It's Fall!

It's official.
Fall has finally arrived in Florida.
It is only about 5 degrees cooler, but man does it make a difference!

Our mornings look like this...

French doors wide open.

My afternoons look like this...

Outside playing with the kiddos.

And our evenings are often spent riding bikes, bouncing the basketballs, or anything else that involves burning off those last few ounces of energy that the boys may have.

The cooler weather also enticed me to take Parker to Old McMickey's Farm, a local farm where they tour kids around and let them pet all the animals, milk the cows, chase and catch chickens, run amongst the towering oak trees dripping with Spanish moss and basically just be kids.

Parker was in heaven being able to chase the chickens (sorry, no pictures, I was trying to make sure he didn't kill any of them), and he loved the pigs (and yes, one of them was named Wilbur)...

Apparently, pigs are very clean animals. Who knew?

Parker, meet Wilbur. Wilbur... Parker.

Even though I didn't have any food, they were happy to come right up to my hand.

What he wasn't so sure about was milking the cow. He didn't want anything to do with it. Probably because of her sheer size. But she was very friendly and patient and didn't make any horrible "moo-ing" sounds as I attempted to milk her.

Poor thing couldn't move if she tried.

I'm pretty sure she's giving me the stink eye.

And of course there were horses...

Apparently the mesh "mask" is to keep the flies off the horse's eyes. She could see through it.

...and goats...

...and baby bunnies...

...and giant bunnies!

The farm itself was so beautiful.

It's definitely a place I want to come back to with Payton some time. I know he would love playing with all the animals too.

Another fun thing we did this weekend was attend a train show at our favorite train store near St. Petersburg. Twice a year they have a huge train show where people come from all over to show off their intricately detailed train displays.

The show is free and open to the public and the kids have a ball looking at all the displays.

The weather was perfect, which was good since the show is outdoors under a big tent.

After such a fun weekend spent outdoors, we ended the evening with a "fire" in the fireplace and cuddled up on the couch to watch "The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

Sometimes, it's the little traditions that mean so much.

Hope your week is off to a great start!

Tune in later this week for a new recipe and a post about warding off afternoon boredom for kids.