Leaves. In December?

There are if you, like us, procrastinate raking until you simply cannot justify waiting any longer.

Over the course of three months, our yard became a sea of leaves. When December rolled around, we finally came to the conclusion that we'd better get rid of the leaves before any snow rolled in.

We all rolled up our sleeves and jumped in. Literally.

I grabbed the rake and started on the first and most important task: making a leaf pile for the kids to jump in.

Bender had to be where the action was.

It was tricky since it had rained recently and most of the underleaves were matted and wet, but we managed to scrape together a decent pile of mostly dry leaves.

Bender was having the time of his life.

These kids are 100% boy. While I was trying to rake, they were busy beating up our tree in the front yard. Using a baseball bat and a brick.

Yep, we're just going to ignore the fact that the brick, had it been thrown a few inches to the left, would probably have hit Jude square in the face on it's way back down.

Lance decided Jude needed pointers on hitting. You know, since he wasn't damaging the tree enough.

I broke out Lance's old rake and Cole quickly decided it was his. 

It soon became obvious that raking wasn't going to get us very far, so George enlisted the help of a borrowed leaf-blower. Lifesaver!

And entertainer. Jude and Bender had a blast (literally) standing in the flow of air while George herded the leaves into piles.

Pure joy.