The Best Parts of Fall

I love Fall. It is my favorite season. I was somewhat saddened when we lived in China during the Autumn months, because the geography didn't lend itself to beautiful bright colors. The trees mainly consisted of pine. I have great memories of raking leaves and burying myself or my brother in them (or even the random friend).

So, I decided to make some Fall memories for Sam this week. I grabbed our rake and went out to our Sugar Maples, whose leaves have almost finished falling and...



I created this. He doesn't look happy in this photo, but mark my words, he was thrilled. He loves running and jumping into the leaves, as any boy should.

I am also a huge fan of the hydrangea flower. To be honest, it is my favorite. When it first blooms, I love to gather as many as I can and put them into a small vase. It thrills me to no end to have a vase full of pink or blue blossoms. I was so excited to learn that we've got our very own hydrangea plant at our new house.




I love the way the flower dries up, the brown shades seem so crisp and "Fall-ish" to me. You can imagine how tickled I was this morning when I got a close-up view of our now brown hydrangeas.

We've been experimenting with food this week. Last night we had grilled marinated steak with an amazing mushroom, sun-dried tomato, and roasted red pepper topping. Don't worry, it was buy-one-get-one-free at our local market. For dessert, I made "fried" ice cream. I've never had "fried" ice cream before, so I wasn't exactly sure how it was supposed to look.


I think it looks pretty tasty, if you ask me. Crushed cornflakes mixed with cinnamon and sugar coat the vanilla ice cream, along with a drizzle of honey on top of a cinnamon-sugar sprinkled fried tortilla. Okay, not the most low-cal dessert I could have chosen, but dessert's not supposed to be low-cal.

I have no regrets

Any requests on the recipe-front? We've been making homemade graham crackers this week and have almost finished working the kinks out of the recipe. They're really delicious!

Thanks to everyone who has committed to praying for our little girl. I appreciate all the emails and comments. I'm looking forward to hearing how God has touched your life during the month of November as we all join together in intense prayer!