Watermelons are the new Pumpkins

Our autumn weekends have passed us by way too quickly! We did not have the chance to do many of the fun fall things that we usually do. The first weekend in October I got my wisdom teeth pulled, so we did not do a whole lot that weekend, then the following two weekends in a row I coached gymnastics, and I never coach on Saturdays so that threw those weekends for a loop. Finally, during the last weekend of the month, Dave and I were out of town. The Tuesday after we returned, Alyssa started A Christmas Carol rehearsals, so even when we do have a spare moment at home, she's never here, and it seems like we are stuck in this holding pattern, just waiting for her to get home so we don't do anything fun without her. It kind of feels like a Fall Fail on the part of keeping up with little traditions we enjoy. We didn't visit any pumpkin farms or even buy or carve a single pumpkin this year. Oh well, time marches on and there's always next Fall.

The first week of November I still had not harvested our remaining watermelons from over the summer.

But once they were picked and lined up on the back bench, they looked almost as cute as a row of pumpkins sitting out there. And about those pumpkins we tried to grow this summer...yep, that's them in front of the watermelons. What started out looking so promising as beautiful orange blooms with a little pumpkin sprout at the bottom eventually failed to grow.

I debated letting the girls paint the watermelons {I'm pretty sure it's too late to eat them} or even try to carve them. It can't possibly be any harder than scooping out pumpkin guts, right? But it might just be time for them to go to the compost pile. So regardless of my desire to make watermelons the newest autumn trend, I would likely have a very difficult time convincing the rest of the family that watermelons could take the place of pumpkins as an appropriate Thanksgiving sidedish.

A few photos of the girls to serve as a reminder to myself that we really have done something other than run from place to place in the last several weeks...

Dave took the two younger girls to Laternennacht {Night of the Lanterns} while Alyssa was at rehearsal, and I coached.

Rebekah chose some German Dance dresses that she would like to wear. Miss Irene better get busy on these soon if each girl is going to have anything this intricate by GermanFest in July!!

Emma spent a great deal of time working on building a castle for their German Castle unit.

Rebekah has played lots of my little pony lately. Poor Dave was trying to watch an Iowa game less than two feet away from these ponies in all their beautiful glory.

We went to a Hearts and Hands quilting night at school where each family was given a quilt square to design and the squares will be assembled into beautiful blankets and sent to an orphanage in Bolivia. We also were able to design squares with the letters of the alphabet to hang up in one of their classrooms.

Our sweet teenage birthday girl on the morning of her 13th birthday! She was in love with these jeans from Dave's parents. They are a really dark denim wash with a super sparkly sheen to them. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!

The weather was nice enough today for me to go for jog outside earlier today. What a blessing, and at least a little surprising for the end of November ~ I love to exercise outdoors so much more than inside! So maybe Fall is not gone for good yet...