Monday, October 11, 2010

Officially Fall

We are having a blast decorating for fall this year. I've never really decorated for fall until the last couple of years when we started to get convicted of celebrating Halloween. We decided to celebrate fall and the harvest instead, so I've been on a mission the last couple of years. I've been finding cute, classy, fall decorations at yard sales very little money. I think I'm maxed out on fall decorations! God is so good. 

I found these leaf garlands at a yard sale.

This is my favorite basket ever! It is a Styrofoam pumpkin. I've filled it with fake fruit and leaves.

More leaves in my basket.

I made this arrangement at MOPS last year. I love it! It is now the centerpiece to my dining room table. Perfect size!

These "sugar coated" pumpkins were a yard sale find. I'd like to pick up a few more eventually. 
I got this wreathe for $25 cents! Perfect for our new porch.
I love this alternative to celebrating Halloween. Last year we started becoming convicted. We tried to make some compromises, but we knew this year, we needed to completely change the way were were celebrating. This is our first year of doing absolutely no trick or treating. We are going to go to the Fairmont Fair at AWANAS, so we can still dress up, play games and get lots of candy, most of which we give away. Our church is also having a Harvest Potluck, so we won't be in want of fun things to do with the family. We feel good about our decision and believe our choice lines up with scripture. 
Thanks to all of you for praying for my son and I. God is good and is honoring those prayers. Things have really smoothed out the last couple of weeks. So much so, that I felt confident to take my sister's son, Marcus (10) who has a very similar personality to Josiah, for the week. I'll be homeschooling them both. I'm praying it'll be another smooth week. 
I enjoyed my sister's company this last weekend. We went on a awesome field trip to Walla Walla, processed tomatoes and apples, made some home cleaning products, cooked up a storm, watched the latest "Emma" and talked way too much as usual. Thanks for an awesome weekend, Stacie!
Hope you are all having a wonderful October and having fun visiting Pumpkin Patches and partaking in all the wonderful family-friendly fall activities out there.

God Bless,
 Jackie

14 comments:

Catherine said...

For some reason most of your pictures are 'x-ed' out, but the one that came through was lovely. You are quite the decorator!

Anonymous said...

Very lovely, Autumn is just such a warm time of year! Those sparkly pumpkins are pretty, I've seen them before in stores.

Leslie said...

Most of the pictures won't show up for me either, but I love the 2 that did. I was convicted about Halloween about 5 years ago as well, and we don't miss it at all. I don't normally decorate the house for seasons, though we do go all out for Christmas, but maybe I should put more effort into decorating for the kids' sake.

Cheesemakin' Mamma said...

Weird. I'm trying to figure this out. Thanks for letting me know. I'll try uploading the pics again.

Grandmabeckyl.blogspot said...

Love your autumn decorations. I'm just waiting for Christmas to come and then I'll decorate! I feel the same way about Hallowe'en...stay away from it and we've given out candy for years. This year we'll be helping with the harvest fest that night at church. Hugs!

p/s photos were fine for me. Sometimes when it's a new post it doesn't come all the way through, maybe? Who knows!

Catherine said...

All your pics show up now, and it looks like you had a grand time decorating. I wish I were better at garage saling, but I'm not inclined that way. Thanks for the Emma recommendation too.

Rachel and Family said...

Beautiful decorations! Great job!
I enjoyed catching up on your last several posts too.

Stacie, A Firefighter's Wife said...

Your decorations were very pretty! I'm so glad I got to see them in person.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one in the family that doesn't celebrate Halloween now! Yeah!

Lori said...

We started decorating for fall a few years ago and are having no halloween this year either. You have made me feel better about it. Our children go to a christian school where most of the people don't celebrate halloween and it shouldn't have been to hard but we were still holding out, till now.

Heart2Heart said...

Jackie,

It's funny how this year, I went more fall than Halloween. It's allowed me to celebrate the season the way I believe it was meant to be and now I can keep my decorations up to the beginning of the Christmas season.

Love and Hugs ~ Kat

Freckles and Frogs said...

Lovely home Jackie! You are so talented! I'm impressed that you are shifting over to the fall festival instead of trick or treating! Your kids will have a blast! We decorated the other night after our failed trip to our local pumpkin patch..... no pumpkins this year! Thanks again for such an inspiring post!

His bondservant said...

Jackie,

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. We don't do Halloween either. We usually have a special "Reformation Night" at home on October 31st. We have a special dinner with yummy treats and we begin to decorate for the Christmas season. Our "Jesus" tree is the first to go up and we put that one up that evening. Once your children get used to not doing "Halloween" they will not miss it. Oct. 31st is one of my children's favorite nights, but for totally different reasons. Once you make God-honoring traditions with them, they will mean so much more now and in the long run!

Blessings,
Jackie

RaD said...

Those are some great decorations. I've been really thinking about the halloween thing a lot too lately, but haven't really talked to Yohn about it.

Amrit said...

Great decorations. Decoration does not need a season :)

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