"It's that time of year"...

...is a common phrase around our house these days.  Most of the time I associate this phrase with the Christmas holidays...as I assume most people would.

It's probably a product of being asked 14 million a few times a day for several weeks why the leaves on our trees were changing colors and subsequently falling.  After multiple explanations of the life cycle of a tree, my "easy" answer became....you guessed it...

"Because, Garrett, it's that time of year."

And, yet again, my "easy" answer has come back to bite me in the rear.

So, fast forward a few weeks and the trees in our yard have finally decided to drop their leaves {yipee!}.  We have one tree on the side of our house dividing the lot lines between our house and the one next door.  Apparently that neighbor likes his yard to be leaf-free (or has entirely too much time on his hands!!).  I've seen him out there at least 3 times a week raking.  Ridiculous.  But, since he decided to show us up this weekend and not only rake but also mow so there were ZERO leaves in his yard and there was now a distinct line between our yards, the boys and I headed out this morning to do something about it.  I should have thought to take a "before" picture, but this will have to do:

Yeah.  Totally not exaggerating.  And you should have seen it yesterday before the wind came through last night.  Nary a leaf in sight.

Anyway, we raked.  And jumped.  And raked some more.  I did get one trash can full picked up by the end of it all.  How?  I'm not sure.  Because there was a whole lot more un-piling than piling.  But, they had a blast (I swear...cardboard boxes or leaves.  They're thrilled.) and I got some cute fall pictures, so, I'll consider it a success.

Brotherly love.

 

 

And my FAVORITE shot of the day:

HA!

InstaFriday (x4!)

Wow.  It's been a while since I've unloaded my phone...although there aren't nearly as many pictures as I would have guessed.  I guess a few of my recent posts {SML, namely} unloaded a bunch.  And some others were repeats from my actual camera {Big Boy Bike Ridin' & Happy Halloween!} 

The boys went to get their flu shots a few weeks ago.  Outside our pediatrician's office, they are building a new Metro Station.  The crane and it's concrete bucket were the highlight of the day!

These are my munchkins.  In the neighbor's yard.  Hitting their tree and knocking leaves down into their yard.
Good thing they like us.

Several weeks ago, we went to Frying Pan Farm Park with our Mommy group.  Very cool place.  They had a little playground area, a carosel {not free, but only $2 or $3}, a grill area where you could order food, lots of picnic tables, a working iron-melting barn where the man was actually working and showed the kids how you heated the metal up and then could bend it, and several barns/fields with animals.  And the best part?  IT'S FREE!!  One of the moms who had been there before said spring was the best time to go because they could see all the babies.  We'll definitely be going back!!

Most mornings, G likes to go in and wake up H.  It's quite endearing.  Until his little brother started rubbing of on him, that is.

Sweet boys.

We took a drive a couple weeks ago to Northern Maryland {almost Deleware} to decorate a friends house for his 30th.  It was dubbed Project Retaliation, seeing as how he had decorated my dining room when we were out of town and I turned 30.  Mission complete. {and I totally win!!}

The other night, this is how I found G when I went it to check on him before bed.

Last weekend we were in PA for our brother-in-law's 40th party.  H really enjoyed the cake.  =)  In fact, he worked his way down the line...a bite from Pappy, then on to Mimi, then Christine, then me.  Cute little mooch.

The quality of this is awful...for some reason my flash didn't go off...but it was too cute not to include.  He brought me the helmet and wanted it on.  Sweet baby.

And finally, our big news of the week was texted/emailed on Monday morning:

=)

Thing 3 {gut says another boy!!} will arrive in mid-May.  And these two crazies had no idea what we were excited about, but G sure got into it!

I'm linking to:

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was rather low-key around here this year.  We trick-or-treated to the 5 or 6 neighbors we know (and met a new one!) and then handed out some candy once we got back.  We were pretty disappointed we didn't have more trick-or-treaters...G was really into handing out the candy, but after about 15 treaters (6 of whom were entirely too old to be treating!) we turned off the lights.  Oh well, maybe next year will be better!

But, we did have a pretty cute banana and an adorable {and rather calm!} monkey here at our house.

 

The monkey did decide to throw himself in the floor at a neighbor's house - who was trying to take a picture of them - and sob because he didn't want to sit still {great first impression there,  H!  I tell ya!}

G was quite thrilled every time someone would put something in his bag.  After every stop, we heard:
"Thank, you!...Happy Halloween!...Mommy!  Look what he/she gived me!" 

Love this one!!

We also had a special email go out Halloween morning...

=)