On Halloween...

The trick-or-treat crew 2015

Banner:  "Can I please have some candy?"
Me: "Uh, Ban.  Those are pumpkins, not people."
Banner:  "Okay, but can they please give me some candy?"

Me:  "No more candy."
Banner: "But it's not all gone yet."

Sticker of shame is no more...

Schafer has been rolling around since early September, but wasn't showing her teachers at school. So, the sticker of shame remained on her crib.

Trevor and I comforted ourselves with videos that proved she really could roll over.

But, finally, she showed everyone her skills by rolling in a complete circle this afternoon.  And then, just to highlight the fact that she could do it all along, she proceeded to do it four more times in ten minutes.

Ms. Vivian:  "Yeah, Schaf.  We get it.  You can roll."

That's my girl.

For all those that think Schafer only looks like her daddy...

My mom on the left, me in the middle and Schaf on the right.

You see it, right?  RIGHT?

Someone lie to me.  ;P

The Quiet Game...

Banner talks.  A lot.

Mostly, I enjoy my little Chatty Cathy.  But it wears on Trevor on occasion.

Like the day we took the kids to Central Market to grab dinner and a few groceries.  Banner talked THE ENTIRE way there in the car.  Then proceeded to talk my ear off while I pushed the cart around the store.  Trevor, who had Schafer in a different cart, met up with me at the checkout and asked if Banner stopped talking at any point during the outing.

"Haha!  You are kidding, right?"

So, Trevor decided, before getting back in the car for the ride home, to teach Banner to play The Quiet Game.  Because, sometimes, silence really is golden.

Banner said he understood the rules, and immediately started talking smack.  Our overly confident three year old told us in no uncertain terms how he was going to be "the quietest ever" and "beat us all" because he is a big boy and "the best a being quiet".

Yeah. He lost before we exited the parking lot.

We heard about it the whole way home.

On School Pictures...

Last year, we dressed Banner in a button down shirt and dress pants for school picture day.  He looked sharp, and yet I had instant regret because getting him dressed that morning was such a struggle.  The kid wanted to wear what the kid wanted to wear.  Which, not surprisingly for 2.5 year old Banner, involved a superhero shirt and his rain boots.  It is a fine line between wanting your kid to look good on picture day, and wanting him to look like himself.

My lil weirdo this time last year.

This year, learning nothing from last year's regret, we dressed Banner in another button down shirt and khaki pants.  We even parted his hair.  The kid looked amazing.  I almost didn't recognize him.  See, 3.5 year old Banner is into matching.  He dresses himself in the morning, because apparently mama doesn't understand that you can never have too much of one color.  Which explains why my kid looks like this most mornings:

Mr. Color Coordinated, right?

Anyway, I wanted him to look nice in his school pictures mainly to prove to the other parents and teachers that my kid CAN clean up on occasion.  I mean, who are these other people that can get their kid to dress in collared shirts and chinos on a daily basis? I'm just lucky we have pants on when we leave the house most mornings.

So, I was a little confused when the pictures came back and my kid looked like...well, a giant tomato:

My favorite is the red wrist band with the red shoes on the red scooter.
Because OF COURSE.

Apparently, something happened on the day he was supposed to take his picture and it was postponed.  It was probably a day that Trevor picked up, because - clearly - I had no knowledge or I probably would have attempted to intervene two mornings in a row.

At least this year's photo is a more accurate depiction of what he looks like on a day to day basis, and for that I am grateful.  Plus, he looks happy and relaxed which is much more than I can say about last year's picture where he looks uncharacteristically spiffy and slightly deranged: