Fall is so awesome

Today a friend of mine and I took our kids (all NINE of them) and headed for the forest to see the fall colors and have a picnic.  So much fun!

But first, we had to jump on their trampoline. 

Confession: As fun as those things are for my kids, I still think it's going to have to be something they do not at our house.

Then we piled into my friend's Excursion and headed for the mountains.  The fall colors did not disappoint.

Indian Lake, full of the lily pad-like plants.  So pretty!

Proof that we were crazy enough to take nine kids into the woods and call it fun.  Here they are saying "Millie pad!" because the little girl is named Millie and we thought it was cute. 

For the record, my friend's level of crazy surpasses my own.  She's currently pregnant with number six. 

Playing in the creek rather than eating their lunch. 

They kind of ate in waves.  One would come up and announce she was hungry and we'd hand her half a sandwich and she'd head back down to the creek.  (We had seven girls and two boys.)  And then another one would appear up the hill requesting food.

The sand/mud was fun.

So was throwing rocks.

However, as all but I think four kids found out, falling into the creek was NOT fun.  Mostly because it was wet and they landed on their behind on a huge rock. 

After enough of them had fallen in, we headed off to a second adventure.  The meadow.  So pretty.  And we both got a picture with all of our kids.  And a pretty good picture at that. 

And I managed to get a decent one of my kids, too.

Some of the girls gathered these huge bunches of a grass.  They actually had pretty good potential as a decorative piece.  But we really didn't want it in the car.  So we took pictures instead.

As pretty as the fall colors are, I think that the two very best things about fall are that there are no biting bugs and it's not blazing hot.  It was so very pleasant out playing in the forest.  Everyone should have a harvest break so they can spend two weeks outside enjoying fall.  Seriously.

And everyone should have babies as cute as these two. 

Seriously.