As the last leaves of autumn were being raked outside, our daughter was inside helping her mom prepare some sushi. The ladies found that making sushi can be difficult. Difficult, but certainly worth it.

Our daughter had her first sleep-over last night. Robin, being the over-protective mom that she is, went along for much of it—finally tiring at 11:30. Our daughter was still going strong at that point. She had a grand old time and could not have been happier about the experience. Ah, her first sleepover. She continues to grow up on us.

Today, she had basketball try-outs. We are allowing her one activity at a time. Now that soccer is over, she wanted to give basketball a try. She is one active little kid—much more so than her mom was at that age.

As for the rest of the family, Chris and our son stayed home and played games. In the late afternoon they went out to rake leaves. The baby and our daughter came to help for a bit, but got cold and tired.

Our son had a good old time pretending to be the leaves that he was supposed to be raking. He found it terribly funny lying in the pile as Chris raked other leaves on top of him. His favorite goof was placing a bunch of leaves on his backside while standing next to the pile of leaves that his father was stuffing into the garbage bag. Chris pretended to grab the “little boy leaves” to put in with the rest of the leaves. He thought this was the greatest.

As usual, our daughter was insistent that she get credit in the cook book for her efforts—credit that was well deserved.

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