Awesome!

Have I told you how awesome my Mom is. She really is. I can not fathom where she got all the energy to raise us kids and have fun while we were at it. Probably cause she's awesome. With all the Halloween and fall preparedness kicking in, I am reminded of the things I loved about my childhood, and it was because of Mom that they were awesome.

First we always, always made popcorn balls. Caramely, buttery popcorn balls. She'd pop a gigantic bowl of popcorn, heat the caramel on the stove and us kids would slather our hands in butter waiting for her to pour the caramel over the popcorn and then tell us we could start molding balls. As we dug in, forming popcorn balls, we'd all being blowing on our fingers saying "ouch...ouch...ouch...hot...hot..hot" all the while we'd keep trading off dipping our hands in the butter and then the popcorn. I looked forward to lunch everyday the week after making them, as Mom always packed them in our lunches. Dad would come home from work excited to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Every holiday we made sugar cutout cookies. What another treat for us kids to have in our lunches. Yummy homemade cookies that we got to cut out and decorate. Spiders, pumpkins, witches and an occasional leaf adorned the Fall cookie collection.

Cookie has started to ask if we can get the Halloween box out of the basement and make cookies. So this year now that it is October, cookies, popcorn balls, and pumpkins are on the agenda. Not to mention a lot of crafting projects, trips to the farm and pumpkin patch, and trick or treating.

While Halloween is not my favorite holiday, Fall is my favorite season. And it does feel like fall. Today I took the kids on a bike ride, enjoying the cool fall weather, the color changes on the trees, and the smell of dampness that was missing all summer.