Leaf Me Alone, I'm Playing!!

Halloween has come and gone and all that's left over are spoiled kids that are getting more candy and cookies than they ever have before. They've also now become a tad bit.....indignant at times, especially when it comes to cookies! Sarah is the worst of the three and she gets very mad when I tell her she can't have any more. I thought I could easily hold them down to 1 or 2 cookies a day, but their incessant demands got the best of me.

I didn't give in though, I just ate them myself!! Ha! ha! Triplets!! No more cookies. I just hope I don't have to eat all that Halloween candy next.

Ryan sure does love his chocolate.

We're very lucky in that the kids often sleep until 9:30-10am each morning, with the occasional 11am or 8:30 am thrown in now and again. What this does is causes them to take their naps a bit later in the day. When most kids are getting up from their naps at around 2 pm or 3 pm, our kids are going down for theirs. We've had some incredibly beautiful weather lately and unfortunately the kids have had some head & chest colds that have kept them inside.

With the temperature hovering nicely above 70 degrees today, I wanted to get them out at least once before the weather turns back to normal. So today when they got up from their nap, I immediately marched them outside to the front lawn, each with a ball, for some autumn fun. Despite what the pictures may show, these weren't taken at night, but between 4 pm and 4:45 pm today. It was definitely dusky towards the end, but our camera isn't the best at low lights, so any photos that look odd or dark have been doctored by me just a bit to tell there story today.

The kids brought their balls out to kick, but were more interested in daddy and what he was raking. Normally I use the leaf blower, but they don't like it and I wanted them to play in the leaves anyways.

As you can see, it was a big hit, especially after I made them a big pile. What would you do?

If you're Sarah, you run and jump into the pile! Perrin and her were so happy and giggling while they jumped and sat in the leaves. They especially liked it when I used the rake to cover them up with the leaves.

It was so much fun that even though they just woke up, they had to pretend to go to sleep in their new "leaf bed"

Sarah and Perrin liked it much more and tried to make "leaf angels," but I think their horns and tails got in the way.

In the end they decided it was just fun to sit in the pile buried to their chin and throw the leaves at each other.

The smiles may be a little "cheesy" but the fun is 100% genuine!

It took some time, but I even got Ryan in on the act. This is no simple feat since the kid absolutely HATES it when anything gets on him or his hand. He had a great time too.

Sarah and Perrin welcomed him with a 21 leaf salute. He even laughed at this and threw some back.

All Hail the Queen and her Crown of Leaves!!!

It started to get dark and we had to clean up our pile after it spread out. They all wanted to be like daddy and try out raking for themselves. Perrin surprisingly had the best form.

It took him awhile, but Ryan eventually got the hang of it. Too bad he wanted to rake them in the wrong direction!!

Sarah just wanted to walk around with the rake and hit the balls. I think she has a future in Lacross.

Once we had the leaves in a manageable pile, it was time to say goodbye and get back in the house to have our 2 cookie limit. I had to eat 6 of them to make them go away and have the madness stop!!

I have a couple of video clips I want to post here in the next few days, but I need to clean them up a bit. As soon as I get them finished, I'll put them up. Remeber to click on a picture if you want to see a bigger version.