It used to be that we lived in a condo where all the leaves were vacuumed up by the lawn care company. Back then, we would pack the kids and rakes in the car and drive to a local park to rake leaves into a pile so it felt like fall.

Now, the leaves fall and we rake them at home. One tree's leaves fall much earlier than the others and the kids have already spent a handful of hours raking the leaves into play spaces. Now the big maples are starting to loose their leaves. Dad went out and helped make this big pile. Later on, the kids and Dad all put their hoods up and crawled into the pile. :)

Look who won the pumpkin jar!!!

There was a "guess the number of pumpkin candies in the jar" game at the Halloween party we went to on Friday. We got a call on Saturday to let us know that Elena was the winner (she guessed 200 pumpkins)! Congratulations, Elena! She loves these candy pumpkins!


Alia's class is swimming this week. Elena & Mom got to watch her on Monday. She is growing more fish-like every year! Hooray for swimmer Alia! (She's on the far left in the photo.)