Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my wonderful mother's birthday, she is 51 today. We celebrated last night by going out to dinner with the family (most of us anyway) and it was so nice being able to spend time together. It's rare that my brother, sister-in-law, sister husband and parents are all together. Of course my hubby was out of the country but it was great seeing everyone else. I know my mom was happy too. :-)

Today's prompt in the NaBloPoMo is;

"Winter and summer are two seasons that have songs clearly associated with the time period. But are there any songs that remind you of fall?"

My response to that? None. Really. I've been thinking about this today and literally there isn't a single song that I can say always reminds me of fall. Is that sad? There are plenty of songs out there that remind of of certain times of my life, certain people in my life, even winter...but not fall.

So instead of writing about the song that makes me think of fall, here I'll leave you with a list of popular fall songs. Maybe here soon I'll hear a song on the radio and I'll think "YES! That's it! This song makes me think back to fall..." but for now, I'll leave you with this...

Wake Me Up When September Ends Green Day
Gone Till November  Wyclef Jean
Girl from the North Country  Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash
October  Broken Bells
California Dreamin'  The Mamas & The Papas
Harvest Moon  Neil Young
Autumn In New York  Bille Holiday
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground  The White Stripes
Autumn  Bombay Bicycle Club
Country Song  Jake Bugg 
Autumn Almanac  The Kinks
Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy  Fall Out Boy
Autumn Leaves (ft. Kendrick Lamar) Chris Brown 
November Rain  Guns N' Roses 
Autumn Leave Eva Cassidy



Looking over a few of these songs I can say that "Wake Me Up When September Ends" does make me think about fall time. I just never realized it before.


There you have it. Are there any songs that make you think of the fall time?

Favorite Autumn Sound

I've been thinking about this one all day. Autumn brings upon many different smells, sights and tastes, certainly different feelings as the weather starts to change. But what does Autumn sound like? And what's my favorite of those sounds?

When I was younger the sounds were different this time of year. I'd be starting school again, getting ready in the morning with the birds chirping, listening to other kids in the neighborhood piling into their cars, the school bell ringing and lots of talkative friends.

I don't hear those sounds anymore. Someday, when Alivia is starting school I'm guessing those sounds will come rushing back to me. But now, as an adult and a married woman and a mommy? It's the crunching of the leaves under my little girls feet. The sound of her little voice saying "Mommy crunch!" and her shoes running across the pavement or sloshing through the wet grass as fast as she can go to crunch the leaves on the ground. It's the sound of her giggles and smiles as she looks up at me while stomping her little feet in the leaves and looking around for more to chase.

The sound of  leaves blowing down the sidewalk in the wind is also quite nice. It's a little unsettling as it usually reminds me of some scary movie but it's also calming when it's the only thing you hear.

My favorite sound of fall has changed over the years, that's for sure. My liking for the season at all has changed, and that's a good thing.

Can I do it?

So I've decided to join NaBloPoMo for the month of October. I was initially looking for info on "blogtoberfest" but didn't see exactly what I was looking for. Or at least it's not what I thought I was looking for. Either way, I remember seeing Heather from Heather Drive post about joining this before so I thought I'd give it a try.

I was happy to see that this month is all about Fall. Which I love. And I'm not sure when that happened. I used to only really love Spring and Summer but I guess as I've gotten older I've come to appreciate the wonderful season of Fall! Now the challenge will just be weather or not I can actually blog every day. This will be my first time joining in on something like this but I think it might be fun.

Basically there is a prompt for each day of October, though it appears that the "weekends" are whatever you want to post about. Here's a link back to the original website I found this on. I'll have to search around on the site to see what "NaBloPoMo" even stands for and learn a little more about the history of her blog. BlogHer.

Well...we'll see how I do!

Mini Hiking Trip

Last month Dustin, Alivia, my mom and Tim all went up to Estes Park to go for a nice little hike. The weather was great and we had a good time. Alivia started "hiking" which we tried getting on video but true to form she stopped each time we tried.
She had fun chasing the squirrels, looking for "bear prints", and making grandpa run around like crazy.

The hike includes a trip around a very beautiful lake. We'll be stopping by here again for sure!

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” 
-- John Muir




Pretty Bluejay

Don't jump in little monkey!

Beautiful lake!

The family!

Interesting pattern to the seaweed.

Trying to smell the flowers.

She was washing the ground...

Now that's first class service!

Love

Baby girl was worn out!

 I was trying to upload another video but it's a bit too long for Blogger to accept. Therefore I have to figure out how to edit it...you may never see it.

My little helper

I only pray that she loves doing this as she gets older!