The Golden Season

We are now smack dab in the middle of my favorite time of year.

FALL.

After a long, hot summer, my family comes alive in the fall, along with the rest of our city. Tennessee is especially beautiful right now as the leaves change, and we fill our weekends trying to cram in as many festivals, farm visits, and special activities as we can possibly manage.

Fall always includes a stop at Gentry Farm in Franklin, Tennessee for a hayride, barn maze…

…and of course, pumpkin picking.

It’s not fall without pumpkins!

Of course this being Nashville, fall always includes a healthy dose of bluegrass music. We’ll use any excuse to get back to our roots.

All of my best  photos seem to be taken in the fall. The lighting and temperature are perfect and there are plenty of fabulous backdrops on hand.

When the leaves turn, I also get to baking! This is my Applesauce Nut Bread, a family favorite.

And there’s plenty of outdoor play going on right now. Here, Punky’s trying to take a bite out of an apple hanging from a string.

Once it was his turn, Bruiser found an easier way to get what he wanted.

In the end, both of them came out winners.

And of course, fall is a time for costumes. We buy our costumes early and let the kids wear them to events for a few weeks in advance so that we can get the most bang for our buck. By the time Halloween itself rolls around, it’s pretty anticlimactic!

If we seem to be trying to squeeze every last memory-making opportunity out of this time that we can, well there’s probably some truth to that. Two things have happened that have made my husband and me all too aware that these days with our children are short. For one, we’ve already raised my stepdaughters to adulthood, and we know all too well how quickly childhood flies by. Before you know it, these moments really are gone forever. For another, we’ve lived through a health scare with my husband. Several years ago, an allergic reaction to medication caused his liver to temporarily stop functioning and for a time, we didn’t know how that was going to turn out.

“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow,” James 4:14 tells us. “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

I am well aware that this time won’t last forever. The seasons will inevitably change. My children will continue to grow.

But for now, it is fall.

The air is cool. The light is golden. My heart is full with the joy of family. I write about this time and take hundreds of photos and do everything I possibly can to remember these days forever.

Because I believe in my heart that these moments right now are a little taste of heaven.