It is officially fall!  I am really ready for the weather to be cold.  We thought picking apples would be a good thing so off we went to get some fresh fuji's off the tree of a local farm.  We picked a couple bushels.  The apples had many holes in them but they will be perfect for applesauce and apple butter that is in the schedule tonight.

Anniversary gift
Mike and I are celebrating our 12th anniversary next week and we've been wanting to waste less money at Starbucks so we got an espresso maker for our annivesary gift.  Turns out there is a lot to know about espresso makers: the difference in how they extract the coffee flavor, the power of the steam and etc.  That means I bought the wrong one, returned it and ordered the right one off Amazon.  Next week we will be happily sipping our own homemade espresso's.  I even ordered Starbuck's syrup and espresso pods.  I'll let you know how we like it!

Dinner games
The other night while Mike was gone at dinner time, the kids and I came up with a fun game called "Charades behind the curtain".  We have these curtains in our dining area and as the sun sets, if you go behind the curtain, it makes a perfect silouhette.  So we took turns acting out things behind the curtains.  I'm telling you it was dinnertime fun!

Shopping and the closet
I went through my closet and am 3 bags lighter of clothes to be donated and I actually threw away about 6 pairs of shoes.  You know, flip flops that are getting retired from summer, boots that were chewed on by long ago puppies.  My closet looks much more organized.  I also did some shopping lately (the real reason I need to weed through my closet) and found a really cute fall dress that needed the perfect pair of brown boots (I found some later), some great jeans, and a cute shirt.

october school break
The kids get a three day weekend next week (teacher inservice + budget reduction days) and we are looking forward to some museum adventures, maybe seeing a movie and making these with some pretty autumn leaves.

Colorful Fall printables
And last but NOT least, I came across a post from a favorite blog that has a link to some great fall printables to liven up your home. I think I might have to do a fall baking post soon with all the great recipes I want to try.

Aren't they so cute?

Oh, by the way, you really should try Pinterest.  It's a virtual pinning board-a place to keep things you like on the internet.  Here is my board: http://pinterest.com/casekristi/

We really love sweet potatoes.  Really.