Tons of videos- Henry.

Since the YouTube has been acting funny every time we try to upload videos, we have quite a backlog. Consider this an early Christmas present.

Here's my favorite thing to do- play computer games. Mama sets up PBSkids.org and June and I happy (and quiet) for a long time. In this game, I'm helping the Triceratops eat plants and avoid bumping into other Triceratops.

Mama really wanted to find a video of Mr. DNA from Jurassic Park to pair up with this video. (You remember, the carton DNA from the tour? "Virtual reality displays show our geneticists the gaps in the DNA sequence to fill in the holes to complete the code. Phew! And then we can create a baby dinosaur.") Anyhoo, it all got us thinking, why do anthropomorphic dinosaurs (and their) DNA always have quirky southern accents?

There is no sound cuter than that of Junie eating an apple. That tiny little crunch is just too much.

Papa got us all riled up the other night. We taught June how to do the sumo stomp.

First, can we just take a minute and talk about how cute Juner is in this little outfit? those tights are adorable. Back to the video. June still isn't saying much and we did catch her saying "Donna", kind of. (Donna is her babysitter at the gym. Of course, she'd say her name first. Geesh.)

Then Juner spun around until she got dizzy. (Adorable!)

Then we put her in the chair and spun her some more. (She doesn't look so good now.)

When it was my turn, I sang "God our Father." Looks like we need to talk a little more about gratitude, because I think "thankful" means "It's time for a snack."

Papa wanted me to make a video for PawPaw, but he should know better. I man in his car jammies needs a few minutes alone with his marshmallow cereal when he wakes up in the morning.

Here's the real reason I'm not talking. Tuesday night was a rough night at our house. Mama made the mistake of looking at a toy catalog with me. I got to circle Christmas present ideas and it was fun until mama mentioned that we'd send my ideas to my grandmas and grandpas and they'd pick out a few for me. What? I don't get everything? I then threw a huge fit because I wanted the Lightening McQueen Power Wheel. Mama told me that no one had $300 to spend on one Christmas present, so then I threw a fit that I wanted the Car race track instead. Then I called Grams Cracker and cried that no one was going to buy me anything and I wanted MatchBox Cars. It took a long time to calm down. Great idea mom. When I did calm down, we horsed around in our room before we went to bed. Unfortunately, we horsed too hard and I wound up head first into the corner of my nightstand. Mama and papa hugged me until they realized there was a little blood on the front of my hair. Then they realized I didn't have any cuts on the front of my head. Then they realized I had a massive amount of blood coming from the back of my head. Papa struggled to stay conscious while he got a washcloth. Despite the amount of head blood, I survived the half inch cut on my head. It sure is rough being 3 going on 4.

Around- Henry.

We check quite a lot of blogs at our house. Some of our friends are great at updating (Cowens, Kradels- thank you!). Others need a little help getting going again (we won't name names, but you know who you are). But we have a good time seeing what everyone else is doing. We try not to make comparisons, but sometimes it is hard not to.

For example, many of our friends have very creative children. Mama gets a little discouraged that I don't take June out on pirate hunts or pretend I'm a baby goat, but tries to tell herself that I have my own kind of creativity. It's a Seibert engineering kind of creativity. I spent a long time working on rigging up all the vehicles to see which one could pull the rest without falling apart.

Not bad for a guy who can't tie knots. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's marshmallow cereal day.

Then mama gets a little discouraged that the most stubborn girl in the world still isn't talking, while everyone else's kid is talking in complete sentences. (You should hear baby Tessa yell "I wanna talk" when Aunt Becky calls her. It's adorable. You'd know if Uncle Kevin ever updated his blog. Harumph.) But we know Juner must know some words because she sometimes yells "Dinosaur" when she sees a picture of a T-Rex. She also said "Hi Miss Donna" to her babysitter at mama's gym, and today ran aroud the house screaming "Chay Ta!" (or Chase Tag!) over and over. In this picture, she's pouting on the couch after mama made another awful meal consisting of NOT macaroni and cheese.

One thing mama doesn't grump about is our sleep habits. Lucky for her, I still willingly take an afternoon nap. And I still go to bed at 8pm and sleep until 7-7:30 in the morning. We actually like the fall time change because it gets us up a little earlier and we're not running out the door trying to make it to school on time every morning. For some reason lately, I've become attached to some stuffed animals. Maybe it's because June likes dolls and mama and papa think it's cute. But my top three are my ctuffed truck (which holds my baby nukies that I had to give up last year), the stuffed fish that Aunt Molly gave me, and my stuffed Curious George. I slept with my George when I was living in Wisconsin, but haven't paid much attention to it until lately. Also, check out my parked cars. Mama isn't sure how they got in my bed, but I was asleep, so she didn't bother with them.

Junie's a good sleeper too. She would sleep until 9 or 10 every day (even after the time change) if we let her. She goes to bed with some books, a flashlight because she wants to be like me, and her moving day doll, which she covers with her blankie and gives a nuk before she goes to sleep.

This afternoon, mama was pleasantly surprised when June recovered from a huge fit, and played quietly with me while mama was baking. She came into see what we were doing and I informed her we were going on an adventure.

I packed up the dump truck because we were going camping. I packed food in case we got hungry, toys and books to play with, and bath toys because the camp ground we were visiting has a bath tub. I also tied a mini shovel and pick axe to the front of the truck in case any branches fell off the trees and we needed to cut them up. (We had out trees trimmed this week, so I'm really into lawn care right now.) How's that for imagination, mama?

Mister Taylor is still working in SC, so he's coming to see us again this weekend. Mama went to the store to stock up and was very discouraged (as she always is) when it came time to pick out some encased meat. The brat selection is so limited down here, and Johnsonville brats are $6 a package! This left her feeling pretty low, so she decided she wanted to make some poppyseed rolls like Great Grandma makes. But of couse, the store doesn't carry canned poppyseed filling (or ever apricot). Add on that it is Thursday- mama's low day of the week (don't ask us why, but she's always in a funk on Thursday). She finally decided that the only thing to pull herself out of her funk was a double batch of scotcheroos. Nothing's better than peanut buttery-chocolate goodness. It's a double batch because we're anxiously awaiting the arrival of John's little brother, who is to be delivered today. (And we know two other babies who are due this week. Miss Andrea, if you're reading this, whouldn't you be walking?)

Then we all helped make a batch of banana muffins for my class tomorrow because it is my turn to bring snacks and be line leader. After all this baking, everyone was feeling better and ready for a nap.

More from Greenville- Junie.

Mister Taylor sent over his pictures from our Halloween trip to Greenville.

I managed to get pretty wet in this fountain.

The best part of the zoo was the elephant exhibit.

This is the closest we've ever been to an elephant. We got to see it suck water into its trunk and spray it into its mouth. (Nasal irrigation at its best.)

Hey, when are you guys going ot let me out of here so I can run around?

We were pretty wet by the time we made it to the covered playground. Henry did hius best to stay dry, and begged mama to put my dinosaur shirt in the dryer so it would be ready for trick-or-treating.

I did my best to get soaked all the way through and had to wait to get stripped down before I could get in my car seat.

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. "