Up and Down

Our camera has been eating batteries for the last few months, so we've only caught a few pictures here and there. Now it is officially dead, so I'm forced to post old pics.

The kids have been promoted to "up and down" beds, as they call them. (Although whenever they misbehave, they are promptly demoted to a portable crib as punishment.) They have really enjoyed their new sleeping arrangements, mainly because it gives them the opportunity to find all sorts of new ways to avoid sleep. Dismantling (and recently breaking) the tent on the top is the most popular. Actually, they are doing relatively well with sleep and we are really happy with the new bed.


I finally found some pictures that I took a long time ago of our Brooklyn Target store. For a long time I have wanted to share this beautiful contraption to non-New Yorkers! Our Target is two stories, so how, one might ask, do you transport your shopping cart from floor to floor?? Why, the cart escalator, of course! I still smile when I get to push my fully loaded cart onto this...

Up...

and Down!

Halloween

Jamison already blogged some pictures, but I'm going to repeat them in case some of you don't check his blog... We took the opposite approach for costumes this year. Last year I tried out some adult humor at my kids' expense. I forced my sweet son to be a devil so that he could complete the angel/devil combo. He refused to carry his pitchfork or wear his horns so he only had on a tight red jumpsuit with scary face paint and a silly tail. This year I spread out all of our potential dress-up clothes and let the kids try on and pick whatever made them happy. We had a lot of fun the hour before trying out our options.

After going through a fairy phase, Arthur became fixated on being a "super why." (This is some sort of superhero character on PBS that saves the day by spelling words.) If you know Arthur, you know that once he's fixed on something, you either give it to him or endure a long painful tantrum that makes you wish you'd given in. So I came up with a pretty cool superhero ensemble on the spot (if underwear on top of Adaline's tights, pants for a cape, and goggles for a mask is cool). He spontaneously came up with superhero poses, of which I thankfully caught a few on camera.

I happened upon the pirate idea during this process. It was just too cute to pass up so we convinced Adaline to be a pirate by telling her that we'd make her a sword which would make people give her more candy. She's very candy-motivated, so we avoided the usual princess/fairy that we assumed she'd be. Her "Argh!" was quite convincing and cute, although the construction paper eye patch was never on her eye.

Here is the final product, followed by the test runs:






Oh, and they had a blast all night!