What Can You Do With a Pile of Leaves?

The other day I took lots of pictures of the kids outside playing in the leaves.  What kid doesn't love a freshly raked pile of fall leaves?  Our backyard had some, but our front yard had tons!  As of now we've cleaned them all up...most of our trees out front have lost their leaves, but not our back trees.  We have one tree that's completely green and seems to loose it's leaves after the first snow.  That makes for a mess!  Most of the pictures are of Isaiah at first.  When we got home that day Ava fell asleep in the car and I carried her into the house and she continued to rest on the couch for a while. 

What can you do with a pile of leaves?

...your dog will use them to roll in,

...you can watch even more leaves fall into the pile from other trees

(I love how beautiful our trees get in the fall!),

...you can jump...ready, set, go,

...you can jump over and over again,

...you can look at all the different colors,

...you can help Dad by carrying them in big handfuls over to the fire pit,

...you can continue to fill the fire pit until it's full,

...you can pretend to light a fire like Daddy does,

...you can show your Mom how much you can hold at one time,

...you can crash through piles on the driveway,

...you can tell your sister how much fun it is so she can try jumping too,

...you can just sit there and smile because it's a gorgeous day and

the leaves are crunchy and feel cozy,

...you can make even bigger piles to run over,

...you can lay down and look at the sky or even make "leaf angels,"

...you can rake them up,

...you can stuff them in a toilet paper tube that was left over from when your house

was teepeed (is that even how you spell it?) from Homecoming,

...you can help your brother put his pile back together on the driveway,

...you can use your leaf-filled toilet paper roll as a pointer to show your Mommy a spider web,

...you can use what you found to make a collage,

...and you can glue, glue, glue.

...the possibilities are endless.

My Three Happy's:

1) My kids are amazing!  We have really been working with Isaiah on his alphabet letters.  Today I was doing a puzzle with him and I had him tell me the letters before he put the pieces in.  He knew 18 letters, needed prompting with 3, and the other 5 he wasn't sure on yet.  I'm so proud of my little guy and how hard he works.  He is starting to remind me so much of Ava!  At this age she was like a sponge and still is.  They both love to learn and it's fun to find creative ways to motivate them!  After Isaiah put his letters in the puzzle he said, "Mommy, let's count them all."  The desire to learn never stops!

2) Speaking of my amazing kids...last night Ava read two new books to me.  When I mean read, I mean that she points to the words that she reads and uses the pictures to help her with some of the words that are unfamiliar to her.  Many of the lines of text are repetitive and contain some of the words that she has been learning.  Last night she read Old Hat New Hat and Pete and P.J. Today she brought a story home called Scary Pumpkin.  It's similar to the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  Did she amaze us or what when she read that book?!  My babies are growing up to fast!

3) Ava's 5th (seriously her 5th already) birthday is coming up VERY soon.  This year sounds like a good year to start a "friend party" and then have a "family party" too.  She wants to go to The Playground in Ankeny (a jumping house, inflatable type place) for her friend party.  Tonight I've e-mailed some dates and am waiting to hear back.  After searching on Birthday Direct (best birthday website ever...if you've never looked at it...you need to!) she decided that Barbie was the theme she wanted this year.  So Barbie it is!