Fun Fall Times

On November 2nd, Tim ran the City of Oaks Marathon and got 5th place! He was hoping to repeat his win from last year, but given the racing schedule he's kept up since his Ironman in August, even he realizes he needs to cut himself some slack every now and then. Unfortunately, the boys and I didn't make it to the race in time to see him finish (we got a little lost downtown trying to navigate our way around all the streets they'd closed for the race), but we had fun hanging out with Tim afterward. Tyler loves races, so he enjoyed watching all the runners and Nathan just likes to be outside, so he was perfectly content. It was a nice way to spend a beautiful, sunny fall morning as a family.

Tyler is getting so good at building train tracks by himself. He used to build one long string of tracks that didn't connect at the ends, but this is what I found the other day. I thought it was pretty impressive that he figured out how to do this on his own without any help.

It is definitely fall around here because the leaves are coming down in spades. We have lots of trees in our yard, so every year we spend a lot of time raking leaves. Tyler "helped" me last fall and he has enjoyed helping again this year. We give him a broom, which is much safer than a rake, and he does his best to sweep the leaves into piles. Too bad he ends up destroying the piles I make, thereby creating more work for me. Oh well--he has fun and it's a great way for him to expend some of the endless energy he harbors in his little body.

I don't have a picture of this, but Tyler loves playing outside with PJ (still lovingly referred to as "Pissay" by Tyler). It's great having a fenced yard where the two of them can play and I don't have to worry about either one of them running off. I can keep an eye on them while I'm cooking in the kitchen. I often catch Tyler trying to feed PJ leaves and sticks, and of course PJ will give everything a little taste before spitting it back out. Even when they're inside, I'll hear Tyler calling PJ to come play with him. "Pissay! Come updairs, Pissay! You want to pay wid me?" It's really cute, but sometimes PJ just wants to go hide in Tim's office.