Autumn

Dear Autumn,

I always thought of you as brisk, yet sunny, colorful leaves, cool evenings, soup weather, crunchy leaves, and sweaters.

I'm starting to see you in a different light...

we now live in a city that seems to have merely 2 seasons, rather than 4. The seasons here in Texas seem to be 1) warm, and 2) HOT.

It might take a little getting used to, but I'm sure we'll adjust. I do miss seeing you the way I've known you for so long - yet if I turn the AC up I can wear a sweater while making soup for dinner. But I can also soften the butter for our traditional pumpkin-chocolate-chip cookies by putting it outside for 5 minutes. Not bad. And if the soup is too hot - we can always go take a dip in the pool while we wait for it to cool off. 

All joking aside, I have missed the Autumn I used to know. BUT I'm getting used to our new Autumn. I can't complain, because essentially Autumn in Austin is like summer in Seattle - and that is my favorite time of year. 

When we were looking for a place to live in Austin, we met with a realtor to find a good rental. He took Jacob on a tour of a few places...all of them were nice. But it came down to a decision between two. One apartment was a little bigger - but on the third floor. The other, a tad bit smaller, but ground floor with a little fenced yard. Within walking distance to a park that has tennis courts/basketball courts/sand volleyball/playground/pool/water feature/huge paved path for biking or jogging. With 3 little kiddos, can you guess which one was the winner? Our apartment community (yes, it's like a whole little town almost) has two pools as well. And one of them has this huge area that is only 6 inches deep. I LOVE it because it enables me to take the kids to the pool by myself and feel like no one will drown. In fact, spending so much time in the water has really been great for the kids. And me. And us. The first couple of weeks when we got here and it was in the triple digits, we took our little trio night swimming before bed almost EVERY single night. It was a piece of heaven. At first, the kids kept asking if we were going back to our "hotel". It does feel rather resort-ish living here. But it's starting to feel more like home. Our boxes are all un-packed. The kids' new beds arrived. I mostly just need to finish organizing closets and we'll all settled. We even got Texas license plates this week! I digress...anyway - I love love love the water! It's such a pick me up. One bonus of renting an apartment is that we have one just a few steps from our front door. I might miss some parts about traditional Autumn, but I love that here we can swim so much of the year. Love it!

Miss Hazel is getting so squishy and chunky! She'll be 4 months next week and she is just delicious! She doesn't look too happy in the above photo...probably because shortly thereafter I had to rescue her from her sister - who, quite literally, smothers her in love. 

Cute big sis. She has the best of intentions. She just loves her baby sister so much that sometimes we have to pry her away. So far, we don't do princesses in our house and Aspen has never seen a Disney princess movie so doesn't yet know who the princesses are. BUT she knows who ballerinas are. I was going through boxes and trying to organize the clothes in their closet and happened upon my stack of "to grow into" clothes (I like to buy things off-season when they're on sale, thus next seasons wardrobe is cheaper yet still so cute and stylish, just waiting to be grown into). Anyway, she found this 3T swim suit that I got for next summer on sale last spring. She grabbed it and said "it's a Ballerina dress!" I didn't even try to talk her into saving it for next year...she even talked me into putting a bun in her hair. She's obsessed. It's adorable! I don't think she's old enough for ballet classes yet, but sometime in the future I think she'll be a very excited girl to go to ballet class. Maybe when she's 4 or 5? (I'm of the opinion kids generally start activities way too early...I think they need something to really look forward to and be excited about when they have to wait for it a little longer :)

Maybe she'll take after Aunt Tia and Aunt Erin and be a dancer?

Anyone else love the clearance aisle at Target? I found these two fish squirter things there for like $4 - and they've provided hours of fun. Love it!

So, as you can see, we are welcoming Autumn in an Austin kind of way. Sometimes we pretend it's fall - but really, it just feels like an eternal summer. Strangely, living here I may finally come to appreciate winter :) Everyone talks about "when it cools off a bit..." Rumor has it in November it will cool off a bit. We shall see :) Rumor also has it we will be chopping our Christmas tree down in short sleeved t-shirts. I was talking to someone about what to expect with winter and she said "If you have a sweater, that's great - but I wouldn't buy any more". I get the feeling winter is rather mild. I think I'm gonna love it!