The currency of Grace is where my song begins...

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I know that is a popular line from a classic Christmas song but it has been ringing in my head since August began. I love August. Yes, it is my birthday month and it's our anniversary month and those are both fun reasons to celebrate but there is more to August that gets to my heart. You see, to this Missouri raised girl, August means the beginning of Fall. Cooler weather, light jackets, football practice and pre-season games, school spirit at its peek, hints of Fall decor creeping on to store shelves and into homes, jeans w/ t-shirts or even better, shorts with hoodies, oh man! the list gets me so giddy that I must stop! I can almost smell the pumpkin spice lattes and see the trees changing!

This year has been so special to me since we are now living back in Missouri. For the last 10 years August has come and gone and it only made me grumpy....clear until December. "Why?" you ask. Well, because in Texas there is no such thing as Fall. All the smells, the decorations and the sports come, sure, but not the weather. Its like a tease. Each year I would find myself avoiding college football (which is one of my favorite things) because in my mind, NO ONE should be forced to wear a tank top and shorts to watch football. I was seriously grumpy. Every year in October I would finally give in and come to grips that 90+ degrees is, in fact, fall in the south. So I would plan us a trip to a pumpkin patch, buy some straw bales to decorate the front porch and change our table center piece to something with beautiful fall colors. The only problem was that we would wear our jeans and long sleeve shirts to the pumpkin patch (because that is what you do in the fall) and FRY! It was never a memorable experience. Then we would bring our pumpkins home, place them on the porch for decoration only to have them rot from the heat within a week. I will say though, a good candle and some table decorations did bring a glimpse of fall to us and often I would turn the air conditioning down and watch a football game on our computer in the "cold."

We just got off of a long road trip to the south for His Voice Global. It was a great time, so refreshing to our hearts and just over all SUPER FUN. As we drove home on Thursday, you could sense the excitement as we got further and further north. When we left Louisiana our car thermometer read 96 degrees but as we pulled into St. Louis it read 76 degrees! I got so excited that it was fall and just couldn't help but make some celebration fall decor. So I grabbed some supplies and made this::

Doesn't it just say, "Come on over, it's FALL!!" So come on over, I'll bake something fall-like and then we can sit on the porch while the kiddos play and enjoy the weather...and dont forget your jacket or hoodie, it gets a bit chilly at night ;)