I’ve been wanting to start this blog series for quite a big now & decided why not the first Friday in October?! Each Friday (I plan 😉 ) to share some of my favorite things. Whether it’s my favorite pregnancy items (probably next week’s post!), my top 3 favorite podcasts or my 3 favorite things to purchase at Aldi. And as our life changes & Little Wilcox makes his/her appearance, I plan to also share bits of our new family life. I hope you’ll join me here on Friday’s as I share pieces of my life & love.

So kicking off the first Friday of October, today I’m sharing my 3 favorite things to do to start off the fall season!

1. Have a Sister Date with my sister Leah! Every year since we’ve lived here (so like 7 years now? Right Leah?) we’ve gone out to buy little pumpkins, gourds & squashes to decorate our places. I believe the tradition started way back when we were younger & mom & dad would buy us one mini little pumpkins at the grocery store. When we moved here, Leah & I turned it into a sister date & either went to the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market, Casey’s Floral or Brown’s Produce to purchase our items. (Sidenote, the Farmers Market usually has the cheapest prices but we go to whatever is open when our schedules allow us to meet up.) This year we went to Casey’s & we always couple the date with a Carmel Hot Apple Spice Cider drink from Starbucks!

That leads me into my second favorite way to bring fall alive…

2. Decorate! Now I’m all about simplicity & being budget friendly. That’s one of the reasons Leah & I go out to purchase small pumpkins & gourds, we both use those to decorate! (Big pumpkins are expensive!)

I have a few items that I bring out every year, a basket my mom gave me, fall smelling candles & put those around Eric & I’s living room & kitchen. I have a fall bouquet I made up from florals from Dollar Tree & it still looks pretty good after 3 falls! I also use real pinecones (Leah & I hunted for those one year) & have a bowl from Goodwill that I set them in. Since I’m in my 3rd Trimester of my pregnancy, I’ll be keeping it even more simple this year since I don’t want to have too much stuff to clean up when it comes time to PUT UP THE CHRISTMAS TREE!!!

I love decorating for fall & enjoying this season, my favorite season of the year.

Here’s this year’s loot from Casey’s Floral in the basket my mom gave me. I keep this on our Kitchen table 🙂

3) Music! I LOVE Christmas music. It’s one of my favorite parts of Christmas. Couple years ago Leah & I wondered why someone hadn’t put together “fall” music, Thanksgiving music, you know? My sister & I realized that we kind of did have music that we enjoyed that wasn’t QUITE Christmas music but felt like it was special, needed to be set a part. For example, we love the movie soundtrack for Little Women. It’s not quite Christmast-y but yet, it’s just got a special, warming holiday feel about it.

Since then, both Leah & I have created our own playlists we’ve put together on our own iTunes accounts. I also have one on Spotify entitled “Falling in Love”. I’m posting the link HERE so you too can enjoy it! THIS is the very first song on the playlist & to me it just SCREAMS fall.

My house is not at all ready for fall. In fact, as of writing this a few days before publishing this post, I only have the center piece pictured above set out at our home. I wrote this post to help us all remember that you don’t have to spend a million dollars to make it feel like fall. My little pumpkin guys cost just under $12.00. Maybe for you to make fall come alive in your home is to just open all the windows! Bake a loaf of pumpkin bread!

Fall opens the door to what can be a crazy holiday schedule. It is very important to me to not get all caught up in doing instead of LIVING. Taking intentional steps to make fall alive helps me to remember to take in all that is going on around me & not just look to the holidays.

So what about you friend? What are your favorite ways to “celebrate” & make fall come alive in your daily life? I’d love to hear! Feel free to comment below!