Leaf Pile

The most annoying part of Autumn is raking up the leaves. I never did it growing up. We didn't have any trees in our back yard and any leaves in the front yard would blow away onto someone else's lawn so it wasn't our problem. Well, we have tons of trees in our yard, so we have to do the work to clean it up.

I had had enough of doing it myself, and I happen to have a large 13 year old boy who lives with me, so guess who's helping this year?

I had gotten a second rake earlier, so there was no excuse! Ledger and I both trapesed out to the front yard and got to work making a pile. Fortunately, our town comes around and sucks up any leaf piles by the road, so all we had to do was pile it up out there. It took a lot of work and effort, but we made a huge pile! It didn't take long for the neighbor's kids to decide that all our effort would be the perfect pile to jump in. Ledger honestly felt the same and he joined them jumping in the leaf piles and having a ton of fun!

It just took a little work to get the leaves back into the pile after they had exhausted themselves real good. Ledger said he had a surprisingly good time helping out. Great, because the trees still have about half their leaves left- we are definitely going to have to come out and do it once or twice again before winter!

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Icy Fun

The snow has been coming down pretty good this week, covering the landscape in beautiful white. Unfortunately, the extreme cold comes with it! The past day or two it's started to warm up a little, which means there are a bunch of icicles coming off the house. After pointing it out to Ledger, he decided he wanted to check it out! He went outside, without a coat as only teen boys are foolish enough to do, and broke off a few of them and crashed them on the deck, throwing them up in the air for maximum impact. I tried my best to stop him from licking them, but again, he's a teenage boy, so all my attempts were in vain. 

We've been huddled inside trying to stay warm so long that it was great to see him brave the outdoors and play around for a while! I'm sure it'll be a long winter, but at least we can enjoy it.

Stan Is Back!

The snow came down really hard earlier this week, but now the temperatures are rising. You know what that means: the perfect snow for making a snowman! Each year Ledger and I make a snowman together and play out in the snow. Ledge spent all morning lounging around watching TV and playing on his tablet when I peeked around the corner and started singing the Frozen song 'Do You Want To Build A Snowman?' He gave me a sly look and said 'Of course!' So we bundled up and grabbed the snowman building kit from the garage.

We headed out there, with the dog in toe, and had ourselves a little snowball fight. The snow was absolutely perfect for packing! We let the dog back in because he was shaking so much from the cold, but then we got to work building our annual Stan the Snowman. It was a bit of a challenge to even get the three big snowballs stacked up because the snow was so heavy! Finally we got him looking good, shaping him just right. When we were satisfied with how he looked, we walked into the backyard to find some branches in the woods that would work for his arms. The facial features were put on next, his hat, and finally the red scarf. Ta da! Stan is reborn again for another winter! After standing back and appreciating our craftsmanship, Diana called us in for hot chocolate and marshmallows. Ah, now this is what winter is all about!

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This Year's Stan

Every year, as required by my son, we must make a snowman. We have been doing this since he was just a year or two old. When he was little his favorite things in the whole world were ghosties and snowmans (always the plural 'snowmans', never 'snowmen'). Ledger asks every time is snows 'Is it good snow for a snowman?' and usually it isn't. So we wait. Finally this week, with snow on the ground the temperature starting to climb, which of course, makes it perfect weather for a snowman. It was time. I peeked into the living room and sang that familiar song 'Do you want to build a snowman?' from Frozen. His eyes began to sparkle, 'Really?!?' Yup, today's the day! We both suited up into our warm snow gear and headed out to the front yard. We played around in the snow for a bit first, but then got to work rolling the snow so we could make our annual Stan (that's the snowman's name every year).

Once we made a good stack of snow balls, we went into the garage to find our ol' snowman kit. A gift from Grandma years ago, it's got all the parts needed to make the snowman just right. We smoothed him out and shaped the snow so it looked perfect. We walked into the woods in the back yard to find just the right arms for him, and then assembled all the different parts. And voila! Stan lives another day!

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First Stan

First snowfall always means one thing: Ledger will start grilling me wanting to know when we get to go out and make a snowman! We got a little snow recently and Ledge started asking. We had so little and it was too soft to make one, but that didn't stop him. He grabbed the Snowman Kit we have with all the pieces for building one, and headed out. Donning his snow pants, gloves, and hat, he made the most of what little snow we had.

The finished product wasn't as grand as some of them he has made in the past, but this little fella sure is cute!

