Making up for an Autumn spent indoors . . .

It was one of the first Saturdays in January. Our tree gifted us a blanket of leaves, crunchy and ready for raking and tossing. We had literally spent most of the Autumn cooped up inside battling a lot of sickness, some grumpiness and a little bit of too-wet ground. 

JC wanted to bust out his fancy shmancy leaf-eater-upper-vacuum-thing. Though I usually have no problem with power tools being part of our Saturday mornings, this particular day I opted out with a "please" and a promise of very happy kids. He easily agreed and our kids got to experience their first fall-ish activity of the year...well...of last year...

Anyway, it has taken me forever to get this up because I video taped the whole thing and due to JC's reminder lesson, I was able to get snapshots off that. So, some are blurry but you can definitely still see those smiles!

After a pile was formed, Bethany was first to take advantage.

Then, everyone got into it. Bethany just threw leaves in the air, James spent most of his time showering leaves over his siblings' heads and Ben would put them directly on his own head.

Here, I have a feeling he had just doused somebody in leaves and is trying to escape the wrath that may come.

Nothing is better than watching my little ones running around out in the crisp, fresh air, drinking in the sun, smiling and laughing!

Bethany takes over Dad's duties.

He takes them back...Ben throws some leaves over his head. This is what he did for most of the time we were out there. Squat. Grab. Stand. Arms up. Drop. Squat. Grab. Stand. Arms up. Drop.

But then he also did some of this...

And this...

Bethany and Ben take in a quiet moment, just enjoying their pillow of leaves.

And, true to his brotherly ways, James slides in to make it more interesting.

Sometimes when I'm taping the kids, JC likes to create a little side show usually involving whatever playthings he can find lying around. This one featured a couple of dinosaurs walking across the screen repeatedly and having a bit of conversation.

After that, he got back to business and made the pile more concentrated...around James...who LOVED it.

Then JC turned to showering everyone with leaves (wait...is this post about him or the kids...?) Here are the kids enjoying the leaf confetti.

And here I am (sort of) enjoying the leaf confetti (sort of).

This gave the kids ideas...here, I and the camera are about to get quite the shower o' leaves.

And it was, apparently, really funny.

As the morning was winding down, Ben realized that in all the excitement, we had allowed the sandbox to become cluttered with leaves.

He was not having that and proceeded to clean out a little corner to play in.

It hasn't even been a month since this fun morning and I already am twiddling my thumbs until the next time our tree generously shares its bounty with us. :)

From what I'm told, I may have a while to wait. But, in the meantime, I will enjoy watching her grow those bright baby green leaves that are beginning to light up our backyard.