Raking

Sam needed to redeem himself after the last pictures I posted of him, so here is a great one of my little four-year old sitting in a pile of pine needles after we had raked them up. Yep, that one's going in a frame. Anyway, about raking, Jason and the boys were outside raking when it came time to load up all the needles on a tarp to drag into the garage until their final destination-the dump. Jason pulled out the tarp and flattened it out, then the boys started throwing it by the arm-fulls onto the tarp. After a minutes or so of that, Jason got the idea that using wagons might be helpful for the boys so they both got a wagon and started loading it up with needles, pulling it over to the tarp and dumping it out.

Here's Sam and his wagon (with Abby helping???).

And then he finished off his load with a big effort-filled heave.

Matthew had a wagon that we got from Grandma Sue and he was making the most of it.

On a different note, today after church I brought Abby home for her nap while Jason stayed at the church with the boys so they could go to Sunday School. Anyway, it was around 10AM, which is normally Abby's nap time, so I took her upstairs, read a few books and put her down for her nap. I then went downstairs to clean up, look at the paper, and relax in my quiet and almost empty home. However, Abby did not want to go to sleep. I could hear her chatting over the monitor and she talked and talked and talked. She wasn't fussing, so I just let her go at it and she continued chatting for at least 30 minutes. I wondered if she was ever going to nap. Finally, it was all quiet. Then the Kirchhoff men got home.

So when noon came around I decided it was time to get Abby up in the hopes that we'd have some overlapping nap time in the afternoon.  If she sleeps beyond that, she generally won't take an afternoon nap and although that gives me a lot of quality time with her, mentally, I really need a break in the afternoon. As I was making lunch, Jason ran upstairs to get Abby. Moments later, he came down and said I had to come upstairs and see something. We gingerly entered Abby's room and saw her sitting, but leaning forward with her head propped up against the slats of the crib, sound asleep. After all her chatting, she had apparently fallen asleep sitting up. When Jason got her out of her crib she had a good sized crease on her forehead. At least she got a nap in.