fourth minute of fall photo dump

In the springtime, I have the boys outside at every given opportunity, just because I'm full of glee that winter has come to an end.  They love it, I love it, everything's peachy.  Then sometime in July or August, it gets so insanely hot that you can barely breathe while walking to the mailbox so you can forget about playing tag and running circles around the house.  The only way to play outside is in a pool or lake.  After that, there's about 5 minutes of nice, fall weather before blizzard season sets in for 9 months.  Okay, like 6. Fine, 4.  Or whatever.  Anyway, we're in the 4th minute of fall right now and I'm acutely aware that soon I will be right back in that there's-no-way-in-hell mode when asked to play outside.  

But now that Theo's engrossed in Legos and they are both obsessed with Disney movies, some days they don't even show any interest in playing outside. Lame.  So today when Dexter asked to play outside after we got home, I scrapped any plans for a decent dinner in exchange for spending the last hour of daylight with my baby boy outside. Theo enjoyed playing in the leaf pile I raked until he'd destroyed it, then he was pretty much pouting until I let him go inside to play Legos.  I checked on him intermittently before dragging Dex back in so I could pop those frozen corn dogs in the oven for dinner.  So what? They loved it.

Oh, and as Dexter and I were putting toys back in the garage, Theo opens the door and asks to go on a wagon ride.  I was happy to hear that he'd changed his mind, but told him it was too late. At least I did something I've been FAILING at lately - I remembered to grab my camera to capture a few cute fourth minute of fall moments.

The purest, sweetest, most innocent joy.

I guess I don't totally hate fall.

xo,
~C~