One fall morning...

October 28, 2004

Fall is such a beautiful, if not slightly meloncholic time. Melancholic in that we know winter is approaching, although if you live in Alberta you're already in winter! Today the sky is a cystal clear brillant blue. There is a slight wind that carries the leaves gently down.

This morning the kids and I went outside for some frolicking in the leaves. I absolutely love this part of being a stay at home mother of young children. The pure joy and delight in nature and simple pleasures and having the time to enjoy life. We spent a little time raking leaves in our yard. Unfortunately for the children we didn't have too many. So we wandered to our next door neighbors, who are parents of our landlords and have invited us to use their yard. Their yard is covered in brilliant red and orange leaves. We played there and had a little granola bar picnic. Then we thought we'd check in on some friends who are new to the neighborhood. We walked to their house but they weren't home.

The morning was too beautiful to stop there so we proceeded down the block looking for leaves to stamp around it. We hit the jackpot 6 houses down at a huge leaf pile stacked in the front yard. This family also has 3 children so I knew it was for playing in. I thought I'd check first though. I ended up having a great conversation with the mother, whose own mother happens to be Canadian, and whose aunts and uncles live in Edmonton. Her uncle actually owns/manages the local All Weather Windows there. I hadn't really met this neighbor before and we had a great chat. Then I played in the leaf pile with the kids. I was huge and really fun. We finally came home for lunch and have tracked tiny leaf bits all over the house, which surprisingly hasn't bothered me at all. For those of you who've known me for years this is quite a change for me.

What a wonderful morning. Enjoying life's simple pleasures - fall leaves, a brilliant blue sky, the laughter of children is really want brings meaning to life.

renee on Oct. 29, 2004, 6:31 a.m.

When I was teaching primary school, we used to collect some perfect looking leaves and bring them back to the classroom. Then we preserved them by pressing them with a warm iron between two pieces of wax paper (to pick up the wax from the paper). Then we did art collages with them. Another thing we used to do is cover a leaf with a sheet of paper and lightly rub a pencil over the paper to pick up the leaf shape and indentations. There are probably other neat things you can do with fall leaves if you look in craft books. Finding different leaf shapes and comparing them and trying to identify the trees and shrubs is fun too.(:eek:)

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- renee on Nov. 2, 2004, 3:24 a.m.
  
  Thanks for the cool ideas mom. I'm always interested in fun, learning activities I can do with the kids.
  
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renee on Oct. 31, 2004, 1:08 a.m.

Renee, You take such awesome pictures. You have an eye for what it takes to make a good picture. I absolutely love fall too, but our fall this year was so short. It is nice to see the pictures from your fall day with the kids, cause we don't get so many red leaves here in the fall. Keep posting pictures!

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