The Autumn of '09

I love the fall in Pennsylvania. I love when the leaves burst into tons of bright shades of orange, yellow, green, and red. I love the smell of burning leaves on the crisp air. And the local farms with all of their fun fall family festivities (alliteration score for me!). One fall thing that we have missed out on for the past few years is a Kelleher family hayride/bonfire. I always loved those hayrides. Maybe next year. One new tradition (thanks to Mom) is visiting "Mum Mountain" at Ott's nursery. The foods of fall that I love are: pumpkin chocolate chip bread (I baked 12 loaves this year - not all for myself), mashed potatoes, anything that involves the combination of sweet potatoes and marshmallows, and Reese's pumpkins (the extra large version of their cups - with a much higher peanut butter ratio to chocolate).

My favorite thing about the fall is Halloween. I always enjoyed it as a kid (what kid doesn't love dressing up and demanding free candy from local strangers?), but I think I like it even more now. I love decorating the house - something my mom has always done a great job of. I love telling myself that I'm going to make awesome costumes for the kids - and almost believing it -and then failing to follow through. Which is why I also love scrounging around for an easy costume at the last second. I don't love carving pumpkins, but I do have a strange love for scooping the guts out of them! (Scraping the inner walls of the pumpkin with a metal spoon until all of the seeds are out, and no strings left behind...) I used to love when my mom cooked "Dinner in a Pumpkin" (which is exactly what it sounds like) before trick-or-treating. I will make it when the kids are older. I love going to the "pumpkin house" in my parents' neighborhood (which is not exactly what it sounds like). They have over a hundred pumpkins carved with amazing designs - faces of celebrities, characters from animated films, typical Halloween icons, and even some religious ones. (Apparently the "last supper" was "Dinner in a Pumpkin".)

We don't do much trick-or-treating with the kids yet, but I love our annual stop at my parents' neighbors' house where we always get VIP boxes of Cracker Jacks. I also enjoy observing my dad as he makes the neighborhood kids squirm before giving them candy. It's shocking how many kids don't say "trick or treat" these days. Instead they just hold out their bags and wait for the candy to be presented to them without a verbal exchange. My dad does not give it up that easy, and why should he? I mean, that's all they have to do/say to get free candy. Still, I can't help but imagine that, years in the future, my dad will be referred to as "old man Anderson" by the neighborhood kids. (I love you, Dad. Please don't be offended - I can't afford to lose any of my readers.)

Lastly, I love the after-Halloween sales. Target has amazing Halloween decor, but I never want to pay full price, so I (impatiently) wait until the day after Halloween when everything is 50% off. Then 75%, and eventually 90%.

And I will now end with a quick summary of my autumnal dislikes: bobbing for apples (ew), spiders (whether alive or in decoration form does not matter), spiderwebs (the real ones), dead leaves, raking leaves, half-bare trees, changing the clocks, corn mazes (who needs 'em? Why do people pay to get lost?), jumping into a nice big pile of leaves only to realize that it's laced with cat poop, and when Brett doesn't let me dress him up as a hooker (I just realized that I have 2 trick-or-treaters/victims of my own now....stay tuned for Halloween 2010!). The foods of fall that I dislike are: candy corn, Mary Jane candies (which only appear at Halloween, and I convinced myself at a young age that they were the poisoned candy we were warned about because they taste so gross), pumpkin pie, and stuffing.

STOP: .... PICTURE TIME!

A tree bursting with autumn goodness

Green leaves

Orange leaves

We went to Merrymead Farm the day before Halloween with Jay's parents.

Killian loved the pumpkins.

This is known as "the Dana face" - named for the face that I made in almost every professional school picture. Notice how the eyebrows are arched in a judgmental way.

He was determined to lift that pumpkin. Sometimes he thinks he's people.

Butt shot!

Finn did a lot of this:

And a little of this:

I thought this was a silly face.

Killian trying to sit on the stem of the pumpkin. Perhaps he's "gifted".

Finn's face was still in reclined car seat mode:

Making bubbles:

Finn being sassy:

I think his face kind of resembles the pumpkin on his shirt

(not the pumpkin's face, but the roundness)

Me-Mom bought Killian a cookie in the Merrymead store...

Killian was very excited to dig in...

He was happy with the results...

But who needs hands when you can eat right off of a bird poop-ridden picnic table?

He decided to try a dried edamame bean...

But quickly went back to the cookie.

Meanwhile, Finn made record-breaking bubbles!

We had a great time.
These are some beautiful mums my Mum bought for me. (Get it?)

They were from Ott's.

On Halloween, Finn was a cheeky monkey!

And a chunky monkey.

And, sadly, this is the only full-body shot we got of him in his costume.

Which is, sadly, better than what we got of Killian.

I laugh every time I see this picture. I can't figure out exactly why, but I think he looks like a serial rapist. I think it's the black sweatsuit and greaseball-looking hair, combined with the weird face anddead eyes he has going, and his stance. (As Jean said: he looks sweaty and determined - lol)

And in case you were wondering what we carved into our pumpkin this year - it turns out that we have a very friendly animal who decided to "carve" it for us:

And some slugs who decided to help finish the design.

(Sooo gross, right?)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!