apple picking.

I apologize in advance for the 28 billion pictures that follow in this post, but if I could bottle up my children right now, just as they are, this is what it would look like, and I really don’t want to limit documenting that.  You’ve been warned.

I don’t know at what point fall “the season” became a tangible part of my life, but it has become such a character in my story.  If fall was a person, it would be my most favorite ever.  October has always been lovely, even when I was a child.  We’d drive up to this place in Northern California where I grew up, called Bishop’s pumpkin farm and we’d go on a hayride out to a giant field to pick our pumpkins.  We did a lot of those kinds of magical things in the fall growing up, and I think even before I thought about it enough to decide, this time of year with it’s sweater weather, and crisp air and changing leaves has always been my favorite.  Even more than in the summer it makes me want to get out and just do things.  (it also, somehow simultaneously makes me want to stay home and drink cocoa and read books, if that makes any sense at all.)   October, I think we can all agree is the loveliest of months and our October is positively packed with birthdays, which makes me feel somehow even more festive.

Fall always puts me in the mood for pies and I’ve been wanting to bake an apple pie for several weeks with fresh-from-the-orchard apples, so on Carter’s birthday, when the ducklings were out of school for Columbus day, we drove up to Mount Vernon to pick ourselves some apples.  And the wind blew and it rained a little in that perfect winnie-the-pooh blustery sort of way.  They ran all through that apple orchard, up and down the rows of trees, picking away and filling their baskets to the brim, till they could barely carry them.  Then, when they were so full of beautiful pinkish-red Jonagold apples we went out into the field by the orchard and they just ran and danced and laid in the grass, until the sky opened up and gave us a little bit of sun, just enough for a rainbow.  We could see right where it touched the earth.  It was kind of magic.

The older my children get, the more I feel how beautiful and fleeting childhood really is.  Is this how all mothers feel?  Watching their children grow, loving the change and somehow dreading it at the same time.  Sometimes I wish I could go back, just so I could do it all over again with them.  I don’t think I would change anything, even the mistakes I’ve made, I’d just want to live it all again.  Slow down, feel those little babies in my arms, watch them grow bigger and stronger and smarter all over again.  All those thousands of moments, all those little memories.  What an adventure motherhood has been, what adventures I’ve yet to have… I can’t wait to find out.

“As soon as I saw you, I knew a grand adventure was about to happen.”- winnie-the-pooh

On me: Boots, Sweatshirt (similar here and here.) Scarf (similar here and here.) Jacket. Bag. 

On Hannah: boots, sweater.