It's autumn, and that means....

First off, autumn means a hot breakfast - unless you're 18 months old and it takes a million years to eat anything. Regardless, I made the boys some new pancakes this morning because A) we were out of pancake mix, and B) the recipe said that they are full of protein - which Peanut desperately needs. So, cottage cheese pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon. I know - they sound icky, but they are pretty good! The texture is weird, but they are low in carbs and high in protein. Meatball ate them well (because he loves almost everything), but Peanut was skeptical as he is with all food. Nothing some blueberry syrup won't cure!

Secondly, autumn + blueberry syrup = hot bath. Tub time is always fun. They spend a lot of time pointing to the fish on the shower walls and yelling "Weeeeesh!" (That means "fish" if you're a toddler...)

After a trip to the store, a nice long nap and some food, we went outside to play. And by "play" I mean that I wander around the back yard looking for doggie doodie to clean up while the boys kick balls, play in the dirt, and chase the cat.

Finally, autumn means raking the leaves. Well, this year it does. It has NEVER meant that in the ten years that we've lived here. We have never cleaned up the leaves because, honestly, we live in a perfect position for weekly wind that comes out of the canyon and blows all of our leaves into neighboring lawns. It's nice. However, since Meatball likes to try and eat every apple left on the ground, I figured that it was high time that I do some clean up. The last thing I need is him sucking up a worm or something....

So, I started raking the leaves and Meatball promptly sat in the middle of them. This means that he also sat right on some squishy and gunky apples, but he was having fun. Mr. Helper (aka Peanut) saw me raking and proceeded to go down the big hill and onto the porch to get the broom. He loves to sweep the porch, so that's what I thought he would be doing. The next time I look up, here comes the skinny little squirt dragging the broom behind him. He dragged it all the way to the top of the yard so that he could help me "sweep up" leaves. However, by the time he got it up there, he was pooped, so he just sat in the leaves with his broom and his brother.

Did I get all of the leaves and apples into the compost pile? Nope - but that gives me a chance to take more adorable pictures next weekend!