Fall Bucket List Update!

Since the air in D.C. has finally dropped sufficiently low to warrant our winter gear and late tonight marks the Winter Solstice, we decided to call time on our Fall Bucket List and share what we accomplished this season. We ended up checking 30 activities off our list -- not too bad considering this fall was insanely busy with school and extracurricular activities! We're working hard on our winter aspirations and we'll have our Winter Bucket List up later this week, but, in the meantime, here's how the fall shook out!

1. felting -- we LOVED making felted rocks. I even went in and did the activity as a crafternoon in Cami's kindergarten class.


2. family costume -- the whole fam dressed as various (sort of related) Greek mythological figures this year. Kane was Hercules; Joel was Zeus (father of Herc); Cami was Athena; and I was Medusa (turned that way by Athena).

3. pumpkin patch -- I took a trip with Cam's class to Sharp's at Waterford Farm for pumpkin picking this year.

4. football game -- Joel took the kids to see St. John's College High School play a game this fall.

5. family puzzle -- we spent A LOT of Thanksgiving break putting together a 1,000 piece puzzle of which everyone but me (obvi) lost six pieces by the time we finished! But we've been bit by the family puzzle bug.

6. decorate for Halloween -- decorating our home involved so much negotiation, but we ended up with a sweet graveyard and lots of little ghosts! Plus jack o'lanterns of course.

7. make fall playlist -- this ended up being a super random, but representative playlist for us. You can find it on Spotify by clicking right here.

8. host trick or treating -- this was our first year being in a neighborhood with real trick or treating and it was super fun to see everyone's costumes.

9. spooky science experiment -- Spooky Oobleck!

10. new museum exhibit -- we are completely obsessed with the recently-reopened Renwick Gallery. The new Spark!Lab at the Smithsonian Museum of American History was a close runner up.

11. fall playdough -- Gingerbread playdough!

12. practice gratefulness -- the kids did a good job with this and we tried to spend a few dinnertimes each week talking about for what we're grateful.

13. read a banned book -- as I mentioned in our family's post on Design Mom, we tried to read Coraline, but ended up being too scared. Harriet the Spy did the trick!

14. watch a spooky movie -- Casper was spooky enough for my fraidy cats.

15. watch Thanksgiving day parade -- the perfect activity when the kids wake up earlier than I needed to be up to make the turkey.

16. make a fall smoothie -- our Healthy Pumpkin Pie Smoothie!

17. fall foliage drive -- I really wanted to get out to Skyline drive, but we had to settle for an extra long trip through Rock Creek Park this year.

18. learn a new board game -- in addition to puzzles, we've all become smitten with family games. Incan Gold is one of our new favorites we learned this fall.

19. project with rocks -- see felted rocks above!

20. farmer's market -- our new neighborhood got a farmer's market this past summer and we finally checked it out this fall. awesome!

21-24. 4 new audiobooks (out of 10) -- our daily school commute has us hooked back on audiobooks. We've listened to Percy Jackson + The Olympians: The Demi God Files; The Wonder of Charlie Ann; Museum of Thieves; and Unhappy Medium. Both The Wonder of Charlie Ann and Museum of Thieves were BIG books and took a long time to get through.

25. 1 new chapter book-- In addition to the Harriet the Spy, we read Travels with Gannon and Wyatt: Adventures in the Great Bear Rainforest. 

26. make soap -- we loved making our DIY Sparkly Soap Gems. We also made No Monsters In My Bed's Candy Cane soap for the teacher holiday gifts.

27. new chili - I thought that the Butternut Squash and Beef Chili we made during our last 30 Days of Dinner was delicious. The kids were not convinced.

28. new printing art project -- Marble Monoprints!

29. donate to food bank -- we participated in a neighborhood food collection during Thanksgiving. Yay for a fab neighborhood!!

30. volunteered -- as I mentioned in our post on Little Loving Hands (an AWESOME monthly craft subscription that helps kids give back!), we participated in the Salvation Army's Angel Tree program for the holidays. A great way to get kids involved.