The gallery

Katharine's wall is starting to fill up with her artwork.

Scarborough Renaissance Festival

Today me, Brian, Jeramy, Katharine, Lukas, Liam, Aiden and Maya went to the Ren' Fest. I took a little too many pictures, but: Renaissance Festival + Kids = Photo Op.



Here is the group, minus the three guys who were lugging all of the bags around.

Aiden, Lukas, Katharine and Maya got their faces painted. Liam opted for the rest room and ATM.

That hat store was popular.

Lukas went from pure happiness...

to absolute terror about halfway through the ride.

Katharine LOVED the rides, and I had to take her back one more time later on. I always secretly hoped that none of my kids would be into roller coaster style rides, but I might have to climb back on to one of those things again sooner than I would have thought.

Everybody was in fine form for the dart throwing.

Katharine was very graceful with the bubble wand- Iria can already see a lot of her dance training emerging.

Maya began to blow bubbles out of her hand all of a sudden, and it even surprised Jeramy. Very cool!

Liam picked it up fast, but had a devil of a time getting all of the soap off of his hands afterwards.

I remember this fairy from last year. There were a lot of returning faces.

The "Elephant Ride" was the big event today, and surprisingly cost effective considering everything else that they gauge you on there.

The poor camel didn't see much action. How could he possibly compete against an elephant?

Lukas in the maze.

We were starting to wind down by this point, and the sticks were a fun standing activity. Brian was pretty good with them.

The parade was great. We saw it last year as well.

One of our last stops was at the petting zoo...

but Katharine was growing cranky and bored...

so we didn't stay long.

Liam and Aiden picked up some wooden swords on the way out. Lukas survived a few skirmishes with just his plastic sword, and I was pretty impressed (and relieved).

One last ride.

They weren't awake for very long after this picture. All three kids slept pretty much the entire trip back to McKinney.

Here they are last year, minus the Martels: http://the-doeschers.blogspot.com/2008/04/scarborough-fair.html

Saturday sun and sleep

We had the Martel kids over today (and tonight), as Meghan and Brian entertained at their house.

The day kicked off with Ava Murphy's birthday party. I wasn't planning on taking any pictures, but I couldn't resist this shot just before we headed home.

I took the three boys to the new playground as Nolan napped and Liam and Katharine played with our neighbors. As you can tell by the picture, they haven't paved or planted grass yet... but it's all about the climbing and sliding anyways.

I had to bribe both of them to turn around and take this picture- but it was worth it. I got a nice shot, and they both got their swings raised.

Lennon and Nolan. I don't think that they were too happy that I stopped their ride to take a picture. I had to go back and start the hot dogs anyways...

I lucked out here- usually at least one head is getting blocked by someone else.

The kids fell asleep after their movies. We had a Scooby Doo show on for Lennon (Nolan was too busy playing with all of the new toys to care), then a Batman 'Brave and the Bold' show on for Lukas and Aiden, and then finally we watched some 'Return of the Jedi' with Liam and Katharine (starting around the Ewok scene). Liam already knew about every line (just from the audio Cd's), and Katharine liked the "gold robot".

And just so we don't completely ignore her- here is Keira :)