Leaves and Snow

This post is mostly about leaves and snow, but I wanted to add a couple gratuitous shots of myself as well.   Since I'm usually behind the camera.

This is what my hair looks like after I get it cut and the stylist spends 35 minutes blow drying it and curling it with a curling iron.  I like it!  But I am not willing to spend 35 minutes doing my hair every day...

This is the state of my baby bump...about 1 1/2 weeks ago.  I think it's gotten bigger since then.

 Last weekend our friend Josiah came over for the day to help Scott rake up leaves.  Josiah goes to our church and lives a couple blocks away, and he has volunteered to help a number of times, so we took him up on his offer (we also paid him a little bit and fed him lunch and dinner).  I would like to note that only about HALF the leaves had fallen from the trees at that point.  They borrowed a truck, and made 6 full loads to the dump site.  They worked from about 10am until about 6pm.  It was a Friday, so I was inside doing my regular job most of the day, and then had volleyball practice.

This is the same section of yard as in the previous picture, after the leaves were raked.

This morning we had our first snow of the season!  I think some other areas of Iowa had a little more snow, but it is pretty windy, and it either all melted or blew away before I got outside to take pictures.  Guess I won't be making a snow man today...but I believe the first snow officially means it's time to listen exclusively to Christmas music, and maybe even get out the decorations!  

This is the same patch of yard that was clear of leaves in an earlier picture.  The wind is blowing, and the rest of the leaves are falling.  Having a big yard with mature trees is nice, but the raking is never-ending.

In other news, I have gotten a cold for the 2nd time since I became pregnant.  When you are pregnant, you cannot take any cold medicine, so I am suffering through it.  This one started with a sore throat, 5 days of coughing, tightness in my chest, and yesterday moved into my sinuses as well.  I don't seem to be getting much better.  And I gave it to Scott.