Leaf Bouquet

We were out for our regular Thursday stroll, this time in fleece, cozy knit hats and Buby's new barn coat from L.L. Bean {thanks Grandpa!}. It was a far more pleasant sampling of autumn than yesterday. Less wind. More sun. In fact, it shined on us all the way to the park, with a quick stopover at the coffee shop to see our friends with the {organic / no-sugar-added} apple juice and decaff almond latte. Mmmm. Essential treats for both on this unscheduled October day. Let's see. We started on the green slide, Buby on my lap as Bleu watched. Then the swings. We like to look straight up at the sky when we swing, so I lean back and Buby rests his head on me. Then we tackled the fireman's pole, the rings, the tire swing, and finally the yellow slide. The yellow one is twisty, and Buby loves when my long legs get stuck on the turns. He kept trying to get me to say "Help, I'm stuck!" so he could be the hero and unjam me.


We frequent the playground. It's old and rusty in many respects, but it is walkable, offers a variety of amusements, and more often than not we get the whole place to ourselves. We walked down to the river afterwards counting squirrels and collecting rocks, sticks, acorns, and leaves along the way. These were HUGE leaves, so we made Daddy a leaf bouquet {above} and wrapped it with my lucky hair tie. I asked Buby if he wanted to surprise Daddy with it at the train station, and he responded with a high pitch "Okay, sure." So we walked back to our car and quick zipped down to the station to pin it under the Jeep's windshield wipers {with a teeny tiny pink post-it love note, of course, ingeniously secured to the top leaf with gum}.


By 7:45pm we had all but forgotten about our little surprise. The kids and I were up in Buby's bed saying goodnight prayers when Daddy surprised US and walked in with the bouquet in his hands and a smile on his face.





The acorns.




Just a leaf we liked.




Buby in his barn coat.