The boys and I have really been enjoying these last two days of gorgeous weather. Yesterday when we got home from the YMCA we played outside until lunch was ready. Adam started out on his tricycle. He hasn’t quite figured out how to work the pedals yet and it probably didn’t help that his fireman boots were on the wrong feet.

Then we moved on to the chalk. He asked me to write his name and then surprised me by “tracing” the letters so that he could write too.

Ah-may write too-oo!!

When he was done with his name he asked for Luke’s name.

And then requested I write Mommy and Daddy as well.

By the time Adam was done with his artwork it was time for lunch and then naps for the boys. After Adam woke up he and I went back out to the driveway to kick a soccer ball around for a while and wait for Luke to wake up. Once the Duke was done sleeping we took him for a dinner cruise around the neighborhood.

Adam had a great time riding around in the wagon and kept tickling Luke’s feet to make him laugh.

I am so incredibly thankful for those happy little boys.

Rather than staying home and handing out candy here or taking the boys door to door, we spent last night at a Halloween party with friends of ours. After talking with one of our neighbors this afternoon, I’m glad we didn’t try to hand out candy. Apparently our neighborhood is known as the best one for handing out candy and there are tons of kids each year. She said even when it is cold and snowing or raining on Halloween she’ll go through 300 pieces of candy. That is nuts. I’m not surprised by it too much though. There were tons of cars when we left last night and they were parked all up and down both sides of the main road leading in to our development. Our neighbor even said she saw kids arriving via taxi. Crazy.

The party was a lot of fun and we all had a great time. Adam had a blast running around with all the other little kids and was most excited about the fact that Miss Shawnteé made cupcakes (I love cupcakes Mommy!). Dave and I were the only people that weren’t in costume – I know – lame. I’ve already got possibilities in mind for next year though (thinking about it this far in advance might make me even more lame, but that’s okay).

I tried three times to get a nice picture of Dave and the boys. In one of the three pictures I had one person (Dave) looking at me. In that same picture Luke is looking at the floor and Adam is yelling that he wants to get down. So here you go, Adam is still trying to break free and I have no idea what any of them are looking at.

We did have one of our friends take a picture of the four of us. He also tried three times, but had slightly better results.

Those squirmy kids of mine sure don’t make it easy on their picture loving mama.

I tried many, many times to get a picture of the two boys together.

Maybe next year?

Adam just finished his third round of swimming lessons yesterday. He is in the Shrimp Class, which I find adorable. His favorite part of the lessons is the time before class starts, when he and Dave play basketball and chase the ball around the pool. His least favorite part is floating on his back. He does not like that at all. Dave can normally trick him in to doing it for a couple of minutes by having him look out the skylights and search for things – the moon, clouds, birds, Luke – whatever works.

He also likes floating on his stomach and kicking and doesn’t mind blowing bubbles in the water either. He’s turning in to a regular little fish. They have next Saturday off, but then will be starting up classes the weekend after.

It won’t be too much longer before Luke is old enough for swim lessons too. They start at six months, though we will probably wait until he is a little older. It’s nice for Adam to have one-on-one time with Dave.

Seven things we love about that kid right now:

