As we mentioned earlier, Jack was a puppy!
Here's Norah in her pig ears. And, yes, she had a curly tail, too!
Here's the tail Mom made for my Big Bad Wolf costume. Mom wanted to make a grey tail, but I insisted on brown. I'm convinced that grey wolves have brown tails. "Okay," said Mom!
What fun we had! 
After months and months about talking about big boy potties, yesterday I told my Mom I was ready to use one. Until yesterday, I'd been telling Mom I was planning on waiting until I was eleven. We're not sure what happened yesterday, but we're going with it!
Not only did I pee on the big potty, I pooped, too! Mommy was really excited. She thought we needed to get on the phone and call Dad and the grandmas to tell them all about it! Mom seemed to think they would want to know. First we called Dad...then Grandma Lou...and next was Grandma Carolyn. Great-Mom-mom wasn't answering her phone, so she still doesn't know what's going on.
Since yesterday went so well, we're trying a pull-up today. So far, so good! I even did a good job at a friend's house! I just told Mom I needed to go, and she took me in to take care of business! Mom (and the other mommy) thought that was especially wonderful. The plan is to go straight to big boy underwear on Monday regardless of what the rest of today or tomorrow brings. Mom says she'd appreciate extra prayer on that day. I'm not sure what prayer has to do with underwear... I guess I'll find out!
And in other news, Jack is working on his vocabulary it seems. He now says words sounding similar to stinky (as in "your diaper is STINKY"), book, and, of course, cheese!
...and put Jack in his high chair for snacktime and so he could see what we were doing.
The first thing we had to do was poke the sticks into the apples.
Sticks in, Mom dipped the apples in caramel and passed them off to me. I was responsible for poking the chocolate chips into the sticky caramel.
To finish them off, Mom drizzled the apples with white chocolate and I sprinkled on a few more chips. I think Jack wanted to eat one of the treats!
Once the caramel and chocolates had set, we wrapped up the apples in cellophane to give to my teachers in the morning.
And this is the gift I gave Jack this morning. Since he didn't get to go to the pumpkin patch yesterday, I thought he might like me to bring him a little pumpkin. Jack did like his pumpkin! He spent quite a bit of time talking to his pumpkin. Of course, we have no idea what he told the pumpkin. Still it was funny!
Oh--and we think Jack might be saying a few words these days. We think he can say "eat" and "ball". He might say "thanks", but we're not entirely sure. We'll keep you posted.
Here I am playing "pumpkin ball".
Waiting for cake with Spike and Ava.
And the slides!
It was a great afternoon! Just Mommy and me is kind of fun sometimes...
Even Jack scooped beans! Just two, though. Mom had to make sure it was a number of beans she could keep track of just in case Jack decided to eat them!
I made truck noises while I scooped.
I guess, that in a pinch, dried beans make a pretty good substitute for dirt. 
Breakfast and getting dressed came next. Mom doesn't think babies should wear shoes while they learn to walk, so neither Jack and I wore shoes until well after our 1 year birthday. But this morning was COLD. Really cold. Since we weren't going to be doing much walking, Mom thought she'd put shoes on Jack for the sake of warmth. Jack wasn't happy. With those shoes on his feet, he couldn't walk! Our baby was MAD! Mom took a pity on Jackie-boy and double-socked him in addition to his knock-off Robeez. Feeling much better we headed out in search of pine cones...
As you may know, we live in the northern part of the south. The pine trees here are pathetic. The only decent pines Mom could think of were the trees surrounding the cemetery. We arrived to find not one, but two, funerals in progress. Not to be deterred, Mom changed plans. Instead of the three of us looking for pine cones together, Mom decided to drive to the cones and quietly slip out of the car by herself. She didn't think two little boys happily searching for pine cones was the appropriate background noise for the grieving. More on the pine cones in a later post...
Cones in hand, we headed home to figure out our Halloween costumes. We're planning on trick-or-treating up at Dad's office on Thursday, and then we have a costume party to attend on Friday. As planned I'm going to be a wolf. The Big Bad Wolf to be exact....
...and Jack was going to be one of my three little pigs. Except that Jack looked like a girl in the pink sweatsuit. And, yes, Mom should have taken pictures, but she forgot and returned the outfit instead.
We were having so much fun wearing our costumes! Mom decided to tell a story about a wolf and a puppy while Jack and I acted out the parts. At one point in the story, the wolf wrestled the puppy too hard! Mom tried to explain how wolves needed to be gentle, and I tried to convince her that wolves are rather mean!
A distraction desperately needed, we attempted to move on to other activities. I was not to be sidetracked and kept asking questions about wolves. Mom, who apparently skipped the mommy-class where wolf knowledge is covered, knows n-o-t-h-i-n-g about wolves. Lucky for me, Mom knows how to get around in a library! We headed there next, and found two informative books on wolves.
And, in case you're wondering, I was right. Wolves are not gentle, they are mean! And they are very hungry creatures, so we ate lunch next and called our morning finished!
Jack likes it when I chase him with my vacuum. We giggled and giggled! Then we rode our inside trikes before sweeping and mopping the floors.
Mopping finished it was time to play a game! I chose Cariboo. We drew cards and then used the key to open the door matching the color/number/letter/shape on the card. Behind some of the doors are treasures! We managed to find all six treasures needed in order to open the treasure box.
Game over, it was back to chores. Next on the list came dusting. I got out my duster brush and helped teach Jack the fine art of dusting the house. Then we got out the lacing beads and counted while we strung the beads.
Cleaning all the glass in the house came next. We decided to play with something BIG after this chore was finished! The SuperFort is the biggest toy we own, so out it came. We all built the tent together, and Jack and I crawled right in to play. Norah took a little convincing. Finally she came in and went right out again. I guess Norah doesn't like tents.
Mom said she didn't mind if we kept playing in the fort during the next chore. That sounded good to Jack and me, so we kept playing while Mom folded and put away the laundry. Clothes in the appropriate places, we headed out to the living room for a little celebratory dancing.
Keeping up the house is quite the job! Mom said Jack and I were great helpers! So great, that she would finish the last chore during naptime. I guess bathrooms are best cleaned without helpers. Playing through the cleaning is the only way go!
See the table? It's full of stuff! The flowers are from Dad, Jack, and me welcoming Mom home. While we had a great time without her, we're glad to have Mom back and we wanted her to know! The other stuff is loot from the California relatives! They sent Jack and I all kinds of fun things from Halloween treats to late birthday gifts (since Mom was coming for a visit, why pay for postage) to early Christmas gifts. Oh my!
Since Mom doesn't really like ghosts, she called us her "marshmallow puffs". Don't you think we make cute puffs?
It takes a lot of cooking to keep three guys fed!
Good thing Oliver and Sullivan gave me some new cooking tools for my birthday!
We opened it up to find some "cutely" wrapped birthday packages from Muriel! Most of the packages were for me since it was my birthday package, but Muriel put in a little package for Jack.
Jack's package contained some stacking cups. How did Muriel know Jack likes to stack? I opened my packages to find some fun musical instruments.
Mom put on some music.
And we danced and made musical noises.
What a fun package! Thanks, Muriel!!!
He turned out to be a little bit too helpful.
Mom finished packing after Jack was in bed.
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