A Leaf Reprieve

One of my favorite posts from last year was the one where I took the pictures of the kids jumping in and throwing leaves.  This year there was a weekend where many of the leaves had fallen off the trees in the back yard, but I didn't do the pictures (and the required raking) because I wanted to wait until more had fallen.  But I sort of forgot that there are quite a few leaves on our big tree in the back corner until well into winter, so I shouldn't have waited, because by the time those had fallen, the other ones that had already fallen were shriveled.  I really regretted that, because I thought I had missed my chance.  But the weather was decent today, and there was actually some sun, and I realized I still had the leaves from Clara's Fire Tree, which is the last one on the street to turn color and later to drop its leaves.  So today I raked those up, and then had the kids (well, just Joshau and Clara, as Hannah was out with Meghan) jump in them in the pile by it.  But because our house faces north, there is pretty much never sun shining on that part of the front yard, certainly not in the late afternoon in the winter.  So I then transported all the leaves to the west side of our house where we were still getting some sun, and then I had the kids jump in the leaves again and then throw them up in the air.  The pictures aren't as good as last year, but are still very pretty, as sun shining through fluttering colorful fall leaves is hard to mess up.  Next year I'm going to have to remember to do it earlier in the fall, even if not all the leaves have fallen yet.