Since I’ve already shared a massive post with more than 150 fall bucket list ideas, it would only be fitting to share what is on our family’s list for the season. Some things we do every year religiously, others are a pipe dream (I don’t think I’ll ever convince Rowan to go in a corn maze), lots of baking and cooking with fall flavors, and a couple fall cleanup projects around the house. Let’s dive in.
Our Adventurous Options
Go Apple Picking
We do this every year and this year it’s tops on our list. We have so many local orchards around us to try. It seems like every year we go a couple of times. Once to our favorite location and another excursion to a new-to-us orchard. I love going earlier in the season because tart McIntosh apples are my favorite for making applesauce.
A Golfing Day Date With Colby
During the winters, I work at a large ski resort as a ski instructor. One of the perks, free golf in the summer. Colby and I used to avid golfers before kids and we’re anxious to get back into the sport. Naturally, we haven’t used our free passes once this year. So while the kids are in school, I want to schedule a day date for us to golf just nine holes so we can get back in time for school pickup.
Trek To The Pumpkin Wagon
One of the unique characteristics of where we live is there’s a local, organic farm at the end of our road within walking distance to our home. Although I’m fairly certain most Vermonters have a local, organic farm near them. I can think of three just in our small town. It’s become a tradition to take our Radio Flyer wagon for a walk with the girls down to the farm during pumpkin season to pick out their carving pumpkins for the year. They set out the pumpkins on a big wagon and it’s a ton of fun every year.
Here’s Rowan’s pumpkin haul from a few years ago and how she arranged them, then rearranged them, and rearranged them yet again. She may be my mini.
Hike Our Local Mountain During Peak Foliage
We have a really great small mountain hiking trail in town that’s great for kids. While it’s doubtful we would be able to hike the whole trail as a family of four, I want to at least hike some of it and see how far our youngest can make it. Naturally, I’m bringing snacks. LOTS of snacks. Fingers crossed we make it at least thirty minutes. Scratch that…twenty.
Go To A Football Game
My first job after college was working in marketing for the University of Maine athletic department, a division one school. And division one schools know how to do game day right. I miss football game days. The atmosphere, the rivalries, the tailgating. It was a blast. Now, we live close to Dartmouth College and we’ve been talking about taking the kids to a football game for a couple of years. We’ve done a few hockey games with great success so maybe football will be fun for them too.
Pumpkin Chuckin’ Festival
Every fall, there’s a pumpkin chuckin’ festival in Stowe, Vermont. Complete with trebuchets launching pumpkins across the fields. We’ve never been able to go before because of various family commitments or kid activities but this year is free to chuck. For the record, we have no intentions of chuckin’ pumpkins. Just there for the entertainment.
Attend The Tunbridge Worlds Fair
The Tunbridge Fair is a large, agricultural fair here in Vermont. It’s old, it’s your classic fair, and it’s fun. Every year I swear I’m going to enter something the kids have grown from the garden into the vegetable growing showcases but every year I forget about the deadline. Maybe next year. But the fair is a blast full of cows, good food, rides, history, chickens, and the biggest pumpkins I have ever seen. It’s a nonnegotiable activity for us every year.
Homebody Options
Roast Marshmallows
My kids adore s’mores and typically we save them for camping. We didn’t do much camping this summer, which was sad, and thus didn’t roast many marshmallows. I want to try making a really fancy s’mores basket, stocked to the brim with a variety of marshmallow options, graham crackers and alternatives, and different chocolate varieties and fixings. And maybe it becomes a Wednesday night tradition for September. Roast marshmallows after dinner in the patio fire pit.
Harry Potter Movie Night
Last school year was officially dubbed “the year of Harry Potter” by our eldest. Rowan is obsessed, both with the books and the movies. She recently picked up a couple of Harry Potter cookbooks from our local library and has been picking out her favorite recipes. Polyjuice potion tops the list. Every Friday night is movie night at our home, and next week is my turn to pick the flick. I may have to pick a Harry Potter movie and bake her a treat from the cookbook to serve with the movie for a theme night.
Carve Pumpkins
While we do carve pumpkins every year, usually I can only handle one or two pumpkin carvings with the kids before I’m done. It’s usually because I’m always on edge about all they ways they will injure themselves. This year, I want to carve a bunch and decorate the inside of our home with them as well as the back porch. We might have to take two wagons down to the farm this year! But I have a vision of carved pumpkins in a few nooks of our first floor that I want to make happen.
In The Kitchen
Make Grandma’s Applesauce
There is nothing that feels more fall to me than a pot of applesaucing simmering on the stove, grandma style. I have always made my applesauce like my grandmother does and it tastes like more of a treat than store bought sauce. Her secret ingredient? Brown sugar. Here’s the “recipe”. Peel and core a pot’s full of tart McIntosh apples, fill pot about halfway with water, sprinkle on brown sugar and cinnamon, put the lid on the pot, bring to a boil, remove lid and stir once apples are soft, simmer until it’s a consistency you like. Yum.
Bake Molasses Date Filled Cookies
Another Grandma recipe, her date filled molasses cookies. They always remind me of her every fall because she used to bake a giant batch and send me off to college with them. They taste like grandma’s love and fall to me. The other bonus, no one in my family likes them except for me. Batch of cookies alllllllll to myself.
Try Making Fancy Coffees With Homemade Syrup
I have wanted to try making a couple of fancy coffee syrups for years and I’m designating this year as the one. Syrup number one, a traditional most basic pumpkin spice syrup. Syrup number two, an apple crisp syrup. And I use the term syrup loosely. Just something I can mix in my coffee to make it feel like a pumpkin spice latte or apple crisp shaken espresso.
