Sensing Fall... Who knew?

You can't see it or feel it around here, but you can certainly smell it and taste it; Fall is coming! I wanted to make this week a little bit special in anticipation of my favorite season. My goal has been to get this place cleaned-up enough to actually decorate on Friday, the first day of fall. Not sure that is going to happen, but at least we are enjoying a few hints of fall around here!


For fun, we made some pumpkin pie-smelling playdough and I let the girls play with it and orally do their spelling rather than writing it down. Of course, the fun doesn't come without a price, (eh-hem MESS!) See Exhibit A:

Who knew that ground cloves, when poured onto a burner, could cause a huge flame of fire? Poor Sierra was frozen in shock for about 5 minutes after that. Rest assured, nobody was actually hurt in the making of this playdough!


And, what is fall without a little baking? Today we made some iced pumpkin cookies. The big girls were busy making a mess playing with playdough once again, while allowing Sierra to be my mess maker helper. (Side note: If you ever come over to my house in the middle of a school day, please be warned; it is not pretty!)

While enjoying our iced pumpkin cookies, we worked on one of my girls' favorite activities; Mad Libs. I love how they get a kick out of the silliness of it all! I found some fall Mad Libs on Classroom Jr, (though be warned there is a "then" that should be a "than" on the apple picking one!)

"Leafy" grilled cheese...

... And, pumpkin smoothies! Let me tell you -- these were a huge hit! Sierra didn't stop sucking until it was gone, and even Miss Natalie, (not a smoothie fan), finished hers! Allison didn't even try them, which is highly unusual for her. But, quite frankly I was happy to drink hers! I LOVED them! Here's what I did:

Pumpkin Pie Smoothies
ice
vanilla yogurt
2 bananas
pumpkin pie puree
sweet tea
Pumpkin pie spice

I will be doing this again very soon... probably tomorrow morning! :) We have lots more fall to come; stay tuned!