Sunday morning and Poison Control- Henry.

Mama was lucky enough to get Sunday morning early duty with us kids while papa got to sleep in. It was actually a very nice and quiet morning.

June decided to skip breakfast so she could play with her cars. This little girl is officially obsessed, just like her big brother. All she wants to do is line up cars and park them. She got her finger on her favorite little orange car. We have a few of those little cars and June is always carrying at least one of them with her. (She likes carrying little things all the time. Papa took her to the park on Thursday and she carried a single pony bead for over 2 hours- even while she climbed the climbing wall and went down the slide.)

While Buggy parked her cars, I did some painting.

I painted for an hour and a half before I broke into a very goofy mood.

Mama wanted to go outside to rake, so she said I had to get dressed. I got halfway there (jammies off) when I had to show off my muscles.

We don't know what muscular pose this is, but it shows off my tattoos well.

We spent the morning outside blowing and raking leaves. We were lucky enough to inherit a yard full of wonderful shade trees that hasn't been raked in at least three years. And under the danse collection of leaves is a heavy layer of acorns. Mama blew leaves for three hours on Friday morning and another 3 hours today and she estimates that she's got about 1/6 of the backyard finished. It's a little depressing because only about half the leaves in backyard have fallen. Right now she blows them into piles, rakes them onto the big 10 foot by 20 foot tarp, then pulls the tarp over the back wall and down the driveway. Luckily, there's an empty wooded lot across the street where we dump our leaves. It's a lot of work, but hopefully it won't be so bad next year.

After a superbly awesome Bengals win over the Steelers (yea!!!!), mama headed back outside to continue blowing leaves and raking acorns. She had about 5 minutes of work in when papa came running out asking if paint was poisonous. Seems like Juner climbed up to the table and opened up the black paint and really went at it. We got to make out first call to Poison Control and were assured that this paint kit was non-toxic and June would live to terrorize another day.

After supper, mama was trying out some new accessories for her camera. She got this picture of me (and my supper).

And this picture of Buggy. Can you tell we're related?

Her new flash diffuser kit has an orange flash diffuser.

And a blue one too. We don't think they are for indoor use.

Saturday in Ye Olde Charlotte- Henry.

We were lamenting the passing of fall without a visit to a single Renaissance Festival. Then we realized that the big festival (faire) in Charlotte runs though the middle of November. We packed a quick lunch and jumped in the minivan.

There was a ton of traffic to get in, and it was really crowded because the weather was beautiful (75 and sunny).

Mama and papa were getting a little discouraged because we only wanted to play on the playground.

We visited a booth where kids could make our own magic fairy wands. (Papa said I could call mine a wizard's wand because I didn't want anything girlie.)

Junie's holding her finished wand.

We got to see some shows including "Hey Nunny, Nunny." There were lots of funny Catholic jokes that most people didn't get which were followed by plenty of jokes about the south being full of protestants.

June wasn't interested in religious comedy, so she headed back to the playground to play in the sand. It was going well until she got some sand in her mouth and tried to wipe it out with her sandy hands. Disaster.

We were on our way to the pirate show when mama spotted her cousins, Miss Christina and Mister Andy! We were very happy to see them at the festival and surprised that we spotted them in the crowd.

We were extra pleased to see our cousin, Nick, who was in visiting Andy and Christina from Boulder, Colorado.

We all scored good seats to the jousting match. The final joust of the day was a joust to the death. They put on a good show and I had plenty of questions. I asked mama why they put those big sticks in each others necks (cutting throats with swords). Mama assured me that it was all pretend. June just liked seeing the horses.

Mister Nick must have friends with kids out in Colorado, because he really took us in stride. He let me stand on his lap during the joust and he chased Juner (who was in quite the mood).

Before we left, I got to take a ride on the "carousel" or "Da Vinci's Hand-Powered Flying Machine."

Then we really started going fast.

This is mama's favorite shot. My bright orange "spot me in a crowd" shirt really popped.

After the faire, we rounded out an awesome day with a stop at Trader Joe's and Ikea. We stocked up on our favorite "Two-Buck Chuck" wine and got a new side table for papa.