Crispy Crunch

At this time last year, Lincoln was just a mere, itsy-bitsy 5 month old baby. Nothing really meant more to him than his warm bottles, silky blanket and thumb and somebody to hug him. A lot has changed in a year. He's still caught up in his thumb and silky blanket and this child will most assuredly never run low on hugs, but there is a big, colorful world right outside our door just waiting to be explored. Although we don't have any trees in our backyard, we didn't have to look much further than our neighbor's house to find a massive jackpot of colorful, fall leaves just waiting to be tackled and crunched upon.

Since the weather was cool but still crisp and sunny, I turned the kids loose to play in the leaves. With only one crunch underfoot, Lincoln decided he was done. He found himself a path right on out of this nosiy patch of ground and tried to get away.

Elaina on the other hand, grabbed her basket and was beginning to stockpile leaves to take over to our yard. (no thanks, Kiddo) Soon after, our neighbor (our friend Sam) (Elaina's "boyfriend") (he is 36; keep looking Elaina) came out and began raking a mountain of leaves for the kids to play and jump in. Shortly after that our other neighbor boys came home and couldn't resist the fun that awaited them in this seasonal explosion of leafy goodness.

And before you know it, look who ended up having the best time of all. Lincoln sat happily in his little nest of leaves and was a giggle box of excitement when the leaves happened to be raked in his direction. He and another neighbor boy sat like anchors on each end of the leaf pile, roaring with laughter as each of the bigger kids took turns jumping and splashing their way through the mound.
I'm pretty sure that the adults had almost as much fun as the kids as we watched them laugh and bounce around outside, but next time I've decided to make sure that the pants my kids are wearing don't have cuffs. Just sayin'.