red leaf, yellow leaf.

Yesterday we were supposed to go apple picking, but things came up with both families we were going with, so it got postponed for another day (hopefully soon!).  Instead we decided to do some crafts with my friend Shawna and her family.
We decided to do some fall keepsake paintings, using the kids' arm/hand-prints as a tree trunk, and little dots of paint on their finger as the leaves.  They didn't quite understand how close together the leaves should be, but they still had a lot of fun and the trees still turned out super cute!

 

After making our fall trees, we read a story about the life of a sugar maple tree. titled Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.

The kids were sort of itching to go play instead, but they still seemed to enjoy the book. 

We sent them out to try to find leaves in the yard after, but they weren't really interested, so we just let them play instead.

I tried to make pizza dough in the bread machine while they played, but I hit the button one too many times and ended up baking it (as a quick bread!)

note to self: check what number you pressed before you hit the start button!!

.....so we went out to dinner instead.  I was sort of upset with myself after, we're pretty short on money and with the place being super crowded and the food not being all that great it wasn't a very enjoyable use of our money.

Overall, though, it was a good day! It really inspired me to do more crafts with the girls, AND to hang up their artwork around the house.  I put our little handprint trees in our kitchen and it already feels more bright and cheery, and the girls are so proud to see them there.