Saturday in Greenville- Henry.

On Friday morning, we woke to find out that our house had been taken over by boys. Papa's college friends came in from across the country for a boy's weekend. Mister Adam came from Cleveland, Mister Zac from Providence, and Mister Paul came all the way from exotic Greensboro.

While the boys were gone, we headed to Greenville to see another college friend. Mister Taylor is working in the area for a couple weeks and managed to get a few hours off of work to come see us. We went downtown to see the farmers' market. And were delighted to see it was a trick or treating event!

We played in the fountain for a bit and ate at a great barbeque restaurant.

After lunch, we headed to the Greenville Zoo.

We really liked what we saw, but it started raining before we made it all the way through.

Outside the zoo was a covered park (genius, Greenville! It is so hot in the sun all year round.). We all played under the shelter, except June, who couldn't convince anyone to push her on the swing.

This soaked little girl rode home in just a diaper. Thanks for meeting up with us, Mister Taylor. If you have a minute, send over the pictures you took today.

Tonight, we had supper with some of our neighbors. Then we headed out for our fourth round of trick or treating. We met some of our new neighbors who now know us as the little boy who rings the doorbell fifty times and screams "TRICK-R-TRAAAAAA!" and the little girl who grabs handful after handful of candy until her mama makes her give it back, then throws a fit on the front porch. They'll never forget us.

On the couch is me, John (who was a snow leopard), James (who was Batman), and Juner. The neighborhood won't soon forget these three boys running as fast as they could from house to house. We made it most of the way around the neighborhood before it started raining. Mama was glad for the rain because it was soooo hot today. It was muggy and 70 degrees- which is enough to produce one sweaty mama, especially when pushing a stroller up steep hills. She still isn't used to Halloween that doesn't require a snowsuit under your costume.

Special thanks to John's mom and dad for inviting us over just 4 days before John's new baby brother is scheduled to be delivered. We can't wait to meet the little guy!

Halloween- June.

Halloween isn't a huge deal in our house. Mama's too afraid of anything remotely scary and Henry hates wearing costumes. So they plan was to put him in a pair of overalls and call him a train engineer. But on Tuesday night, Henry suddenly announced that he HAD to be a T-Rex for Halloween. Because Clemson trick-or-treating is on Thursday, this gave mama only one day to come up with something. She ran to the store and picked up a t-shirt and sweatpants and went to work.

Here's the first attempt. We decided the mask was a lot creepy and sent it back to mama for another shot.

But the scales and the tail looked good.

Here's the final product. We added bottom teeth and cut the scary eyes out of the mask and added some eyes and scales up top. Mama is also very proud of the gloves with claws and shoes covers with claws.

Mama got my costume from one of Henry's former classmates from North Carolina. She made such a stink last year about how cute it was that the little girl's mama emailed her last month and asked her if she wanted it. The tights really make the outfit.

On Thursday we suited up for the Downtown Trick or Treat. It was packed, but we got a good stash of candy.

We stopped to take a break.

We let June have a sucker, which set a bad precedent for the rest of Halloween. Once she got a taste of candy, she became the candy monster. When offered candy, she grabbed handfuls from the baskets. When she saw someone sitting down, she assumed they were handing out candy and tried to get candy out of their bags. And by the end of the evening she just started taking candy that was being eaten out of kids' hands.

A church downtown opened up their parish center and served a hot dog dinner complete with chili cheese fritos (a family favorite) and sweet tea. They even played "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

We were especially pleased to see that someone came dressed up as papa! Actually, he's supposed to be the guy from OxiClean commercials, but we think he bears an uncanny resemblance to papa with his thick Wisconsin beard.

After supper, June quickly fell into a sugar coma and refused to walk, or even sit. Look at how cute those tights are. We are not putting those away.

We stopped at the park to burn off some of the sugar high. I jumped off walls.

And June tried to jump too, but mama caught her before she had the chance.

Mama and Papa feel like they've been pretty lucky with me so far. I'm an easygoing kid and generally pretty low maintenance. But lately, I've entered what they call my "deliberately disobedient" phase. On the walk back to the car, I hit the ground again and refused to get up.

Back at home, Henry agreed to put his costume back on so you could get a better look at mama's handiwork.