Gone Sledding

Ledger's friend Zeke from across the way stopped by and asked if he wanted to go sledding. Well, that was an easy answer: of course! I offered to go along, so we both suited up in our warmest winter clothes, grabbed the sled Ledger had gotten for Christmas a year or two ago, and walked out our backyard through the woods. There is an old folks home on the other side of the woods and they have a couple hills by their parking lot, just big enough to sled and just small enough to not be scary for an 8 year old. Zeke, his two sisters, and Ledger had a blast going down the snowy hill time and time again, doing tricks and laughing all the way. Our little pup even joined us, chasing them down, waggling his tail the whole time. After about an hour our dog looked like he might freeze to death, so we packed it up and warmed back up at home with a hot chocolate, telling Mama about all the fun he had! 

snowmans!

Ledger's one demand each winter is that he gets to make a snowman.  Every time it snows he asks 'can we make one today?'  The opportunity doesn't come around very often, usually the snow is bad for packing or there isn't enough of it.  Well, today the snow was perfect, so off we went into the front lawn to make a new friend!  He had gotten a cool snowman kit from grandma last Christmas, so he was eager to use it.  We tracked it down in the basement and got to work.  The snow was absolutely perfect for packing, so it turned out really great.  We went to the backyard and found just the right branches so he could have arms.  On went the different pieces of the kit, and voila! A snowman!  Our boy was delighted, as you can tell.  We stayed out there and played with him for a while and eventually came in to warm up.  As he was at the table enjoying a hot chocolate, he kept peeking out the window to admire his handiwork.
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gingerbread house contest

After the gifts we had a competition lined up: gingerbread house decorating!  Diana and Barbara had worked hard assembling a bunch of gingerbread houses for us so we could each have our own.  Everyone picked a house and we got to work.  There were a bunch of different candies and icings to choose from, so everyone had the chance to make whatever sort of creation they wanted.  It was really fun to see the different approaches to the challenge.  Some people were very focused and methodical, while others were more haphazard with their process, putting whatever they wanted wherever they wanted!  I'm sure you can guess which one of those describes Diana and which one describes Ledger...  The finished products looked quite impressive!  We couldn't decide on a winner, so everyone tied!
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South Bend Christmas

With Christmas falling on a Wednesday this year, that meant that we got to have an extra long visit down to South Bend- and Tavish and his mom were back in town too!  We drove down Thursday morning to see everyone and have our Christmas together that night.  As always, Diana's dad was able to come over for the festivities, as well as Barbara and James- even Miranda stopped by for the fun!  The boys were so pumped to see each other that they almost forgot that they were going to get more gifts... almost.  The prospect of getting to spend a long weekend together and get lots of toys was almost more than those two boys could bare!  One of the things that Tavish got earlier for Christmas was a VR headset for his PlayStation 4.  This was a source of a ton of fun for the kids- and the adults too!  Everyone got in on the action- even Diana's dad (which was hilarious!).  After a bit of gift giving and a ton of laughs, we were all exhausted and called in a night.
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mowin the lawn

One thing I was lucky enough to avoid for the past three to four years has been mowing the lawn.  It has been very nice to skip out on this, my most hated of tasks.  I always hated it when I was growing up and never enjoyed it while I lived at the duplex in Indiana.  But the reality is now that I'm a homeowner, I'm also a lawn owner.  Ugh.  Diana's dad was kind enough to offer us one of the spare mowers he had, so that means I have no excuses now!  I finally forced myself to go out there and take care of business.  Diana knows how much I hate it so she was impressed enough to come out and take a picture!
Needless to say, the lawn looked amazing after I was done.  I may hate it, but I still make sure I do a good job!

snowmans

every year we try to make a snowman.  ledge has always loved snowmans, so from the time that the first snow falls, he asks every day, all winter long, if we get to go out and make a 'snowmans' (he always uses 'snowmans' as a plural, never 'snowmen').  this season has been pretty disappointing for snowfall so far, but that wasn't about to stop our boy!  he was a little disappointed with how small it was, but he was still happy to have made a snowmans.

the orchard with papa

an old tradition in my family was to go to robinette's orchard every fall.  wanting to pass that tradition on for ledger and i, papa and i made plans to bring the boy there!  it's changed a bit since we last went there, but we still made the most of it and had a nice time.  we wandered around the orchard building a bit, seeing what they had to offer, and then chowed down on some homemade donuts and apple cider!  ledge took a minute to play on the giant apple out front and before we knew it, it was time to get going.
thanks again papa for coming with on our annual visit!
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carvin' pumpkins

now that we've got the pumpkins, the next step is to carve them, right?  we dug right in as soon as we got home and made the best chock-o-lanterns that we could!  ledge wasn't so keen on the messy part of cleaning them out, but he was eager to draw out the faces he had in mind for them!  since he's only five, i took the knife cutting duties and made the faces to his exact specifications.  he was very pleased with the results and was excited to put lights inside them to see how they would look at night.  we lugged them into the bathroom (the darkest room in the house), and tried them with a light to see how they would look.  ledge was quite pleased with the results and both of them got the thumbs up.  now we are ready for halloween!

