It Is Fall, Dammit. Not Advent.

Well, we are in the middle of that new-fangled vacation known as Fall Break.  I do not recall enjoying anything as awesome as Fall Break when I was slogging through school, but here my children have a FIVE DAY WEEKEND smack dab in the middle of October.

While it is a bit long, I don't mind this little vacances too much, because the weather here at this time of year is simply sublime.  And because I am a fabulous mother (cough, cough), we hit the second of two pumpkin patches today in as many days: 

Sylvie loves to do anything outside, and will roam as fast as her legs will carry her, which is a bit problematic when one also has four other children to track.  At one point, my boys ran into a huge corn maze, and by the time I grabbed Sylvie the three of them were already deep in the throes of the maze.  So I waited anxiously with Colette, occasionally seeing one of their heads pop up in the distance, and was quite relieved ten minutes later when they emerged, red-faced and exultant, from running through the "real" maze.

Man, I can't even go to a pumpkin patch without drama.

After that, there was no way I was going to humor them and let them carve pumpkins (how am I supposed to deal with knives and a one year old simultaneously without some bloodletting?), so they contented themselves with picking out ninety pound pumpkins for us to haul home. 

Among other antics.

But while we are busy frolicking in all this fall-ness, some evil retailers are already sneaking their Christmas stuff out.  BLECH!  Who wants to start thinking about THAT right now?  So I was terribly proud of my favorite store when a friend posted this picture for me:

Yay Nordstrom!  Although the Nordstrom Brothers still fire out little emails like the "Social Season Style Guide:"

Oh my.  With gorgeous cocktail numbers like these, a little bit of holiday teasing is just fine.

But I swear I will puke in the aisle if I see another singing reindeer stocking before the end of October.