Fall Clean Up.

When I say clean-up, I mean we cleaned up. And big time. Friday afternoon while the kids were napping, I raked the biggest part of our front lawn. The leaves had been there for awhile, just waiting for us to come and take care of them. There was a nasty wind storm that came through here last week and just about took care of the leaves on the huge tree in our front lawn (the only tree, actually). It took me about 45 minutes to do that, and I was all hyped up to take care of the smaller part of the yard. The part between our driveway and the neighbor's fence. That section of our yard is about 1/8th the size of the other part, but the leaves there were at least 4 inches deep. We started tackling that part on Saturday afternoon while the kids napped. We have never really taken leaf clean up seriously because never really cared about what our yard looked like. But this summer, we spent a lot of time and money re-landscaping our front and backyards, so we wanted to make sure we did a good job when dreaded the leaf pick up came around.

The following pictures are the leaves we raked between Friday and Saturday's sessions. Holy crap!

Part of the little yard.

Big yard and 3/4 of the little yard.

Another shot of the big pile.

View from the door. Ugh.

Needless to say, I am SO glad that is over with. Those leaves will be picked up sometime tomorrow by the city, and they will came back two more times before December 1st. We will likely have another (smaller) pile for them the next time and nothing for the 3rd collection.

In other news, today is Halloween, but we are not trick or treating. We decided to skip out on it once last time - while we can. Cameron is not crazy about dressing up in a costume and it's rather cold to take Hannah out, so we will be inside watching movies and (Cameron will probably be) eating M&Ms. We are excited for next year to roll around when he will have a better idea what trick or treating is all about. (And maybe he will actually be able to say 'trick or treat').

Tomorrow starts a 30-day challenge for me. One of my mommy friends, Ashley found an idea where you post about something different about yourself everyday for 30 days. The topics are:

Day 1-Introduce, recent picture, 15 interesting facts

Day 2-Meaning behind your blog name

Day 3-Your first love

Day 4-Your parents

Day 5-Your favorite recipes

Day 6-A picture of something that makes you happy

Day 7-Favorite movies

Day 8-A place you've traveled to

Day 9-A picture of your friends

Day 10-Something you're afraid of

Day 11-Favorite tv shows

Day 12-What you believe

Day 13-Goals

Day 14-A picture you love

Day 15-Bible verse

Day 16-Dream house

Day 17-Something you're looking forward to

Day 18-Something you regret

Day 19-Something you miss

Day 20-Nicknames

Day 21-Picture of yourself

Day 22-What's in your makeup bag

Day 23-Favorite vacation

Day 24-Something you've learned

Day 25-Put your iPod on shuffle, first 10 songs

Day 26-Picture of your family

Day 27-Pets

Day 28-Something that stresses you out

Day 29-3 Wishes

Day 30-a picture

I am looking forward to putting myself out there and for everyone to get to know me. It should be a fun and interesting 30 days! See you tomorrow for day one!