Pumpkins, Apple Butter & Mountain Views

October 24, 2016


You just can't keep me away from the pumpkin patch! Happy Monday, lovelies! The Hills are coming off of a perfectly fall weekend filled with pumpkins, chilly temperatures, and family. The crisp air has been a long time coming. The unseasonably warm (hot) temperatures have been putting a little damper on my fall, but the low 50's and bit of a chill was so welcomed on Saturday. When it's so perfectly fall, there's no better place to head to than the pumpkin patch with a pumpkin spice latte, knit hat, and a baby in buffalo check. And that's exactly what we did after Greer girl's first nap. Don't worry, she had a blast unlike her face is telling you in the photo. She loves pumpkins just as much as her mama. 


One of my favorite parts of the pumpkin patch is the view. You can't beat being in the mountains while also being surrounded by gourds and Christmas trees waiting to be tagged and cut. I've been coming here with my family since I was little tot, and I just adore that I get to pass this sweet seasonal tradition on to my children. This place, Joe's Trees, is the inspiration behind the Twine & Cotton Mountain-Side Tree Farm scent. So if you were to smell this burning candle, you would be sharing a little bit of how I experience the tree farm and pumpkin patch :) 


I think one of the fun things about having a daughter is that she gets to be a part of the girl time that my sister and I share. She loves her Aunt Rynnie!


A pumpkin in one hand and a PSL in the other. Couldn't get much better, could it?! It was so chilly while we were on the farm, so baby girl stayed snuggled up on me for most of the trip. She has fallen hard for the front-facing carrier (thanks to my friend Kelly for this life-changing gift!) because she LOVES to be a part of the action and look out. When she has to face me, she's not such a happy camper. But, this new carrier makes her all kinds of happy. 

Since we planned that I would be wearing her in the patch, we knew we could snuggle her up to keep her warm and content. Her second coat ended up going on her front (as you can see in the photos), and she quickly figured out how to get her arms into the arm holes. Greer loved having flappy arms to wave about from then on out. 


It's rare that we ever get a family photo of all of us. So when we remember to do so, we do it and quickly before we let the opportunity pass us by. The trick with photographing so many people is getting everyone to look/smile in the same photo. Someone is bound to have that not-quite-smiling-about-to-talk face. Take husband for instance ;) He was telling his dad to watch out for the approaching tractor. #farmlife

Speaking of family, where I come from a smaller family, I have one sibling, husband comes from a family of four children. In the photo of us with his parents, we're missing 11 more people to make it a complete family photo. Can you imagine the Christmas cabin with all 16 of us??


There is nothing in this world like making homemade apple butter. It gives me the coziest and happiest feeling. To my delight, they were making some on Saturday. It reminds me of making it as a child at my Grandmom's. And the last time I had the pleasure of making it, and helping to stir the big ladle through bubbling apple butter was my senior year of college. I took a class on Appalachian studies and part of the class was to experience Appalachia (Appa-LATCH-uh, y'all!). So I headed to a local church's apple-butter making and had the best time. They even sent me home with a large mason jar full of the fresh and hot apple butter. Heaven, I tell you. I feel certain this will be an everyday-fall thing in heaven. 


We  had such a good time roaming the hillside for pumpkins, our cheeks kissed with sweet and cold mountain air. While this was our last trip to the pumpkin patch this season, we'll be back shortly to tag our tree!