Fun, Fat Fall.

It's been fall for three weeks, but you wouldn't know it. The high 80s in mid-October is downright depressing.

So on Tuesday I baked pumpkin bread.

And even though the boys were full of sweat when they walked in the door from school, there's just something about the scent of pumpkin baking that helps cancel out a few degrees of the never ending heat.

Only two weeks until Halloween and I just haven't been able to bring myself to break out the decorations. But we did buy the costumes.

Abby will be a skeleton this year. She is thrilled. (Actually, she wouldn't eat for two days, and I was afraid she would starve herself to death, so we have retired the costume and only plan to put her through the embarrassment for a few more hours on the 31st.)

That's just a sneak preview. For the record, Abby's is the only costume I got to pick. Despite the fact that I was the one wielding the cash. (How does that work?)

The boys were not going for the hot dog costume, and the girls refused to be witches or bunnies or bumble bees. But we do have a mean looking ninja, a powerful Green Lantern, a pretty ballerina, and a hot pink Bat girl ready to make their debut. It cost a fortune. 

Next year, they are all going to be ghosts. Four white kitchen trash bags and a pair of scissors sounds like a fantastically thrifty plan. Feel free to wave this post in my face next year when my follow-through fails.

The other night the school had its annual fall fundraiser, and I caught this pic of the girls. They still latch on to each other in new situations. They don't even realize they do it. 

This morning, we had an early soccer game (to which we were late).

(Incidentally, we were creamed so totally by the other team that as one of our balls slowly rolled toward the goal, the defending goalie actually purposely lifted his foot to allow our team to score a goal.)

Then it was off to the pumpkin patch, where we snapped the requisite pictures.

And now, after seeing all those pumpkins, I am starting to crave pumpkin bread again. I will do you a favor and not post the recipe. Trust me, you don't want to bake it. The week before I made the pumpkin bread, I lost two pounds using myfitnesspal.com. The week of the notorious pumpkin bread, I gained back the two pounds. Plus one. You do the math.