Raking Leaves

It's that time of year again, when many, many (but of course, not all) leaves fall to the ground. There are 9, yes 9 large, mature trees in my front yard, which I really love during the spring and summer months (except the pears - I don't love those- ever).  But come fall, all of those trees drop a lot of leaves and then it is time to rake.  Of course, I expect my kids to help in this little endeavor. This morning, when the task was presented to them, you would have thought we told them we would be hanging them from the trees by their fingernails.  There was a lot of crying and yelling and even some hitting, I think, because of the fear that someone might end up doing more work than someone else. Seriously, it was ridiculous.  However, I did not give in because, as I tell my kids all the time, I expect them to do hard things and, what do you know?  They survived.  I don't quite know what Samantha planned to accomplish with a shovel, but at least she was out there "attempting" to help.  And Jonas was actually quite useful.Once they remembered the fun of jumping in a leaf pile and burying each other, they realized it wasn't so bad.  Here's Samantha in the pile.
Can you find 3 Stringhams in the leaves?  (Clearly I was doing most of the work at this point, since they were all in the leaves.)
I had to convince them that the leaf pile could only get bigger if they actually helped me rake up the leaves.
Finally, Duffy got brave enough to join in, so here's 4 kids buried in the leaves.  You have to look pretty closely to find Samantha and Jonas.
Too bad there are still some leaves in the trees that are just waiting for the lawn to be clear again.  I am still so grateful for these beautiful fall days!