Yesterday and Today

I started this post on Friday, and as you can see I've been really good at finishing things in a timely manner. (The kitchen cabinet clean-out project is still going). So, Thursday I picked the boys up at "school" and had to laugh. They were wearing hats, their pajama shirts and underwear. Oh, and sandals. It was Orange and Black day at school, so that's where the hats came into play. And they were supposed to wear orange and black clothes, and the pajama shirts were the best thing we had. And no pants? It seems we both had accidents right before I picked them up and I must have forgotten to put back-up pants in their schoolbag.

It's our ritual now, when we get home, to sit on the front steps and chat about our day. Grady is the keeper of the schedule, so when we pull into the driveway, he immediately tells me that I need to go get him out of the car and go sit on the steps and chat. I do as I am told, and he runs to the steps immediately.

Cole, on the other hand, is going through his independence seeking phase, and at this point, on most days, is still in the car. For 15 minutes our conversations go like this:

Me: "Are you ready to come sit on the steps?"
Cole: "I NOT!"
Me: "Ok, I'll come check back in a few minutes."

I walk away, go sit on steps. Until Grady tells me that Cole is still in the car, and that I should go "get him!". So I walk back to the car and try again.

Me: "Coley, can I help you get out of the car."
Cole: (thinking for a minute, because 'i not' is not an appropriate response here). "YOU NOT!"
Me: "Ok".

And on and on this goes until finally, he wants to get out and starts crying as if I've locked him in the car for hours! How could I be so cruel??

And then he joins his bruder on the porch for a photo.

And we eat our after-school popcorn snack.

And act a little crazy.

And talk, talk, talk, talk. As their teacher likes to tell me "your boys are talkers". Uh-huh, yes, I was aware.

Our schedule keeper usually tells me when he's ready to go in to have dinner. And on this day, a special Mickey was waiting for each of the boys at their placemat. Thanks Grammie and Grampie for the Mickey. The boys loved "scawy Mickey".

We ate, we took bath-baths, we waited for Dada. We had a great Orange and Black day.

And then Friday, which would be the "today" part of this blog title, they wore their costumes to school. Which made our front step photo of the day look like this:

And at school they did a little trick or treating at a few neighbor's houses, so that meant part of our Friday front porch step time looked like this. We love "shocolate". We ate a lot of shocolate.

Dada made it home early today, so we played in the backyard a bit. With balls. We threw them "big high".

And we carried around the picture of baby cousin Maya, whom Grady has dubbed "baby sister". Thanks for the pics, Aunt Linda. That picture of Maya has been well-loved.

I've not yet shown you the boys' buckets. They LOVE these, more than I ever thought they would. It's Bat and 'Stein. Bat and Stein went to school with them on this day for Trick or Treating, and got a little bit of leaves and dirt on them. So after the boys went to bed I started cleaning the bags, and noticed something unusual in one of the bags.

Hmmm. It seems either one of the houses was giving out vintage books, or one of our boys snuck off with a school book. I wonder who that could be...

And finally, I leave you with their Halloween art masterpieces. I was told these are "booomtiful". I agree.