1. He often leaves the word “and” out when grouping people or things together. For instance the other day he came in to the kitchen and said, “Hello Daddy Mommy” and earlier today he said, “I love Mommy Luke”.
2. Because we frequently refer to Luke as “Luke-a-Duke” or “La la Luke” Adam also has adopted this behavior and call his little brother “Luke Luke Luke”. He also will refer to himself as Adam Adam.
3. A lot of the time right after he wakes up in the morning or at night when he’s trying to avoid bedtime he’ll say “See you Mommy”, which is Adam-code for wanting to snuggle. Adam is an expert snuggler. He’s also always warm, like a little baby space heater – so snuggling on these chilly days is extra nice.
4. He is a very protective, loving big brother. He gets nervous if someone he doesn’t know is holding Luke and alerts me right away if Luke is crying (even if I am standing right next to him). He asks for Luke as soon as he wakes up in the morning and loves to make Luke smile. Lately he’s wanted to hold and feed Luke more often. He has about a 3 minute attention span where that is concerned, but takes the job very seriously.
5. When Dave comes home from work Adam runs to the door and says “Daddy home! Daddy home!” he gets so excited and can’t wait to see him. When the weather was warmer we kept the window open in what will be Luke’s room (once he moves out of the bassinet in our room) and when Adam would hear Dave’s truck pull in the driveway he would hurry to the window and yell to Dave. He greets me the same way if I go out without him. It’s a pretty fantastic homecoming.
6. He loves music. He always has, but now he’s getting more in to singing and will request Dave and I sing along. He’ll pick a song, have us all sing, and then at the end will say “one more time” to get us to sing it again. He’ll repeat this for as long as we let him. We sing a lot of “Row Row Row Your Boat” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in this house.
7. He is so smart. He has known the upper case alphabet for a while now. He also can count from 1 to 11, and backwards from 10 to 1 (he always adds a “blast off” at the end). He recognizes the numbers 1-10, and likes to turn sixes upside down and say they are nines (and vice versa). We’re working on colors now. He does pretty well if you ask him to point out a certain color (bring me the red crayon) and is getting better at naming the color of an object when we ask (what color is this block?). He does insist my car is purple, as much as I try to tell him it is blue. I think that’s a losing battle for me (even more so because Dave and my Dad call it purple as well). Adam also can identify a bunch of shapes. He knows circle, square, and triangle of course. He also knows rectangle, oval, diamond, star, and heart. Most impressively though is that he recognizes cylinders, octagons, and pentagons – he’s definitely a pint-sized Einstein.

(Mickey Mouse is wearing a pair of Luke’s pajamas – at Adam’s insistence – I’m fairly certain we won’t be getting them back any time soon) 

I’ll let the cuteness speak for itself.
I am fairly certain that level of adorableness is illegal in at least 12 states.

There was never really any question that Luke would be a dinosaur for Halloween. I am so in love with the the dino costume Adam wore his first Halloween that Luke and any future babies will most likely be wearing that their first Halloweens as well (provided I can squeeze them in to it it fits them).

I had a really difficult time deciding on Adam’s costume though. I originally toyed with the idea of him being a dinosaur too, but I knew there was no way Adam would keep any sort of mask or hood on, and most of the costumes I found online had one or the other (and not to mention were more than I wanted to spend). I really wanted the boys’ costumes to go together though (because I’m nerdy like that) and so when Dave suggested Adam dress as a caveman, I knew it was perfect (technically according to the geologic timeline cavepeople and dinosaurs did not coexist, but what’s 65 million years between friends?).

Me Caveman Adam, ugh.

So a a quick trip to the craft store for some animal print fabric and another to a Halloween costume shop for the plastic bones around the top and we were in business. I used one of Adam’s shirts as a guide for the size (and still ended up having to take in the sides twice).

CaveAdam mad! (he wasn’t really, he was just beating his hands on his chest, Tarzan-style)

We added his dinosaur feet slippers and there you go, instant Cavekid.

There was one other piece to his costume that my father insisted he needed.

Papa make CaveAdam happy. CaveAdam dance.

Papa say CaveAdam need club.

So yes, we got a two year old a club – a club that is almost as tall as he is. For some reason whenever he uses it (and he is actually really good about only hitting it on the floor – excluding earlier today when he hit Dave in the head) he says, “hiiiiyah”. It’s pretty funny.

I think the caveman costume suits our little wild man just fine.

Adam and I went grocery shopping last night and the store was packed with Christmas decorations. It’s not even Halloween yet and already they are breaking out the Christmas paraphernalia.

Insane.

There are 58 days until December 25th – just in case you were wondering.

A cute picture of the boys, since I know that’s really what you’re here to see.

Luke can bend his big toes completely down without moving any of the other toes.

Okay, honestly now, how many of you read that and then tried it to see if you could too? I’m not going to lie, I tried (and failed).