Fall

We have spent that last 2 months celebrating the coming of fall.  That means cooler weather, finally some outside time for these rambunctious little guys!  We decorated the house with bats, made some googley eyed bat cookies to match, carved some pumpkins, and went on a hike up in Payson to find our nature lover (Preston) some colorful leaves.

I love decorating for holidays.  My kids are always so excited to see what decorations go up.  They love to help in the festivities and I love seeing their happy little faces.

We went to a Fall Festival / pumpkin patch with their cousins.  They had a fun time riding the tractor pull, bouncing on the enormous bouncy thing, and going down giant tube slides that went so fast that your bum felt like it was on fire after you went down.  

I love these 2 little goof balls.

We went up to Payson and visited the Tonto Natural Bridge.  I have been wanting to go up here for a while and I had to pretty much twist Matt's arm to get there but I think we all had a fun excursion seeing some fall colors, enjoying the mountains and doing a tiny bit of hiking.

Preston was quite disappointed when he was not seeing leaves on our trees at home change colors.  He has always loved the color changing that happens in the fall.  In fact one day on our way to the bus stop we passed a tree that was dying so the leaves were turning brown and he started jumping up and down all excited that finally the trees were going to change color.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that the tree was just dying and it was not going to be a spectacular show that he is used to.  So of course when we got out of the car the first thing Preston does is point out the trees changing colors and runs right to them.

As we started our hike preston spotted a stick that he wanted to be his walking stick.  It was pretty big branch so matt broke it in half and ta-da we had two walking sticks for 2 boys. Matt had to show them how it was done and before long we were on our way to explore the bridge.

I am not a huge fan of cactus, but I thought they were particularly pretty when they have their fruit on them.  

On the way back up Matt had to rush up to the car with a stinky boy.  Preston and I slowly made our way back as preston pointed out some of his favorite things.  These pictures are some of his favorites.

On our way home we stopped in Fountain Hills.  Where they have this huge fountain that goes off and reaches 330 feet.  Apparently on special occasions they can have it reach over 560 feet.  It goes on for 15 minutes and is quite impressive.  The boys lost interest after about 5 minutes and went about doing what they do best.