Super Easy Pumpkin Memo Board

Are you ready for the easiest Fall DIY you've ever seen?

Are you sure? I don't know that you can handle this step by step. Ok here it is. Go to your favorite craft/multi purpose store - Michael's, Joann, Target, Walmart and buy a black craft pumpkin. They have them at most all of these places now! Buy some chalk while you're there. 

Write on the pumpkin with chalk

Wipe off

Repeat

Yep, it's that easy! lol! I had an idea to paint a pumpkin with chalkboard paint but then I saw these black ones and thought maybe I'd try chalk on them first and guess what. It worked! Best DIY ever

They have big ones and little ones. I'm thinking a little display of these with faces the boys draw on out front would be super cute for Fall.

Think you can handle this one? ;)

If you decide to take one in the car for road trip fun, you might want to wipe it off with a damp cloth now and then. You could also get fancy and use the Chalk Markers to make a little more solid design. I'm not sure how long the paint will last on these with constant wiping off, but we've done it quite a few times now with now problems!

A New "Fall" Tradition

As some of you might know we live in the desert so while the weather man says it's "Fall" we don't see a big change in weather quite yet. It still is in the 100's (F) here and swimming is still on our list of activities. However I thought this seemed like a good year to start a new family Fall tradition of apple picking. About an hour north of us we can drive to a little ranch and pick our own apples and a few pears.

The crop was pretty low this year and they weren't even charging people when we got up there because of it. We weren't going to let that stop us though! We found some good ones still hidden in the leaves. The boys' favorite part was the animals I think. Both warm and cold blooded animals. I swear my boys could find the tiniest most camouflage bugs anywhere!

(a treat for the road)

For those in the Phoenix area we went to Date Creek Ranch just north of Wickenburg. Unfortunately they only had one apple picking weekend and are now sold out (we only heard about it the morning of) but definitely keep an eye on it for next year.

We'll go to a "pumpkin patch" here in a few weeks but that's about all I have planned. I'd love to add some new ones though. What are your family's Fall traditions?

A visit to the farm and packing materials

How is that title for random? I just wanted to share some pictures from our fun little visit to a farm last week. We got a cool spell for a bit (even though we're back to 100F this week) so we took advantage of the weather and headed to the farm.

One of the boys' favorite activites is the duck race. You pump water and whoever's duck reaches the end first - wins.

and there's always the animals

and play equipment

They had an area to play in corn so of course you'd make corn angels

as you can see it wasn't busy at all so they had lots of time to play. At one point they were jumping into the corn and my oldest yells "CORNONBALL!" They crack me up.

and a corn maze! We got into it as the sun was setting and ended up looking at the map to get out because it was getting dark. Of course right after we got out they brought out flashlights to use in the maze. That would have been fun!

It was a really fun relaxing trip and we were a little excited to be wearing pants. I can't believe this was last week as we sit here back in shorts and tshirts.

And on to the second part of the title - packing materials! They are so fun to play with aren't they? I order my dogs' food online because it ends up being cheaper for me and they ship it right to my door. The boys like it because it comes with "Butt Blasters" (they loving name the boys came up with for the air filled padding).

They always make me laugh playing with this stuff but they were SO excited to see it come in one looooong strip this time that I ran to get the camera before they were finished. They made a game and each started on one side to see who could pop all their bubbles and get to the middle first. 

They pop them by dropping down on their bottoms. My youngest decided to try his feet but ultimately decided that landing on your bottom is SO much more fun.

I only got these 2 pictures in by the time I got a memory card in the camera, but you get the idea. 

What fun things have you done with packing material? 

Fall Pumpkin Craft

Do you have seasons where you live? We don't. We have summer and not summer. Seriously. We CAN drive to see Fall though which I plan on doing this year! It's fun to talk with the boys about how every state is different and every country is different and what is so unique about each one.

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