Three Things : Three Giveaways

We go to the pumpkin patch every year and pick out a pumpkin or two. I also enjoy decorating my house with fall things like mini pumpkins, acorns, and fall colored potpourri in the bathrooms. Fall centerpieces on my tables and I love burning fall scented candles in my home. OOOOOh, I just love fall!!!!

Early October is my birthday and my son's, and we enjoy the fun of that together. We visit the same pumpkin patch every year even thought there are many around where we live. This year's pumpkin patch brought a bitter-sweet, hopefully soon-to-be-scrapped memory (http://ourhereandnow.blogspot.com/2008/10/inverse-milestone-or-two.html).
Love the cool air and the trees in all their stages of color!

I love decorating the house for fall with leaves and yummy scented candles. I also stock up on all kinds of soup making ingredients!

I look forward to snuggling in and sort of hunkering down for a few months. Fall always finds me crocheting, quilting new bedcovers, baking pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies, and making more soup! Fall is also my time to pick up scrapping again, as I don't do it much in the summertime.

We celebrate the Fall in several ways. Pumpkin patch visits, spicy scented candles, big sweaters, leaf picking (and raking), and a family birthday. My favorite thing about Fall is Halloween. The girls pick out their costumes, I make a big crock pot of chili and put it on our front porch. We build a fire in our fire pit (bowl), put it on the sidewalk and neighbors bring chairs over and we all pass out candy, and eat chili together. One year, I made homemade donuts. It's all about marking the change of the season with friends and family.

I LOVE fall.. but down here we are heading into SPRING!!.. I love Springs, the flowers the birds and ofcourse its RACING season here with our BIG event next month the Melbourne Cup!!.. and of course Spring always makes me clean, move things around and start a FRESH!!.. I know this was about Fall, so i hope it still sort of counts..
god bless
Connie Hatch, Australia...xxxxx

It is spring here in Australia. The temperature today is very cold even though we have had hot temperatures already getting ready for the summer. The bar-b-que has been out and lots of different salads have been happening. Love it.

We go to the pumpkin farm for a hay ride. We also like to take a road trip up through the mountains and see the gorgeous fall colors.

Trader Joe's Spiced Apple Cider, warmed up. That means fall in our house! Teresa

I celebrate fall by making Pumpkin Cupcakes. I die a white cake mix orange and bake them in a mini bundt pan. Then add a tootsie roll stem and green leaves with icing! They are a hit everywhere I bring them!

Fall is caramel apple cider, our wedding anniversary, my husband's birthday, sweater weather, pumpkin carving, watching the leaves change, pumpkin pies and taking long walks on crisp fall evenings, talking and crunching in the leaves. This season of change and beauty in nature is my favorite!

We always dress our goose in her pumpkin outfit. We then take a drive and look at all the pretty changing leaves.

Celebrating the season means many many family activities. From the fall fairs and pumpkin picking to family get togethers to celebrate fall birthdays. We also spend alot of time, just the four of us jumping in leaves, baking yummy goodies and drinking hot apple cider. I love this time of year.

I celebrate autumn by closing my eyes and breathing deeply to enjoy the incredible fall fragrance. It is a simple pleasure for which I have enormous gratitude.

I am in Australia so we are celebrating Spring! And that means getting out into the backyard or to the to the beach as much as possible! Sandwiches and milk shakes on the grass and letting the kids plant some flowers in their garden!

Every fall we go leaf hunting. I challenge my kids to find as many different colored leaves and shapes as they can find. We bring our collection home and make a craft project with them. The kids get out excess energy searching for leaves and we always end up with a cool craft project. One other note, I am doing your 1 week challenge, but I am doing it for the whole month of October. My husband will be going back to Iraq soon, we have a 2 month old and a 4, 3, and 2 year olds, so I thought it would be interesting to document one normal month before he is gone. You can check out my blog here.
http://onegirlandthreeboys.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the chance to win!
-Shannon

Even though we live in Southern California where we struggle with no season changes (or very, very subtle ones) and struggle with hot autumn temps and wild fires and Santa Ana winds we still try and celebrate everything that the season has to offer- apple picking, decorating for Halloween and Thanksgiving, making caramel apples and pumpkin pie and having long chats "on the beach" with our daughter about how mommy and daddy grew up in the midwest raking leaves and waiting for the first frost and the first snow and how we wore sweaters and socks to school (LOL!). This season is always one that I LOVED growing up and I miss it dearly! I've enjoyed reading everyone's traditions. :)

It's coming into Spring here in Australia, which we celebrate with lots of outdoor time, playing in the backyard and gardening.

I decorate with all the nifty things I've collected over the years, mini quilts, the pumpkin head doll I made, the owl candle holder, pumpkins, witches and other interesting things like the Halloween Tarot cards that I bought for the art on them.
I can't find my skull though, I hid it too well and haven't put it out. I did make a banner this year that I'll hang tomorrow.
On Halloween, I try to make apple cake. My DD2 hands out treats, usually in costume.
We carve pumpkins just before Halloween so they don't rot before the big night.
My goal for this year is to gather old trick or treat pictures and scrap book them.
Viki

We head to the pumpkin patch with the family and then carve them together too!