Happy Halloween!

Cute Pirate Boots

To Infinity, and Beyond!

Minimalism (and dessert)

Wolverine

Yucky gooey bits

Jack-o-lanterns

Announcement Time!

Fright Night

Tonight, we went to a Halloween store under the pretext of finding a costume for Tina, but we really just wanted to play. My boys are a bit sensitive sometimes, so this was likely to end badly.

The jumping spider at the entrance gave us all a scare, but was quickly forgotten. We visited most of the large, loud displays and Zeke looked on them, from a distance, with respectful caution and fascination. We tried on a few masks and looked at the children's costumes, and then it was time to go.

As I walked with Zeke toward the back wall to return the bloody ax we used to kill a spider and a snake, I pushed the button next to the full-size Frankenstein's monster and kept walking. Zeke wasn't ready for this one, and immediately started screaming and crying for Dad.

I should note at this point that I'm not a terrible father. In this instance, however, I clearly was a super jerk and felt very bad as I carried my sobbing child out of the store and back to the car.

We won't be going back to that store, and might renew our general ban on Halloween stores until our boys are into their teens.

An Exercise in Pain

I had a chance to hang out with Ben alone tonight, and it was lots of fun. I managed to get a video of one of his favorite activities: hurting Dad. [The sound levels might be a bit high on these, so turn it down a little.]

If he seems a bit distracted, it's because I used the front camera on my phone, so he was busy checking himself out.

I also tried to capture some of his advanced language skills at 20 months, but he was still distracted by his own beautiful face. [There's some loud background noise the last 10 seconds of this video, so watch out.]

All Work and No Play

Zeke is finally old enough to put to work.

Of course, Ben wants to help, too.

Imitation and Flattery

The other night we tucked in Zeke for the last time and his room finally went quiet. A little while later we were ready to turn in, and I went to tuck Zeke back under the covers because he always kicks them off and gets cold. This is what I found.

He had made his bed and was sleeping on top of the covers. I tucked him in (doesn't he look cold in that picture?) and we went to sleep.

The next day I asked him why he was on top of his covers. He did it because I took a nap on top of the covers the day before.  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