fall at our house.

I have been loving this view.

Breaking out the coats on a chilly morning.

I love the morning light in our backyard.

The first round of raking. There are still a lot of leaves that have yet to fall.

A foggy morning.

The driveway is perpetually under a blanket of leaves, despite how many times Ben uses the leaf blower.

Our neighbor's beautiful driveway.

Lots of fall baking...

Creamy butternut squash, leek and bacon pappardelle. Recipe HERE. So good.

Cheesy pesto pull-apart bread. Recipe HERE.

Testing out different roll recipes. Thanksgiving prep.

Parmesan crusted butternut squash galette with brown butter fried sage. YUM. Easy to make and the crust was so delicious and the filling was quite tasty. Can't go wrong drizzling brown butter. Recipe HERE.

scooter races

The main road that connects to our street has been closed for the last five months while a bridge was replaced. The detour was a bit of a pain but it was actually really nice to be able to wander out to the road and not have any traffic. The kids could ride their bikes there, we took frequent family walks to check on the progress of the bridge, and I was able to lengthen my runs instead of doing smaller loops on our street. Last week we took one final walk to the bridge before the road opened back up. The girls had scooter races and we all enjoyed the beautiful, warm fall evening.

 Oliver decided to take a rest in the middle of the street.

donuts + duke

I headed to Durham with the boys one day to check out the fall colors at Duke Gardens. We made a stop downtown for donuts at Monuts Donuts. So good. Duke Gardens was beautiful as always. It's been fun to see it in every season. We walked through campus a bit and got a closer look at the Duke Chapel. Such a beautiful campus. It's fun to see Oliver and Simon starting to play together more. They love to chase each other around and fall down and laugh.

Lake Wheeler

Lake Wheeler is the closest lake to our house. The girls cross over it every day to get to school but we had never actually visited the lake. I took the boys to Lake Wheeler Park one afternoon to check out the fall colors. They had fun playing on the playground, throwing rocks in the water and soaking themselves in the lake.