Halloween

We did Trick or Treat Street yesterday, and even though Will is too young to do any kind of trick-or-treating, or candy eating, I couldn't resist this adorable costume.  

I also couldn't resist taking million pictures of him.

In Kalena's pictures you could either see her face or her Tigger costume.  Not both.

The cousins.

I love Will's expression in that last one. 

Want more pictures of cute kids in costume?  Check out my nieces and nephews here and here.

We're going to have a chat about locking doors

When I started to put Kalena down for her nap this afternoon I discovered that her door was locked.  From the inside.  And the room was empty.  Apparently she locked the door, came out of the room and pulled the door shut.  This doorknob?  Has a KEY lock.  To which I have no key.  I tried the old bobby pin trick, even though that's mostly good for push locks.  After I broke the bobby pin in the lock I considered taking the doorknob off, which is when I discovered there are no screws on the outside.  Luckily I remembered a trick I used a time or two in college and finally managed to get the door open using an outdated plastic insurance card.  If she keeps this up I'm going to get really good at breaking and entering.

Definitely not twice as fun

We had pictures of the kids taken for Christmas cards today.  It's the first time I've had professional pictures done of the two kids together, and I think it's safe to say it wasn't fun for anyone involved.  In fact, I don't think we've had this much trouble getting a good shot since Kalena's 3 month pictures, a session where she finally fell asleep and THEN we got pictures.

It certainly didn't help that the photographer kept waiting for The Shot.  I'm guessing she hasn't had much experience with toddlers and babies, because with kids that age you take what you can get.  Anyway, even though my kids spend most of the day like this:

The best we could get out of them looked something like this:

Oh well.

It's the same reason I'm never in pictures

I've had a hard time getting pictures of Kalena lately, because she'd much rather be taking the picture than be in the picture.

Luckily, she has her own camera so she can take all the "pictures" she wants.  

The 9 month update. A little behind.

So, I know Will is almost 10 months old now, but here's the 9 month news anyway.  He is crawling on all fours instead of army crawling, and he cruises on everything.  He LOVES bath time, and regularly tries to climb in the tub if I don't keep the bathroom door shut.  He is quite a cuddly guy and would happily be held all day.  In fact, often when I set him down he'll crawl after me crying pathetically until I pick him up again.  He doesn't do this to Brian, of course.  He is also sleeping MUCH better (through the night most nights) and I'll definitely be posting more about what we did to encourage that.  Also, he is FINALLY getting a tooth!  (Or teeth maybe, can't be sure.)  You can't feel it yet, but you can see the spot on his gums where they're about to come through.

I've been a huge slacker with the picture taking, mostly because I didn't want to take pictures where the background was a mess of stuff that still needed to be unpacked and put away.  But I did take this picture because I think it's crazy how much these kids look alike in these photos.

That's Kalena at nine months (that's the way it got packed up and I haven't updated it yet) and Will at nine months.  I don't think they look too much alike right now, but I definitely see it here.  What do you think?

Some lessons you learn the hard way

I went looking for a box this morning while Kalena was watching a movie.  It wasn't in the first couple places I looked, so I decided to check out back in the shed.  After some maneuvering (our shed is currently completely disorganized) I found the one I was looking for and turned around to bring it in the house.  Just in time to watch Kalena shut and lock the sliding door I'd left open.

After making sure our side door was also locked (it was) I called Brian.  While we waited for him I tried to get Kalena to unlock the sliding door.  Unfortunately, it is considerably harder to unlock than to lock, and Kalena doesn't have the required level of coordination yet.  Fortunately, Brian's office is less than 10 minutes away so the wait wasn't long.  Also, VERY fortunately, Will was napping at the time which saved me a considerable amount of worry.

Kalena was unfazed by the whole thing, although she did seem a little confused about why I wouldn't just open the door.  She kept asking, "Play outside?  Open door?" and then she'd try the door and say, "Door locked." like it was my fault.  In the future I'll be checking the other doors before I rummage around in the shed.  Glad I got to learn that lesson on a nice day like today.

Did you miss me?

Or did you even notice I was gone?  I've been without internet since last Thursday.  It's finally hooked up now, and I might have complained more about going without, except that I'm pretty sure that's the only reason anything is unpacked around here.

But now!  Now we are moved in, and unpacked (mostly), and back in touch with the internet world.  You'll have to let me know if I missed anything big, because I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make it through all the gazillion unread posts in my google reader.

Pictures, updates, info, blah, blah, blah.  All forthcoming.