I Heart Fall

I love love love LOVE fall!! And the leaves are barely starting to turn just now. So the best is yet to come! I'm always surprised at how much I love fall - every year. It's like my soul is happy. Crisp air, frost on the grass, red, yellow, orange leaves, cozy snuggles on the couch with a blanket, cup of coffee & fireplace on. Seriously. It just doesn't get any better than that. Until Christmas season, but really. Christmas time is only awesome cause of the holiday, the actual weather outside is complete crap & depressing that time of year. Fall is where it's at! Fall in Seattle usually consists of rain, rain, more rain, surprise! 1 day of sun! rain, rain, more rain, etc, etc. So last weekend when we had lovely sunshine I took advantage and went to the pumpkin patch with the girls. Abby's allergic to eating pumpkin, or any gourds for that matter, but she can still enjoy picking one out! She actually picked out the most hideous pumpkin in the entire patch. When we got home, Brandon asked if they paid us to take it home? It's one of those warty ones? It's fairly deformed, doesn't even have a nice shape & has all sorts of warts on it. Leave it to Abigail to single that one out & want it to take home. So we did. Brooklyn really enjoyed the festivities at the pumpkin patch. She loved riding in the wheelbarrow, she loved the hay ride. She HATED walking in the pumpkin patch itself. Like. She was mad. took it personal that there were vines for her to maneuver around, she kept tripping. She was hating life. But at the same time she wanted to play. Poor kid. Anyway, here are a couple pics from that adventure.

Abby's insisting we need to carve our big pumpkin into a cat. So I think that's on the schedule for this coming weekend. Life has been busy for us lately, which is normal I know. But I swear I get myself into the most ridiculous situations. I VOLUNTEERED to bake not one, but two cakes for my friend's daughter's birthday party. Who does that!? It took me all day Friday to do all the baking & decorating. Yes, I made the cakes from scratch, yes I made the buttercream frosting from scratch, and yes. I let the girls "help" me which made it twice as hard. But 10x's cuter :) Moral of the story? I love baking birthday cakes/cupcakes for my own family parties because I enjoy baking and I enjoy making special things for those I love. When my hand started to cramp from making a rose cake out of thick buttercream frosting? I had quite run out of love for my friend's tiny family member. Don't think I'll be volunteering my baking services again anytime soon. Plus? I'm on a freakin diet! I baked all this amazing cake, cake happening to be my most favorite food in the entire world, and I couldn't eat any of it.

Also, on the way to the party which I baked the cakes for? Brooklyn threw a 20 minute tantrum/complete meltdown & got so upset that she choked herself and PUKED all over my car. Wanna know what the tantrum was about? She missed her Dadoo! She's been asking for him for about a week now, and on Saturday she'd finally had it. We've been gradually taking her pacifier away, so I didn't bring it with me on the drive, since it wasn't too far to go. Well. that was a big mistake. huge. She wanted Dadoo. We called Dadoo. Then Dadoo had to get off the phone. She was pissed. I started singing her favorite song (If you're happy & you know it...", and this is the look I got --->        So yeah. She was OK for about 3 minutes & then decided I was evil for not letting her see/talk to her Dadoo. She began flipping out & losing her mind, and choked herself and puked everywhere. I pulled over at a gas station & scrounged for extra clothes in the trunk of my car. I'm sure someday I'll look back & laugh at that. But it won't be any time soon. That legit sucked.Yeah. Definitely no more volunteer baking.

On a healthy note though, I've been staying consistent with my diet & exercise. I feel bloated this week, but hoping things will deflate soon :) I've been having a lot of fun making Paleo comfort foods for fall. I've made homemade chicken soup, Paleo chili, Chicken Parmesan, without breading, over kale, and last night was the best pot roast evah! with roasted sweet potatoes & garlic! It's interesting. You think being on a restrictive eating plan that you would be missing out on all things yummy. But I'm actually finding that I'm eating way tastier meals now that I"m eating "clean" than I was before. Who knew food in its natural state was so dang good? And it makes me happy! And I feel good! And yesterday I realized I have little baby quad muscles poking out! And baby triceps! I have muscle definition! What the what!? 

Now if only chocolate cake was Paleo. 

Since I love fall & the weather was amazingly fall-like yesterday, I was dying to get out of the house. But Brandon was not dying for me to leave him alone with the kids. So I took Brooklyn for a 2.5 mile run. And you know what's weird? Any other time in the past 4 years that I've had this jogging stroller & gone on runs with it, running has been SO much harder while pushing the stroller. I'm pushing additional weight, and I can't use my arms to help as leverage during the run. However, during yesterday's run? It was EASY! I mean really really easy! And fun! Brooklyn kept saying "weee!!" any time we hit a bump in the sidewalk. I really do think it's all thanks to my diet & new lifestyle change. I felt like I could have run twice that distance, no problem. And the last .25 mile, Brooklyn fell asleep, so I guess it wasn't as invigorating for her as it was for me.

So that's been our life lately. I really enjoy my girls. Like I really enjoy their company! Brooklyn is growing up out of her baby phase, and I feel like we can kind of "hang out" now. Yet, she still is very much a baby so it's a great mix! And Abigail is so mind blowingly smart, that I'm half scared/intimidated sometimes, but mostly I'm just amazed at this tiny human with so much potential!