Pumpkins. Cider. Candied Apples.

The forecast this weekend is perfect for what I have in mind. Chilly, damp, and perfectly fall in every sense of the word.

This weekend, my husband's daughter comes to visit, which usually entails other visitors in our home - my nieces Tee & Cee, to be exact. It is usually up to one of the adults to think of an activity to entertain, and since everyone went apple picking two weeks ago (which I need to post pictures of, I know), this weekend, we are going to the pumpkin patch to select our very own Great Pumpkin(s) to be carved and lighted for the first time on Saturday night.

I am beyond thrilled! I really do love fall and having a lighted pumpkin to celebrate the season and the upcoming holidays just makes me smile. Plus, I really REALLY love cleaning up all the slimy pumpkin seeds that somehow manage to become stuck to every surface in my kitchen.

Along with carved pumpkins will be delicious apple cider and hot chocolate as well as home made candied apples that I really hope work out because I bought the kit and the apples and the sticks to hold them with. I haven't had a candied apple in years, so I hope it doesn't become the candied apple disaster. Which it very well could, 'cause I am most definitely not MARTHA. MARTHA probably grows her own apples and makes her own popcicle sticks out of fallen wood from her wooded acreage in New York or wherever she lives. My popcicle sticks come out of a bag from Wal-Mart.

Anyway, I am trying to make this weekend a "homey" one - complete with Yankee Candles burning and the gas logs on in the fireplace. And a mess in the kitchen, I'm sure.

Should be fun.