Fire and Lightbulbs and Unity

Boys.Love.Fire.
I know, that is one amazing discovery I have made eh?  Being a mom of three little boys means that I am going to have shed any ideas about hours of crafty endeavors, shopping, and such, and be willing to get my hands a little dirty from time to time. I can't leave it all to Micah. And...

Boys
Love
 Fire

Here is the thing... I hate smelling like smoke. There, I said it. Right now I have friends scratching their heads as they have listened to me moan about my fireplaceless house, and how much I miss summer bonfires. (it is way too hot here to even think of a fire in the summer) And I do. I love a good fire, I just don't want to smell like it. I know, that is weird and picky and odd. See what my Micah is up against? (yes, i want eggs to eat, but i don't want them to smell "eggy". see... tricky stuff.)
Anyhoo, Sunday afternoon my Micah was gone, and there were copious amounts of leaves in our yard. I looked at my boys and knew... we needed to do some raking, and jumping, and yes... even burning. Plus, I really didn't want to have to hear another sports commentator go on and on and on about the Bills game.

So... out we went. Those boys, all three, picked up rakes and went to town.
we raked
and raked
and raked

We had a ginormous pile of leaves, though our yard still looked like a fallen leaves carpet, so I said, "Nobody move!" and grabbed my phone/camera. Then, they jumped happily until they saw the matches. "A fire! A fire! let's start them on FIRE!!!!"
Photo op over.

I made a water circle with the hose around the edge of our pile. I figured that was a Smokey the Bear approved move. We burned happily, and as the smoke billowed through my freshly straightened hair, (tragedy folks. tra-ge-dy. getting only one day out of freshly coiffed locks. ) I let the boys ignite sticks, poke at the pile, etc. and we were all enjoying the fire until, the wind switched directions. All of the sudden I had a blazing inferno and was having garden flashbacks.

I felt like a doofus for not thinking about the wind, but then I looked at how quickly and cooperatively my kiddos were getting along in the midst of the fire crisis and... you know that scene in Despicable Me where he says "Lightbulb!". Yeah, I had that moment.
I declared, "Hurry with the hose! We don't want to lose the house!!!" 

Hey, you breed unity your way, I'll breed it mine...