Hair-dos and (pre)Halloween

This is a picture of Evelyn's first hair-do. It's the only one I've figured out with the amount of hair that she has. We think she's adorable. She's also starting to show some nurturing tendencies toward her baby doll. She loves to hug it. I love girls.

When the ponies are taken out, her hair looks like a mohawk and it inspired Max to ask for this new do:

Max has been watching a new show on PBS lately called Dinosaur Train and it has peeked his interest in dinosaurs a lot. If you know Max, you know that he retains information like an encyclopedia. With this hair-do, Max intended to be a Corithosaurus who has a crest on the top of its head. So with the help of a little Corithosaurus gel we created a "crest" and he started humming music with it.

Later in the day, I had to return something at the mall and the sales associate in H&M told Max his hair looked really cool. He looked at her with an expression like “are you an idiot?” It went a little something like this:

Max: This is NOT hair. This is a crest.
Me: (quietly) a dinosaur crest.
S.A.: oh! Cool crest. What kind of dinosaur are you?
Max: A corithosaurus.

The conversation was repeated a few times throughout the day to daddy and our neighbors. It was so cute. And he does look very cool with a crest! I love boys.

I love being a mom.

Here are a couple of other stories that I don't want to forget.

Max has been going through a scared phase. A few weeks ago, we were so happy because he was falling asleep on his own (without us laying by him until he was out) and was totally cool with it. Now all of a sudden he’s scared and refuses to do it. Sometimes if we leave his lamp on, he’ll sleep, but it’s been a bit of a struggle. He’s also coming to sleep with us a lot more. So a few nights ago he was really struggling and crying and not wanting to sleep by himself because he’d be lonely (Max’s greatest fear…we’ve known it since Day1.) I was just trying to calm him and making conversation so I said, “Just a little while longer and Evelyn will be big enough to share a bed with you and you can share a room. Then you won’t be alone!” Max was excited and wanted Evelyn to sleep with him now. I reminded him that Evelyn has to sleep in a crib still. So he decided that he wanted to sleep in Evelyn’s room. We have an extra crib mattress that becomes a “nest” for wandering sleepers and Max wanted to sleep in his nest in Evelyn’s room. So I set it up while he sat in the hallway as quiet as a mouse. He came in and layed down in Evelyn’s VERY dark room. I asked, “Are you going to be okay in here?” He looked up into Evelyn’s crib and said, “Yes. As long as Evelyn’s right by me, I will be brave.”

We’ve been reading Charlotte’s Web to Max at night and he’s really enjoying reading a big book. He loves to read. Last night, Evelyn wasn’t sleepy enough to go into her own room so she and Jason joined us for the story. I was lying in Max’s bed and he was snuggled on my chest. When Evelyn joined, she sort of shimmied her way between Max and me. Max just put his arm around her tummy so they were sort of spooning and put his cheek right up against hers. He had the most content smile on his face and kept planting kisses on his sister’s sweet chubby cheek. It was adorable.

We've had some good days. I love three-year-olds and one-year-olds but some days we really struggle. It hasn't been as much as a struggle the last few days and it is so wonderful.

Today, we braved the weather and found a fun pumpkin patch in Rhode Island. The tractor pulled us on a trailer out into the field where we chose our pumpkins. We were rained on, but it was fun to be out there and Max was super excited to choose the pumpkins we'd take home. Here are a few of the pics we snapped along the way!

This is the first one with all 4 of us we've had in a LONG time.

It will probably become our Christmas card picture by default...but I sure hope not!

Two of the three have already been carved...actually, I should say "grinded" (no, not ground). Max has been talking about grinding pumpkins all month long. We're not quite sure where he came up with that verb choice.