The kids built birdhouses today…

We had to bundle up to hang the bird feeders.

A picture, drawn by Violet, of our family.

Notice Violet’s new found butterfly drawing skills.  This picture has the “morning sky.”  She drew three pictures that night, each with a sky from a different time of the day.

They just clearcut about twenty acres of trees near our house and this is the mess they left…

A random house (with chickens) on my drive home from work:

Our day at the park last Sunday:

The day first began with Mason waking up WAY too early. Dad was nice enough to sit with him for a bit.

On the way there:

On the way back:

It’s autumn in North Carolina. We know by several different reasons:

the constant shotgun shots that we can hear from our entirely closed up house signifying the slaughter of those obnoxious deer that like to run into the side of my car, the turning of the leaves (supposedly rather beautiful in the “mountains” of North Carolina), the turkey shoot at the “Concerned Bikers of North Carolina” club, the fun we had trick-or-treating last night, the subsequent crash from the sugar rush from last night, the changing of our clocks (which to most of you is a blessing, but for me it’s another hour of trying to entertain a four year old and a two year old), and, it gets dark at 5 o’clock…

We had a really fun time trick-or-treating last night. We went to my (soon-to-be-ex) boss’s neighborhood last night. Yeah, he’s leaving me after six years, I’m not happy about that. But, the neighborhood was nice. Literally, hundreds of children in costume wandering from house to house. One house played “Thriller” on a loop, an entire cul-de-sac decorated their section, handing out candy and adult beverages (to the adults, we hope), scary movies played from projectors on to the sides of houses, and men on stilts dressed as larger-than-life scary monsters. It was a lot of fun. Once again, Violet got that overwhelmed look on her face and Mason just took it all in.

The leaves turning around here really is spectacular. There are millions of trees around so there is quite a bit of color. I really enjoy this time of year around here. I really enjoy my yard this time of year.

Violet’s artwork is getting more complex by the day. She’s broken in to using numerous colors on the page instead of keeping it monotone. She sees more about the picture than she used to, like the picture I put up here: notice the dirt. We got her an Ed Emberly book from the library the other day. I remember those books from my childhood, how incredibly cool they were. She thinks they are just as cool. She’s drawing giraffes, lions, cats, pigs, the list goes on and on. We’re getting several of them from Amazon for Christmas for the kids.

We discovered this new (to us) band a few weeks ago, the Avett Brothers. They’re local to North Carolina, from Charlotte to be more precise. So, we’ve been listening to them a lot. We’ve got a performance tivo’d from David Letterman where they sing a really pretty song. The kids are pictured here playing along to the song.

The kids and I took one last peaceful journey up to the cabin (while Colleen had to stay home and sew wedding dresses). It’s so quiet (aside from the Harleys on the Blue Ridge Parkway). The kids are getting old enough to explore without me having to hover over them constantly.

Mason is getting more and more vocal and expressive everyday. With “sentences” like, “Elmo! Jammies!” he can get his point across rather clearly. We went to the zoo today and rode a carousel. He did not like it, when I tried to set him down after the ride, he clung to me like I was going to set him free with the alligators. Just for the record, I would not set him free with the alligators.

Violet created a game that had something to do with sitting in a square of rocks and then tossing them down the driveway. Ellen and her did that for a good twenty minutes.

There’s a rock there in the shape of a chair that the kids fit in perfectly.

I wonder how many of this exact picture I have?