And from the back. Henry was especially pleased with the tail.

On Friday, we headed to campus to watch the band practice. They open up their practice for kids to come watch. Best part of Friday's practice? Wear a costume and get candy! They had a parade around the practice field and then handed out so much candy, we had to quit stop early because each band member was literally putting two handfuls of candy in our bag.

Enjoying the fall colors- June.

Thursday was such a nice day (and it wasn't raining!), so mama and I decided to spend the morning outside.

We went to Henry's school early to run around in the gardens and enjoy the fall colors.

Here are some shots mama got of me running around.

I really liked these scarecrows, but none of them wanted to eat my apple.

When Henry was dismissed from school, he wanted to run around too.

Two goofballs.

Days like today make us remember how much we really love our neighborhood. We live in town, but it feels like we live in the middle of a (very hilly) state park.

Here's the view down the street. If you click on the picture to blow it up, you can see the roofs of the houses across the street are barely above street level.

A view of our backyard before the leaves fall and we have to spend weeks raking.

Here's something funny Henry said yesterday. Upon explaining to Henry the specifics of getting stopped by the police for speeding, he responded "I can't wait until we get stopped. I'll say 'Policeman- we had to drive fast because our van was too full of speed.' Then we'll have to have all the other cars come to our car and take the speed out. "

Gearing up for Halloween- Henry.

It actually stopped raining long enough for us to enjoy the beautiful fall. So every day when I get home from school, I request to eat lunch outside.

It was so fun eating outside that we even ate lima beans.

Here's some pictures of the pumpkins mama carved. I requested that this face had eyebrows.

I wanted this face to have teeth. And mama even carved our names.

Then I wanted mama to carve a spider web. Turns out scraping a web is harder than it looks.

Then I asked for a moon and stars.

And our name.

Here's my painted pumpkin (that is probably getting pretty squishy). GG Grandma brought these scarecrows down for mama. And to our surprise, scarecrows that look just like these are all the rage down here! Thanks, GG, for keeping us in style!

We were still eating when mama got back from taking pictures.

When Evie was down, we got my stencils out and did some tracing. Uncle Jim helped me trace this one, but I colored it all by myself.

I traced this one with no help.

Saturday with the Tallers- June.

On Saturday, we got ready for a big day of "agritourism."

The first stop was the Farm Aid fair held by Clemson's organic farm. We got to ride on a trailer across some really big mud puddles to the fair site. Everyone climbed on the big straw bale tower.

Sterile Henry kept falling in the cracks and didn't like the pokey hay anyway.

Annalise was pumped to be a sassy pig.

And even more excited about her butterfly face paint. Mama finally got a smile out of her when she bought her a pink butterfly lollipop. Homemade lollipops must be all the rage down here, because we see that booth at every fair and festival we attend.

Evie got a pumpkin painted on her hand. As usual, Henry refused to get anything painted.

I was too busy playing with the balls and target.

Then we all took part in some chase tag.

Mama has dubbed this the official picture to sum up the Taller Invasion of 2009.

After we checked out the mushroom booths and talked to the master gardeners, we headed back to catch the trailer back to out car. I kept up with Uncle Jim.

Then we ran to catch up with everyone else.

At the farm fair, someone told us about an open house at a goat farm. Aunt Jenni ears pricked up and after a yummy lunch of pizza at the mellow mushroom, we headed out to see some goats. I really like the baby chicks.

And I chased this dog around for a long time.

Until I snagged this apple from the apple press. Check out my dirty knees. Eventually I dropped my apple in the goats' pen in the barn and mama wouldn't let me have it back. I was mad.

Evie got to hold a baby chick, which prompted Annalise's "I NEVER get to hold a baby chicken."

As usual, the Turner kids were content to watch.

Evie did a great job being very gentle with her chick.

They brought a baby goat out to pet and Annalise was very happy because goats are her favorite animal.

Aunt Jenni held the goat and was filled with dreams of ditching Carmel for a life of sustainable agriculture and being able to eat meat without guilt. (By the way, we did get some goat meat and made an awesome baked bean casserole.)

I goofed around some more before we loaded up to head home. We were all so filthy from the goat farm that mama got to give all 4 kids baths before we were allowed to play inside.

Thanks for coming to visit us Tallers!