Our First Fall-Themed Pinterest vs. Reality Day

In case you haven’t already realized, Fall is by far my favourite season of the year. The smells, the flavours, the colours, the fashion, the activities - something about the crisp morning turning into a sunny afternoon just makes my heart very happy. Just the other day I realized that we are already half way through October, so I decided to make the most of this beautiful season by planning a fun fall-themed day for Mabel and I to enjoy. And to make it even more interesting, I decided to turn our day into a fun take on the Pinterest vs. Reality trend.

Let me explain. I gathered some inspiring pins on a designated Pinterest board that encapsulated the idea of what made for a fun Fall day. Here’s a glimpse at what my Pinterest board looked like:

Once I had some ideas gathered, I decided that we would try to recreate as many of the pins as we could. I definitely went into it with the mindset that this was totally just for fun and all about intentionally making the most of my favourite season - not perfection. I love the idea of using Pinterest to gather inspiration, but I’m sure I’m not the only one to admit that I often don’t act on the ideas I gather. This day was all about doing, regardless of how Pinterest-worthy the final results were. If we do one of these days again, I may try to vlog it for our YouTube channel, but this time I tried my best to live in the moment and just capture a photo or two of each “pin” we tackled.

Crockpot Applesauce

The first thing we did in our day was get a big batch of homemade crockpot applesauce cooking. While Mabel ate her breakfast, I peeled and sliced 3 lbs of honeycrisp apples and put them in our crockpot. By the time I had finished, Mabel joined me in the kitchen and helped by adding the few additional ingredients, like some water, lemon juice, and cinnamon. We set the crockpot to high for 4 hours and let it do the bulk of the work to cook down the apples as we went about our day. I have done this in previous years and it’s such an effortless way to make applesauce.

Cozy Fall Outfits

Fall fashion - yes! It’s my favourite season for clothes because it’s all about cozy layers. I based my outfit choice off a couple of outfit pins I had added to my board and using items of clothing I already had in my closet. The weather was still a touch too warm for a scarf, but I was happy to pull out my favourite shirt jacket to layer over a button-down boyfriend shirt and some leggings. Mabel had her own ideas about her outfit that day, so I didn’t push it too much on that one.

A Fall Walk

The sun was shining, making it the perfect morning for a walk. We met my sister, nephew, and niece at the local reservoir to walk around the trail. We spotted two swans on the water and Mabel didn’t want to leave them. She had so much fun keeping a close eye on their every move. Eventually we convinced her to take to the trail and she was happy once she started to find various treasures, including crab apples, pretty leaves, and a “walking” stick. By the time we finished the trail, we looped back past the water and were happy to see the swans again, still floating across the water. At one point, they even took off, flying past where we were standing, and then circled back to land on the water again.

Pumpkin Spice and Leaf Piles

In the spirit of stereotypical Fall experiences, I had to grab myself a pumpkin spice latte on the way home from the reservoir. I enjoyed drinking it next to our porch pumpkins while Mabes played out front on our lawn. The coffee was definitely a little sweet for my liking, but made for a really delicious treat. Mabel helped me rake up a big pile of leaves and after a little convincing, had a blast running and jumping through them. Between the walk and the jumping, she worked up quite an appetite so we decided to head inside for lunch.

Ghost Bananas

Mabes requested oatmeal for lunch, so I made her some cinnamon oatmeal and surprised her with a couple of ghost bananas on her plate. All I did was add a couple of chocolate chips to each as eyes and a raisin as a mouth. As expected, she was thrilled by that simple addition and requested more. (We may be eating ghost bananas long past Halloween this year). By that point, the crockpot applesauce had pretty much finished cooking and I broke up the cooked apples with a whisk. We decided to let it cool for a while before digging in.

Wool Pumpkins DIY

Once Mabel went down for her nap, I decided to do a little bit of crafting by myself to create some adorable decorative pumpkins. These particular pumpkins have been all over Pinterest for a few years now and I couldn’t resist trying my own take on them. I had two 6” styrofoam balls from the dollar store that I cut into to create a flat bottom and flat top. Next I used a big drill bit to drill a hole in the center of each and threaded some scrap wool into the hole and around the exterior again and again until the entire shape was covered. To create the stems, I rolled up some scrap pieces of kraft paper and glued them into place with some hot glue. I ended up making two different pumpkins, which used up Mabel’s entire nap time. But it was simple and relaxing to create them, so I wouldn’t consider it time wasted.

Painted Pumpkins

Once Mabel woke up, we had some of our homemade applesauce as a quick snack before diving into a kid-friendly craft. I picked up a bag of small white pumpkins at our grocery store earlier in the week, so I set Mabel up with some craft paints and brushes to go to town on her pumpkins. She gave me one of the three to paint myself while she worked away on two others. Since Halloween is coming up, I gave her a palette of black, orange, and pink, and I’m actually quite impressed with the results. I thought about directing her to do finger prints to make something like this, but I ended up just giving her free-reign. Something about little kid painting is so charming - you can’t recreate those marks if you tried! When our little pumpkins dried, we stacked them on our front porch with our other porch pumpkins. They have made me so happy to see every time I come or go.

Butternut Squash Soup

One of my favourite times of the day is when Curt gets home from work because he often focusses on playing with Mabel while I prepare dinner. I enjoy cooking and I love being alone, so I appreciate the break in my day that cooking alone offers me. Before getting started on our dinner, I lit a cozy candle and poured myself a glass of red wine to make the experience extra special. In keeping with the Fall-theme of our day, I decided to try this recipe for Creamy Butternut Squash Soup. It did not disappoint! I served it with crunchy croutons and simple garlic bread, making it an extremely easy meal to pull together at the end of an already eventful day.

We usually don’t eat dinner until about 7pm, so by the time we had finished eating and cleaning up, it was time to get Mabel down for bed. Our day was far from Pinterest-worthy, but it was definitely a memorable one for us. Even a few days later, Mabel still talks about some of the activities we did together. And that’s exactly what this day was about - setting the intention, actually doing, and making the most of this wonderful season with my family. It wasn’t perfect, but it was perfect.

I’m thinking we will do another Pinterest vs. Reality day in December as we approach Christmas because it was just that fun. Would you try something like this? What activities would be on your list?

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