I tried hard to come up with some pun-like title using leaf and leaves, but I couldn’t concentrate. A week or two ago, the weather was pretty nice and the leaves had really started to fall [from the one tree in our yard that loses them in the fall]. The boys wanted to be outside and decided to rake some leaves up.

Remembering how much I loved jumping in piles of leaves as a kid, I grabbed my camera and suggested they make a pile and jump in them.  They were so excited! Of course, it took them forever to just move a few, so I took the rake and control.  Soon we had a small pile and they jumped on in.  They buried themselves, buried each other, threw armfuls into the air and generally had a blast playing.  I couldn’t help but jump in and throw some leaves on them myself!

Unfortunately, I was fighting with the focus on my camera that day, so most of the shots weren’t as good as I had hoped, but I got a few good pictures and the memories are perfectly clear.

With the country-wide snowpacalypse the other night, the boys obviously did not have school yesterday. Late in the afternoon, they finally got bored enough to head outside.  Sadly, the snow wasn’t good packing snow, so no forts or snowmen or even real snowballs, but we had some fun anyway.  Turns out in the absence of a sledding hill, snow covered steps work well!!

Playing with the camera a lot lately…

Backyard wild flowers

The Veggie Garden!

Daisy Doodle Schmoodle

The boy knows how to relax

Waiting

Heading home

Watching

Our fabulous friends got the boys a trampoline for Christmas last year and I, for one, have been DYING to put it together and get it into the yard.

We’ve had a fair amount of decent weather, but it’s Michigan, and it’s really not Spring until May…or June…so we’ve been holding off. I was sick of waiting, though, so yesterday, Matt and I made the trek to Sam’s Club and got the enclosure net for it (and about $200 worth of other crap, of course!).

A beautiful and sunny day, it only took a couple of hours to get it fully operational. In no time, the boys were bouncing and laughing and playing. Totally worth the wait.

Later, I got in and did laps with Matt; he chased me and I chased him. And seriously? Who needs a gym with a trampoline in the backyard?!