Daylight savings time, you and I are done.

Here is the next installment of our twice-annual themed family photo. It did not go smoothly. It probably won't go smoothly for at least a couple years. Maybe I'll photoshop some happier kids in here.

I remember quite clearly when resetting the clocks back during autumn was cause for celebration - a welcome extra hour for sleeping off a hangover before I would eventually have to hunker down over some aerodynamics homework.

The arrival of kids on the scene has eradicated this purely, wholesomely innocent joy of fall. Kids, of course, do not get the whole concept behind daylight savings time, don't get the whole "extra hour of sleep" benefit, cannot comprehend how best to utilize this oddity of timekeeping. They have acted, in fact, like nothing unusual happened at all, waking up at their exact same time (minus one hour), then looking quizzically at me while I climbed onto a chair to set our wall clocks back. So really, it's the same exact day, just knocked back an hour. If anything, it's actually become a hinderance, a pain, since the onus is on us to reset our kids' circadian rhythms back to a normal cycle. Damn you, Daylight Savings and Loan!

Today we had a nice little fall fun day outside. We played in the leaves a bit (stress the "bit" part), and the girls played whiffleball for the first time. Abby seemed quite taken with the concept, and seemed to relish the tactile satisfaction of bonking the ball across the yard. During nap, Jen and I trudged back outside to rake and prepare our sprawling estate for the wintertime. Ah, wintertime. It's on the way.

Day two hundred and sixty eight.

Lily stands tall, "raking" the leaves.

I rather like this one, thanks Jen. (ah yes, I haven't disclosed yet that I'm growing a beard. Now you know. I'll get a better picture soon.)

Such concern. It's okay, Abs. We'll get those leaves up.