Good times

When I was growing up, fall meant raking leaves. My parents have 5 trees in their backyard and we would end up raking leaves up at least 3 times every fall. My dad's rational was that if we waited untila ll of the leaves were off of the trees, it would be really difficult to rake. The last house my husband and I lived in only had 1 small tree in the front yard. We would get some leaves int he backyard from the neighbors trees, but not enough that we would rake. This house we live in now is a completely different story. We have a large yard with several HUGE 100+ year old trees that dropped most of their leaves all at once. My husband spent basically all day outside yesterday raking and blowing the leaves into piles. He didn't actually get all of the piles combined into one big one behind the garage for the city to pick up yet, but man, you should see the pile so far...and there are still leaves on the trees. I got out of helping this year, but I can't justify being pregnant every fall to get me out of raking leaves. When we do get all the piles put into one, I may have to post a picture just because I've never seen a pile of leaves this huge.

We're still struggling with potty training Clara. Everyone says that girls are easier to potty train than boys, but I have to strongly disagree. I'm sure it has nothing to do with her stubborn, bullheaded, I'm going to do it my way personality she gets from her mother. I could also use some patience I suppose, but it's still frustrating. Part of the problem is that Jacob was so easy. We just took him out of diapers, put him in the underwear he picked out and that was that. We had a small handful of accidents, even at night. I think with Clara we've tried every tactic from just putting her in underwear to rewarding her with candy for using the potty and several in between. The week we had her in underwear was a nightmare for my furniture. I had big dreams that she would be out of diapers by the time this baby gets here, but unless we have an epiphany, that's not going to happen. I know she won't go to kindergarten in diapers, but a little progress would be nice. What's frustrating is that she knows what to do, because we'll have days she does really well. She just doesn't consistantly want to do it. Well, I guess when she's ready she'll do it.