Lately, Amelie and Calder have started playing together more. As a mom, I’m loving it, even though this play time is, of course, marked by the occasional cry of despair when a toy gets taken. What fun it is to watch these two together.

Riding off into the sunset together on their trusted pony.

Showing Amelie one of his new favorite sitting spots.

A cupboard made for two.

I can’t wait to see what these two come up with next!

Amelie’s been having lots of fun lately and we’ve been having fun with her! It seems like every day she says something new that makes us laugh. Last night we were all in the kitchen making dinner and Bryce and I were hugging each other. Up pipes her sweet little voice from her perch on the counter: “Hey, what are you doing, guys?” We’d never heard her use “guys” before, so we laughed which, of course, meant that she kept using “guys” in sentences for the next several minutes, just to see how much she could milk it. “What’s so funny, guys? Huh, guys? Why are you laughing, guys?”

One day last week, Amelie was obsessed with blankets. I would pile them all on her according to her specific placement directions and then she'd be "All nice and warm."

Amelie just adores her sweet cousin, Hayley. Whenever Hayley is at our house, Amelie runs around with her and shows her all the fun toys. Here she is, teaching Hayley how to work a pinwheel. This particular day, they also spent about 30 minutes just chasing each other from one end of our house to the other--over and over again.

There’s a reason we included the Curious George theme song on Calder’s 1st birthday video soundtrack–he is one curious little monkey! He loves getting into everything and is becoming quite the skilled climber. Some of his latest adventures:

"And now, for my next illusion, I will climb into this box and disappear!"

Tables are meant for climbing on to, right?

Or maybe for surfing?

His new favorite spot for hanging out.

The other day when Bryce went in to get Calder from a nap, our baby was clinging to the top rails of his crib, two seconds away from freedom. This is a whole new adventure for me–Amelie was never much for climbing and probably would have been content in her crib until she was in high school. It’s so fun to watch him conquer his surroundings. Well, fun and a little nerve-wracking…

We had a low-key, but fun, Halloween this year. I think this is the first year that Amelie really “got” the concept of trick-or-treating. Our ward does a trunk-or-treat, so we didn’t actually go around to homes. In our case, that’s a good thing. It wouldn’t be much fun trekking up and down all the stairs in our complex. I actually really like the trunk-or-treat concept. We saw all our friends and neighbors and admired the decorated trunks and since it was confined to one parking lot, we were able to get it all done pretty quickly (which was great, since it started to get cold) and Amelie got just enough treats. She was pretty thrilled about the whole affair.

Our sweet Snow White. Thanks, Marcie, for lending us the great costume--it was perfect!

One of the seven dwarves--Happy, maybe?

This photo location has practically become a tradition for us. Every year, we get our picture taken outside the Jessee residence during their annual Halloween party. Bryce is the poison apple and I'm the queen's raven. The raven's not one that everyone remembers, but when Bryce reminded me about it, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. The pun with my name was just irresistable.

The princess and the dwarf.

Amelie with her good buddy, Alyssa, a.k.a Tinkerbell.

Calder and Hayley. It's amazing how much they've changed this year! We also think Calder's GQ pose is pretty classic. He even has his ankles crossed!

This is what you get when you try to get a bunch of little ones to pose for a picture together.

It was a very happy Halloween and now we’re looking forward to Thanksgiving!