killing time at target

we had some time to kill, so we browsed around target thinking about back-to-school purchases. maddux was pretty taken with this michelangelo sweatshirt. love.

this cuteness

it's always short weather

a maddux shell

i found a 'maddux shell' laid out on the floor this afternoon. he has been sleeping on the floor (for some unknown reason) and laying out his pajamas where he sleeps. silly boy. love.

this kid just can't get enough orange

because one pair just isn't enough

manning was putting on alternating pairs of mason's and maddux' underwear while i was folding laundry. i think he had on at least 8 pairs, but was not interested at all in having his picture taken. love.

these kids love to dress in theme

madelyn has been dressing in a theme every day (bow headbands and colorful clothes to be a "present" on a few days, green skirt to be a christmas tree, etc). today, she was a candy cane in red knee highs, white leggings, a pinkish skirt, a white shirt and a red headband. maddux also really loves dressing a theme, but his themes are largely color based including underwear and socks. love.

just because we can

boys, boys, boys. i don't know what it is about boys and their bodies. during breakfast, maddux had to show us how high he could pull the shorts of his pajamas. all i could do was laugh and shake my head - and then get the camera of course! mason wanted to do something silly with his clothes too. these kids are never dull, that is for sure. love.

the silly boys get dressed

getting dressed can be a lot of fun around here (sarcastically and actually).  today was an actually fun day!  maddux was walking around bare chested with his pants hiked up super high (higher than they ended up in the picture) so then mason got in on the fun too.  of course i needed a picture!  and then maddux asked me to take a picture of his shirt like this.  the form of shirt wearing is very popular around here but it usually comes at the undressing before baths and bed.  silly, silly boys.  love.

another snazzy dresser

maddux is another free dresser. and very like madelyn, he wanted to wear shorts all winter and now that it is warm i have to fight with him about not wearing pants and long sleeves.  but today it was the sheer combination that made me want to document his outfit.  he was wearing red and blue long sleeves (i was wearing a tank top), orange, blue and green plaid shorts, mason's socks pulled up to his knees with the heel 'patch' on the front of his leg and his always brown shoes which are lined and quite warm.

he was so funny walking into the library because his bag kept sliding off his shoulder and when he would lift it back up you could see a good inch of his orange underwear.  he just makes me laugh.  love.

yo-ho-ho!

maddux has been a boy obsessed - with jake and the neverland pirates.  he has two shirts with 'jake' on them.  he prefers one.  and i think "prefers" is an understatement.  after he pulled it out of the hamper and wore it three days in a row because it is the only one with a "big jake" (his other one has jake and captain hook).  i haven't been able to wash it fast enough!  so i tried to see if i could find one on clearance on walmart.com (it is long sleeved and that is where grandma had picked it up several months ago).  no luck.

it isn't just enough that it has jake on a shirt - he has to be alone and he has to be big.

they did have a striped shirt and short set with jake on it available online and i showed it to maddux.  thankfully, he approved.  unfortunately, they didn't have it at the store when we went the next day (and, yes, i know i could have ordered it and picked it up but i needed something fast).  thankfully, they did have a shirt that he found acceptable.  he found it so acceptable that while i was looking for a larger size, he stripped off his shirt (the dirty, long-sleeved version that he was wearing for day number four) and tried to put it on in the store!

since i couldn't find the one we were looking for i called grandma to be on the look out (she goes to a lot of walmarts as part of her job).  of course she found the one we were looking for (on maddux) and an extra (on mason) by the end of the day!  they were both for maddux but he was very willing to share which was extra sweet when you consider his obsession.

this has been funny because neither of the other two have had this level of obsession with a clothing item.  they have preferred things but nothing like maddux.  but the funniest part is that he hasn't watched jake and the neverland pirates in months and months because we  don't have cable any more!  who knows what triggered it, but at least we have enough now that he won't be smelly.  love.

fashion sense

all three bigs dress themselves head to toe each day - which i love.  the boys seem to have picked up on madelyn's general sense of style too.  they were both wearing some noteworthy spring looks today and i had to take some pictures.

i love how they are obviously trying to pick the same colors for the top and bottom.  i am not sure how much they help each other (they close the closet door when selecting and sometimes all three of them are in there) but i sure do love the results!  love.

stripe day

this is "reading week" (or something like that) at madelyn's school and everyday has a themed dress - today was "stripes".  madelyn came up with this look all on her own.  she is really excited about what to wear all week.  love.

extra snugly

maddux insisted on wearing fleece pants over his fleece footsie jammies. silly boy. love.

 

extra laundry

sometimes i think madelyn is just trying to wear the most clothes, not just an outfit. today's look was noteworthy because she wore shorts over jean-style pants.

this was her second choice. her first choice were spandex shorts (aka biker shorts) over the pants. the only comment i made was that it might be very difficult to go to the bathroom.

it is becoming more and more clear why i am constantly doing laundry! love.

 

the red, white and blue

in honor of veteran's day, madelyn's school held a large assembly and invited veterans and their families from the community to come and be honored.  they asked all of the kids to wear red, white and blue.  of course, madelyn loves to dress with a theme and came up with her own outfit of everything she had with red, white and/or blue on it. i honestly don't know how she could move her arms because the dress and the tank top (yes, there is a dress under the tank top) are at least one size too small and fit way too high in her armpits!  but she was terribly cute and proud of her look.

off to school for madelyn and mason while everyone else stayed at home with daddy and grandma.  it was nice to not have to haul everyone in when i was dropping off mason.  i think mason enjoyed having me all to himself after we dropped off madelyn because he talked the entire time and reviewed our schedule for the day - he loves to tell the events of the day in the sequence they have or will occur. and this was going to be a fun one!  love.

what size to wear?

madelyn is between sizes right now - in everything! we moved her up to a size 5 diaper a little over a month ago because the 4s were leaving marks around her legs. she her waist is too small so the diapers have always been too big, but she is also too tall which means that we have to move her up a size when the leg holes won't stretch far enough to let us get the diaper 'waist' up above her hips. we have had this same problem with every size diaper, but for some reason the jump from the 4 to the 5 has been the worst. the diaper hangs down to her knees if she isn't wearing pants!

then we have shoes. with the increased walking we have to put shoes on her when we are out and about. she recently outgrew her size 3 shoes and the size 4 is a little big - and wide. once again her feet are too skinny to stay in the baby shoes that seem to be wider. even the leather and elastic styles are way too wide and tend to come off easy. we have found that shoelaces and velcro are our best bets on such busy feet, but velcro is easily undone while riding in the car.

lastly is her clothes. she is bursting out of her 12 month clothes, but the 18 month clothes are - again - too big in the waist. as you can see in her picture of her standing in her church dress and bloomers this morning. i couldn't pull them up any higher and her legs were too skinny to keep them up by the leg elastic. i just told the church nursery folks to take them off if she was having trouble crawling.

i am sure that in another week she will be fitting into things better, but right now it is just comical to see her with a diaper hanging between her knees and trying to move around in bottoms that won't stay up. not that it is slowing her down at all...

in other maddie news - we put up blackout curtains in her room this weekend in hopes that it will keep the early morning sunlight from waking her up before 7. she (and i) discovered that she is now tall enough to reach the top of the kitchen counters and pull anything near the edge down and that is going to make cooking dinner a lot more exciting than it already was with my little cabinet empty-er. and we both have the sniffles. hopefully, we will not get daddy sick during his first week at a new job! love.