Hi everyone! Wow I can’t believe it is almost the end of September. Before you know it Halloween will be here! Today, I am linking up with  Shay, Sheaffer, and Mel  for What’s Up Wednesday. It’s nice to look back on the month and review some of the highlights! This month has flown by–the kids have been in school for exactly a month! I’m always happy to get the first month of school behind us because those first few weeks of the transition are always a little nuts! Anyway, today I will share my September Favorites and what we have been up to lately.

What we’re eating this week….

As always, I keep things very simple and fuss free for our meals. But, this time of year, I am always craving fall flavors, so I am trying to incorporate those things into our meals.

This week’s menu includes:

Brats and Apple Harvest Salad (SO YUMMY and healthy!)

Crockpot Honey BBQ Meatballs and Rice

Breakfast for Dinner

Homemade Pizza (as part of our weekly Friday night traditions I’ve talked about here)

What I’m loving…

I am loving everything fall related! I am not a big pumpkin spice latte fan but I do love most all things pumpkin. I found this organic Pumpkin Spice Almond Milk Creamer and it is SO GOOD! This almond milk has no added sugar!

Also, speaking of pumpkin, I just added this cute pumpkin garland to our mantle. When I took it out of the package, I was worried it was too small for our mantle but I was happy to realize you can move each individual burlap square. So I spaced them out a little more to make it work.

 

What I’m dreading…

Nothing that comes to mind!

What I’m looking forward to…

So many fun things coming up this month! My mom and I are headed in a few weeks on our Annual Fall Shopping Trip! You can read about our trip last year here! I will be sure to recap our trip for you and share some of our highlights! It is always a fun and exhausting weekend. We literally shop until we drop. It is a great chance to find a few fun clothing items for fall and get a head start on Christmas shopping. But most importantly, it is a weekend that my mom and I can connect without any distractions! I can’t wait!

 

Last year’s Shopping Haul

Also, my husband and I are taking the kids to Niagara Falls in mid-October. My husband and I have both been but we have never been with the kids. We love taking road trips with the kids on their school breaks. Our last road trip with the kids to Washington, D.C. was so much fun!

Please send any recommendations that you have for kid friendly Niagara Falls attractions. We are visiting the Canadian side!

 

What I am working on….

If you saw my post last week on fall front porch inspiration, you know I am getting our fall outdoor decor finalized. This past weekend, we went to the pumpkin farm, so I was able to add pumpkins to our porch. I’ll share our final porch set up soon!

 

Also, I am planning a Halloween movie night with the kids. Last year, we had a Halloween Boo Bash complete with Halloween themed snacks and treats.

This year, I want to mix things up and I am going to plan our party around a Halloween themed movie night.  Our October is looking to be very busy, so I thought a movie night wouldn’t take too much time or planning. We will probably repeat many of the same treats that we made last year.

Do you have any family friendly Halloween movie recommendations?

Finally, I am finishing up work on October’s Clear the Clutter Challenge which is books and magazines! I organized my sons’ bookcase last week and this week I need to tackle my daughter’s books! She is a huge bookworm, as I mentioned here, so this will not be an easy task.

What do you do with books that you do want anymore? We usually pass along books to friends or we donate to charity. This past weekend, for the first time ever, I took some books to our local Half Price Books. I was pleasantly surprised to receive money for our books! It was a good incentive for the kids to purge some of their books….and allow them to have money to buy new books:)

 

What I am reminiscing about…

This past weekend, we made our annual visit to the pumpkin patch and apple farm. It’s always annual events like these that make me realize how big the kids are getting!!

 

It is a bittersweet  parenting moment to remember how little the kids once were but yet also realize how fun it is to have big kids!

What I am watching…

My husband and I seem to have a thing with watching crimes dramas on Netflix. We each have our own shows and sometimes we have a hard time finding ones we both like.

We just finished the crime documentary, The Staircase, on Netflix. We have watched both Making a Murder and the Keepers which both are both crime documentaries as well. This show documents the  trial of Michael Petersen, who was accused of killing his wife in 2001. The documentary starts in 2001 but concludes in present day, so you get to see what has happened to everyone in the story now. We definitely enjoyed this show.

Now, since we are on a crime drama kick, we have started watching another Netflix series. This one is called Seven Seconds. This police/crime fictional drama tells the story of the death of a 15-year-old African American boy in Jersey City  that sets off a police cover-up and a search for the truth. There are so many elements to this story and it is so captivating!

Photo Credit: IMDb

While I was searching for some info on the show for this post, I read that this series will not be renewed for a second season–UGH!

 

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That wraps up our September Favorites. I am looking forward to October and all of the fall and Halloween fun that is part of the month!

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