pickin' pumpkins

one of the guys at work grew up in the allegan area, so i like to ask him from time to time about local things.  as halloween is almost upon us, i asked him where the best place would be to get pumpkins from.  he told us about gene the pumpkin man!  apparently he's a local icon around these parts and if you want good pumpkins, then there's no one better than ol' gene.  not wanting to miss out on such a wonderful opportunity, we headed down there at our first opportunity!  it was a little bit rainy when we headed over, but figuring it was fall, that was about the weather one would expect.
as we pulled up to the pumpkin farm, the first thing ledger noticed was how everything was orange- and he was delighted! 
we picked out a couple nice pumpkins, including a few little gourds just for fun, and even got a chance to talk with gene himself.  the farm was fun to visit and the pumpkins were top-notch, so we will definitely make this a regular visit from here on out!
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eclipse

there was a whole lot of hubbub over the past couple weeks about the impending solar eclipse.  these things don't happen too often, so it was kind of interesting.  we happened to be driving back from south bend while it was happening, so we pulled off the road for a bit and checked it out.  it was hard to explain to ledger what was going on, but once he made sense of it, he thought it was super cool!  we made sure not to actually look directly at it, but i did take a direct photo of it so we could see it really well.

winter walk

ledge and i got our winter gear on and headed out to explore!  next to our place is a big ravine with a winding creek at the bottom.  we decided to have a snowy adventure and check it out!  we made our way through all the different trails and paths, sometimes making our own, and got all the way to the bottom.  ledger loved being an explorer checking out the wintery wilderness!

making snowmans!

ledger's favorite thing in the whole world right now is snowmen, or as he calls them 'snowmans'.  every time there is even one snowflake falling he asks if we can go out and make a snowman.  he doesn't quite understand that there needs to be a bunch of snow and it has to be warm enough to pack it.  well, finally, when we were visiting down in south bend, it was just the right weather for building a snow man!  so we geared up (a 20 minute process), and headed out!  he and i had a blast playing around in the snow, making snow angels and everything, and then mad ourselves a little snowman!  grandma came out with a few items to add to the snowman- a hat, eyes, and a nose.  then it was time to explore around the yard to find arms and a smile for him.  ledger was in his glory the whole time!  we had recently been watching a snowman movie where they also make a snow dog to play with, so of course we made one of those too!
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decorating for christmas

as ledger gets a little older he has become more and more obsessed with the holidays.  i've always been a bit of a scrooge when it comes to christmas decorations (except for, as my mom tells me, one year when i was obsessed with wanting to put christmas lights all over my bedroom...), being the first one to complain when stores start putting up christmas stuff after labor day...
but that little guy has even melted my grinchy heart.  with being in our own place for the first christmas with an interested child, we decided to splurge a little bit on decorations.  we got a nice big christmas tree, decorations, and a bunch of lights to put out on our balcony.  when it was finally time to put up the tree (which was a reasonable time after thanksgiving), ledge was so thrilled about it!  we made a whole night of it and took our time setting everything up while we had christmas music playing in the background.  ledger loved every single minute of it- and so did diana and i!
i will admit, its starting to feel a lot like christmas!
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moving again

so... we're moving again.  ugh.  we just moved to allegan two months ago but now we are packing up and starting over again.  this time its not because we want to, its because we have to.  we were no longer able to live in the house we were in, it was very old and beautiful, but unfortunately we discovered that the basement furnace area was just caked in black mold and the paint in the kitchen, which was peeling off, was lead based pain.  yikes!  we contacted the landlord and informed him that we were moving immediately.  he understood, us having a 3 year old and all, and even gave back our deposit.  we moved about a mile away and are now renting an apartment.  its a pretty great place, its got two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a great living room, kitchen, and even an awesome loft!  we've called in some more favors with friends to make the move and have been really happy with where we are now- no mold or anything!
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light up the night

as summer sets in ledger has been staying up later.  the sun is out so long that we cant reasonably expect ledge to go to bed at 7pm and have it still be as light as noon!  he's been a-ok with us delaying his bedtime!  some times we have even had special events or plans that have kept him up extra late.  recently he was up late enough to see his new favorite animal in the whole world: lightning bugs!  he was so thrilled with seeing them for real- he had thought they were just imaginary like the other characters on tv!  he ran around in the backyard trying to chase after them.  whenever they would light up his eyes would light up even brighter!  we certainly have a nature lover on our hands with this guy!