Fall Fun In January

This afternoon, while Abbey was napping, Drew and Luke worked together to rake the leaves in our backyard.  This has been the first chance that we have had to rake them since they began falling.  But also, the leaves all finally fell from our Bradford Pear trees.  We figured if we attempted to rake them any earlier, we would be right back out there shortly to do it again.  So, we were blessed with a beautiful, yet windy Saturday.  The temperature was in the upper 60's.  It was time to rake the leaves!

Once Drew created the first huge pile of leaves, of course we had to jump in them!

Luke was first to jump in.  Doesn't this photo just yell pure youthful bliss?

Luke even looked at the camera for a moment so I could capture those dark brown eyes of his that I love.

More bliss!

Even Drew and I took turns jumping in.

My turn to get engulfed by the huge pile of leaves!

By the time Miss Abbey awoke from her long nap, Drew had already bagged this huge pile.   But, he raked up a whole new pile on the other side of the yard.  We introduced Abbey to the new enormous pile.

Abbey is significantly more cautious about things than Mr. Luke (our fearless son).  This was her look when Drew asked her if she wanted to jump in.  It is a look of concern.

So daddy did the true-daddy thing to do--he plopped her into the middle of the pile so that she would face her fear.  She is making sure her hands don't touch the leaves.

And it wasn't long before she began having fun too!

Big Brother is doing his part to quickly initiate her into leaf pile 101.

Ok....all done.  Somebody get me out of here.

Please!!!! Somebody rescue me.

Daddy to the rescue!

Drew raked 9 bags of leaves today.  The usual each season is 12-14 bags, but we still have quite a few leaves that need to come off the trees.  What is crazy is that as he was raking up the leaves from the Bradford Pear trees, he noticed they were already budding!  I think our trees are as confused as we are with what season we are in.