally look at the world through her eyes.

Mama with her morning coffee. (That's my favorite mug, I use it every morning.)

Ruthie, still waking up.

The slow, casual side of the morning.
Daddy 'O

Anna leaving for school:

New toys from Nona, having a 'show' with them:

More of Mama:

Outside our home:

Playing on the stoop with a neighbor, laundry basket empty of laundry that's now in the wash:

Decorating the bunk bed with pieces of colorful wrapping paper:

Beautiful Fall trees along the bike path on the way home from picking Anna up at school:

Red Virginia Creeper, also along the bike path:

We must have made twenty stops on the way home from school today on our bikes as Josie yelled "Wait! I see another one! I've got to take another picture!" And we would all stop, the camera would come out, and another beautiful Fall tree would be documented.

For every picture you see here there are ten others of a similar nature, sometimes almost exactly the same, with slight differences that maybe only Josie would notice as the world around her changed almost imperceptibly and caught her attention yet again. I loved watching her excitement today, her joy in capturing pieces of her world, her eye for detail and her own love of natural beauty.

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.