Fall Leaves Fall

You all know I have pretty much the cutest little curly-headed three-year-old in the whole world…and he loves to sing silly songs. Once, way back when I started this blog, I told you about him singing “I got the whole bed to myself…” after he convinced me and my sweetie to get out. Well, this morning Curly and I were sitting together on the bench eating our cereal and he looked up at me with those big blue eyes, then snuggled up to me and started singing “I got the whole mommy to myself…”

Have you all noticed that fall is in the air? Yeah, in Utah it took a while! We had Halloween with mostly green leaves still on the trees. Just this week they started to turn colors and drop.

When I was a little girl, we had an elderly couple who lived around the corner from us. They had three beautiful maple trees on their park strip. We loved walking under those massive trees and pulling down just one awesome leaf each. Those leaves were bigger than my whole face! I loved the feel of them, the smell of them. Even though it was much further to go home from school that way, we would take the time because this time of year we could crunch crunch crunch through those leaves and take the biggest ones home as souvenirs.

So after my sweetie and I built our house, we were trying to decide on trees and landscaping. Of course I wanted to put in maples on the park strip. We looked for the variety that had the prettiest fall leaves and that’s what we chose.

I’m sure the neighbors all hate us for that choice because they blow all over. We rake them up and then they blow all over again. We don't want to bag them up right away because the kids love to jump in them and bury each other.

The Dog Walker is the worst! He can’t wait to make a huge pile of leaves every year. As soon as there is a hint of orange in the leaves, he is out there with the rake…pulling the leaves down from the branches. A couple of years ago he got the brilliant beyond brilliant idea that he could use the leaf blower to blow the leaves DOWN from the tree. He was a little disappointed when it didn’t work as well as he thought it would.

I just tell him that’s why they call it FALL. Because the leaves have to FALL.

But that doesn't stop him. He still goes outside, glares up at the leaves with a threatening look and I can just see his mind working..."Fall, Leaves, Fall…or I’m getting out the leaf blower."