Love/Hate Relationship & Other Stuff

I hate this tree! I love this tree! This is big, beautiful, amazing tree is across the street from our house. It is difficult to really appreciate how big it is without seeing it in person--especially when the photo is not the greatest. I love it in the summer when it is in full bloom. It has about a billion, maybe even a trillion leaves on it it. I hate it in the fall when the billion or so leaves begin to fall. If we are lucky, the prevailing winds are blowing in a northerly direction and the leaves mainly end up in the park behind the tree. If we are unlucky, the prevailing winds are blowing in a southerly direction and they end up in our yard, against our house, all over the street. Even if we are lucky there are still a few thousand or so leaves from this tree that end up in our yard. I have already filled up our gigantic yard waste container twice with leaves from this tree and the much smaller tree that is in front of our house. (I love our tree in the spring when it is full of plum blossoms).
Now Cooper, he loves the tree across the street! (As you can see in the following pictures.) He went over Sunday afternoon and took over this pile of leaves that some other kids had left. As you can see, there are plenty of leaves to make and remake again and again, one heaping, mound of leaves that any boy would love. Cooper had a heyday.
What's not to love about a big pile of leaves? At least when you are not in charge of raking them up. Fun times!

Groucho & Cowboy Dennis (the other stuff)
I guess Sunday was a banner day (or at least a day worthy of blogging about). Oma & Opa came over for Sunday dinner. After dinner we generally end up sitting around the dining room table chatting about this and that. This Sunday somehow the topic of discussion got on to facial hair or the lack of it. Spencer who is the throes of puberty insisted that he did not have any facial hair. I guess if it is blonde, and a little hard to see that means it's not there. Next thing you know, Oma has my mascara in hand and is "highlighting" Spencer's facial hair. I don't know whether to comment on his Italian heritage showing through or his resemblance to Groucho Marx. Needless to say there was alot of laughter that went on, but it did illustrate how much facial hair he actually has. It did make him look quite a bit older too. And yes, as you can see in the picture without Dennis, Oma colored in his eyebrows too. She did better with the eyebrows than the moustache because I suggested that perhaps she should brush against the grain of the hair rather than with it. You never know what hilarity while happen when Oma & Opa come for dinner! (And no, Dennis is not sleepy or high in this picture--just caught him between expressions I guess)

This last picture is for Ann. Don't know whether she ever looks at the blogs, but this one is for her. She had a hat much like this the last time Dennis saw her in the summer. He commented about how cool he thought it was and she offered to get him one. When the boys and I were down for a visit this summer, she gave me this hat for him. I promised that I would e-mail her a picture of him in it. I never got around to it and was reminded when we saw her at grandma's 100th that I needed to do that. So, since I was in a picture taking kind of mood this weekend, here's the picture for Ann. Ride em, cowboy Dennis!! (I think the hat loses a little authenticity when paired with the sweatshirt, but what can you expect for a city slicker!)