Pumpkin Pancakes For Breakfast
I have never had pumpkin pancakes, nor have my children. I feel like we’re all missing out on a quintessentially fall breakfast food. I’ve done pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bars, but never pumpkin pancakes. Maybe I’ll try to be extra and make them in the shape of a pumpkin.
Purchase My Annual Case Of Pumpkinhead Beer
While our beer consumption has fallen off a cliff post kids, one thing I will forever do is buy a case of Shipyard’s Pumpkinhead beer every year. Colby hates it but I adore it! My three favorite ways to consume it. One, straight out of the bottle. Two, served in a beer glass with cinnamon sugar rim. Oh my! And three, the trick to finishing the case within the season, it is the best beer for basic beer bread. So good!
Cozy Fall Home
Decorate Our Home For Fall
I’ve never been a big fall decorator, maybe a little here or there, but I save my decorating energy and prowess for Halloween and Christmas. This year, I would like to do a little bit of fall decorating. Just small things like bringing fall flowers into our home (maybe dried hydrangeas), or adding some gourds to the buffet, adding some moody candles to brass candlesticks on the mantle, or switching out tea towels in the kitchen for something more fall.
Watch Gilmore Girls While Coloring
Gilmore girls is a must re-watch fall tradition for me. I also love that I have daughters and my eldest is starting to show interest in the show. A couple nights a week, I plan to cozy up in my jammies and slippers, make a cup of tea, and bunker down on the couch for an episode (or two) while coloring. I recently picked up a pumpkin spice cafe coloring book and have been saving it for this moment.
Pot The Porch Mums
It doesn’t feel like fall until the mums are potted on the porch. I try to pot the mums just a little bit different every year, switching up the colors typically. This year, I’m going for a white/purple theme. The girls helped pick some out this week and now we just need to pot them. If only it wasn’t raining today. Although, we desperately need the rain.
Work Through My Fall Book Stack
I recently organized my to-be-read (TBR) pile that I keep on top of the wardrobe in our bedroom. I organized them by my reading moods. So the personal improvement books in one stack for when I’m feeling the need to make some shifts, beach reads for lazy summer reading, historical novels for when I want to learn something about our history, etc. I created two stacks for the upcoming seasons: fall/Halloween and Christmas. My goal, read through at least two or three in the fall stack this season. I’m already part way through Donna Tart’s, The Secret History, and am loving the dark academia vibe.
Fall Crafting
Press Colorful Fall Leaves
A few years ago, I received a flower press for Christmas and it has been such a fun gift. I’ve loved learning how to press flowers and I almost opened a pressed flower art Etsy shop this summer. This fall, when we go for family walks, I want to collect colorful leaves and press them with the kids. Maybe we’ll even make some art out of them. Who knows. But the art of pressing them in and of itself is always fun.
Make A Natural Wreath With Things Found In The Meadow
I have always wanted to try this. Scavenge our meadow to see what I can find for wreath making materials and craft a natural wreath for our front door. This may be one of those pipe dreams but I think it would be fun to try.
Paint Pumpkins
Our pumpkin painting days are coming to a close but I’m not ready to give them up just yet. Although, I think I’m raising crafty enough kids that they’ll likely do this activity with me well into their college years. To do this, we pick up five or six small pumpkins, set the kids up at a protected table, and unleash them with paint brushes and paint. They have so much fun and their creations are adorable.
Try Candle Making
Burning fall candles was always one of those things I did that made our home feel cozy in the fall. I’ve stopped burning candles since the kids came along, since most of the ones I was using were full of synthetic fragrances which I’ve been trying to eliminate from our home. I know I can buy safer candles, but we’re also on a tight budget over here. I’ve saved a bunch of old candle tins and containers and have been wanting to try making our own candles using essential oils and more natural materials.
House Maintenance
Repair Broken Windows
Last winter and spring was a tough year for our vintage, single pane windows on the first floor. Three broken panes in as many months. All summer we’ve been saying we need to repair those windows before fall. Well, we’re running out of time and just need to buck up and do the repairs.
Repair And Install Storm Windows
Along the same lines, we also have to repair and install all the storm windows for the first floor. They are old school style and basically wooden frames that need to be attached to the outside of our windows. They’re all in various stages of falling apart. Colby has come up with an idea to repair them and make them easier to install but it’s time consuming. Last year, we didn’t get them up and we felt the chill. I vow to make it happen this year.
Put The Garden To Bed
It never fails. I’m always trying to stretch out the garden season and go as long as possible growing vegetables that the snow is falling before I’m putting away tomato stakes and cucumber trellises. This year, when the weather starts dipping below freezing every night, I’m going to try and clean up one area at a time every afternoon. Then maybe I won’t be digging frozen stakes out of the ground in the spring.
Clean Up The Patio Areas
Same with the patio areas. It’s always a mad rush during the first snow storm to put everything away. We just like using our outdoor spaces as long as possible. But this year, I’m going to plan ahead, watch the weather, and plan a day to clean it all up and pack it away until spring.
Schedule A Furnance Inspection
Another task that creeps up on us every year, scheduling our annual furnace inspection. I always seem to forget until it’s time to turn on the heat and by the time I call, they’re booked out for another month or two. We have a very old but very efficient furnace and I would like to keep it running as long as possible. So tomorrow, I swear, I’m calling the heating company to schedule an inspection/maintenance day.
Pssst…Now tell me, what is on your list?!?!
