Halloween

We had a lovely week, playing games and making food and blah blah blah you just want to see the kids' costumes, don't you?

We had our church Halloween party last night. There weren't many kids Edie and Marty's ages, so I feel confident in saying that their costumes were the best of the night.

Marty dressed as the "See My Vest" version of Mr. Burns. You can totally tell, right?

You can TOTALLY tell. No one else who was there knew who he was, but we did, and that's what's important.

Edie, on the other hand, had the sense to wear an easily-recognizable costume.

My parents got this for her when we saw them for her birthday over the summer. She's been fascinated with the Daniel Tiger costume ever since, but only from a distance. She would announce to us that she was going to wear her Daniel costume for Halloween, but if we asked her to try it on, she'd say, "Um, no thanks." But yesterday morning, she surprised us by asking to put it on. She wore it all day, even coming with me to have our car's emissions tested. She was still very reluctant to talk to anyone or do anything at the party, but she enjoyed wearing the costume, at least.

She and Marty still gang up on me whenever they have the chance. I was on the floor in Edie's room helping her find Waldo tonight (she's really gotten into the Where's Waldo? books lately), and Marty took advantage and belly-flopped on my head. Edie smelled blood in the water and jumped on my stomach immediately after, both of them howling with laughter amidst my shrieks and screams.

In other murderous news, Edie and I had the following conversation this morning.

EDIE: I want to take you off.
ME: You want to take off my what?
EDIE: (thinking) Your head.

Learning

Marty's learning more and more every day. The other day, he learned, with absolutely no prompting from either of us, how to use Edie's slide in her room. He walked up, climbed up the ladder, sat himself down, and slid right down. He seemed really pleased with himself and immediately went back for another go.

No really, look for yourself.

You might think that he picked this up from watching Edie slide, but she's been largely indifferent to it for a few months now, so it seems like he picked it up entirely on his own. To think that he's sliding on a first-grade level at only one year old! We're just so proud.

He's also learned how to karate kick Edie in the face, which she enjoys much more than you might think.

This is a game that Edie calls "squish," in which she lies on the ground, and then I set Marty on top of her. Marty, completely unaware that there's any sort of game going on, scrambles to get off of her, stomping on her stomach, arms, face, etc. in the process. She loves it, and he always ends up laughing by the end of it. Kids are weird, I dunno.

I don't have any pictures or videos of this one, but Marty figured out how high fives work the other day, and Edie's more excited about it than anyone. I'll hold out my hand to him for a five, then Edie wants a turn, then Marty wants another one, and soon I'm just going back and forth, back and forth, for five or ten minutes, both of them laughing hysterically.

They're learning new things every day, and it's a real kick to watch. (Ha! Kick! I made a joke there, you guys.)

A boy, and also a girl

Marty has gotten really good at climbing lately, to the point where it's really starting to become a problem. He can get up high enough to where he can't get back down. That doesn't mean he's not willing to try, though, but his usual technique is to fall down face first. He's also really good at wedging himself into tight spaces, like this one.

Why, who is this? And for that matter, where is this?

Oh, it's just Marty the baby boy, climbing up and into the dishwasher! You clever and horrible child!

He's also taken an interest in my harmonica, just like Edie did a few weeks ago. I still haven't learned how to play it, but I think I've gotten more than my money's worth from watching these two weirdos blow into it.

Edie has decided that maybe, just maybe, she is done wearing pants on her legs and that she really ought to consider wearing them on her head instead.

Happy birthday, Marty

Marty, our beautiful, disgusting baby boy, turned a year old this week. It's simultaneously hard to believe it's already been a year and it's only been a year since he was born.

Edie wasn't really that interested in the presents and cake we gave her on her first birthday, so we entered the birthday part with a bit of trepidation. How would Marty react?

Well, he seemed to enjoy the toys we got him. Edie did too, trying to snatch all of them out of his hands as soon as he opened them. Here she is giving him a "sorry not sorry" kiss to make up for it.

He really enjoyed the coat my parents got him.

He really really enjoyed the juggling scarves/endless Kleenex box we got him.

And he really really really enjoyed his birthday cake.

He didn't get much on him because he made sure to eat every last crumb of it. I think he ended up eating more of the cake than I did, which is really something, considering he also ate a larger portion of dinner than I did. He gained two pounds last month, and bearing in mind that he weighs a total of 25 pounds, that's incredible.

When she saw me taking cake pictures of Marty, Edie very loudly insisted that I take pictures of her eating cake too, and I mean, sure, that's fair:

You might think that we completely ignored Edie this week in favor of Marty's birthday. I'd like to set that to rest by showing you this video of her "playing" the harmonica.

She's wearing an apron here because it was spirit week at her school this last week. They asked her to dress up as her future career. I can't imagine any four year-old has any idea what their future career will be ("I'm gonna be a firefighter!" "I'm going to be a garbage can!"), but she loves cooking and baking, so we let her wear her apron to school and said she was going to be a baker.

Autumn leaves

It's finally fall here in Tennessee, but you wouldn't know it from how warm it continues to be. It's been four years, but I'm still not used to temperatures in the eighties in October.

Marty will turn one this week, so he's savoring the last few days he has of being a baby. He still grabs everything as soon as he sees it, thoroughly enjoys falling down while walking, and had a span of something like twenty consecutive poopy diapers, causing him to lose his pants privileges for about a day. He's a good boy who loves to laugh, though, so it all evens out.

Also, this boy can eat, provided you put pasta in front of him. I'm pretty sure he can outeat both Tamsen and me when it comes to rotini.

Edie still loves school, and really enjoys spending time with her friends at school. That doesn't mean she enjoys all of her classmates equally, though. We saw one of her classmates on Thursday night at a school pizza party/come and learn about how report cards are scored night, and while this little boy got really excited and kept saying to his mom, "It's Edie! It's Edie" over and over, she didn't look like she could even be bothered to turn around to look at him.

We bought her a BYU Cougars shirt this summer that she finally discovered, and now she doesn't want to wear anything else. I don't have the heart to tell her that they're 1-4 and don't look likely to turn it around anytime soon.

They're both wonderful kids, despite everything, and they're growing up so fast. It's hard to believe that it's already been a year since Marty was born, and it's really crazy to think that it's been four since Edie. She's been around for nearly as long as we've been here in Tennessee, and it's hard to believe we've been here for four years, either.