Fall Into Spring

We have a 15000 sq ft lot with, I think, 14 trees. This means in the fall we have a lot of leaves on the ground. This is very different from when we lived in El Paso and had one 4 foot tree on our little lot. Jeff spent a lot of time over the fall and winter seasons trying to figure out what to do with all our leaves. He didn't want to pay someone to deal with it, but they wouldn't magically go away either. So he had to think of something. He tried mowing them but that just made them smaller. He tried blowing them but ended up just spreading them around. He prayed for strong winds to blow them somewhere else, but again, no luck. Ultimately he decided he was just going to have to rake them the old fashioned way. It took him till February to make this decision and then he opted to only do the front yard and leave the side yard and back in its leaf covered state.
I am in no way saying Jeff is lazy. He actually loves yardwork and is out there doing something every chance he gets. I guess he just doesn't like raking leaves. I can't imagine it's really that bad, but I've never done it!! So after he raked up some of the leaves he let the boys jump in one of the piles and have some fun. And they did!

If any of you have ideas on how not to have to rake leaves in the fall, I'm sure Jeff would appreciate them!

Handsome Boys

We took the boys to get some nice church clothes for Easter (planning ahead!!) and found some great deals so we took advantage. If you know Jeff, you know that he would have these boys dressed in suits and ties for every occasion!
Our church just finished building a new building for us to meet in and it's right across the street from our house. It is finally done and Sunday was the first meeting there. We decided it was the perfect time for the boys to try out some of their new "handsome" clothes. We had to hurry and get the pictures taken before they got dirty--that walk across the street is way too far to guarantee they'll stay clean!!
The boys were so excited to be able to see the inside of the church building. While it just looks like a regular church, they have be able to watch it being built from our backyard for the past 9 months. They have talked about it almost daily and were thrilled when it was finally done. We were even on time this week!!

Houston Rodeo Week

Max's school had a Western celebration last week. I had no idea what this was for other than the fact that it was Houston Rodeo Week. He spent the whole week learning all about Texas, the Alamo, cowboys, Texas flags, armadillos, and blue bonnetts. I thought it was kind of dumb that they spent all that time talking about Texas just because the rodeo was in town. I mentioned this to Jeff and he said, "Well isn't it Texas Independance day or something?" I said, "Oh, maybe it is. How should I know?" Then he reminded me that Max goes to school in Texas and will probably spend some time learning about Texas history. I felt a little dumb, like I should have realized that. I said, "Well I guess now that we live in Texas, I should keep up with things like this." He laughed and said, "Lori....we've lived in Texas for 6 years now!" OH! OOPS!

Anyway, so here is a picture of my cute little cowboy who now knows WAY more about the state of Texas than I do. I guess I have some reading to do!