Holiday Photo Time

Once again, it's that time of year when I try to take photos for our holiday cards.  Kevin had the great idea to head to the botanic gardens to take the pictures.  Much prettier than at home, and we were all ready to get out of the house for a bit.  The fresh air, walking, and climbing steps did us all some good.  We got there fairly early and the place was empty, so the kids got to run around some of the gardens and burn off some pent up energy.  As always, many of the pictures were completely unusable, but funny, so here we go!  I'm not sharing the good ones, so the cards will be a pleasant surprise, but you will know how hard we all had to work to make the magic happen.

 Unfortunate expressions seem to happen a lot with these two.  Malcolm actually does pretty well, but then gets bad expressions when trying to help keep Dorothy in line.

 Here's a perfect example of him looking goofy in an effort to get her to do what we want her to do.  She wasn't standing close to him or looking at me, so he grabbed her to pull her in, but then this expression happened.  She looks great.

 However, sometimes, he just gets plain silly.  It was around this time that we started to lose them a bit.

 There was a big tree with lights and several large pots of poinsettias which would have made a great backdrop, but she was having none of it. Every shot from there was terrible.  Perfecting her pout.

 Going for an evil look.

 The focus is all wrong, and I don't like her finger in her mouth, but Kevin and I both thought that Malcolm looked a lot older here.  You can almost see what he will look like as a young adult.

 I asked Malcolm to sit down in a certain spot (which he did) and then asked Dorothy to sit facing the other way so that their backs would be touching. She knelt behind him instead and I accidentally caught Kevin reaching in to turn her around. You can see what she thinks of my picture taking from her look.

 Finally, she just went limp. Here, Malcolm is trying his best to hold her up and get his face up over hers so he can still be seen. Nice try, kiddo.

 Right after this, we went into one of the greenhouses, and she sat down on a stump and told me to take her picture.

 She still didn't want to look at me, but what the heck, kid? Why can't you do this when I ask?  Both of these poses were done without any prompting from me.  She did it all on her own.  Stinker.

 As far as I can tell, they are both being flamingos here.

 There were some round, window like holes that we had them peek through.  This would have been so cute if her hair wasn't in her face.

 Malcolm had a hard time not making crazy faces at this location.

 In the conifer garden, they got pretty suspicious of me and they have the same smirk.

 Dorothy goes limp again.

 They were pretty much done by now, and their cheeks and noses were starting to get a bit rosy.

Each kid got to take one picture with the camera before we left and this was Dorothy's.  Malcolm's was blurry, but her's isn't too bad for a three year old.

The Candy Experiment

Over the weekend, I decided to try a little experiment with the kids and their Halloween candy.  Halloween night, they each got to have a few pieces, and they had a couple more on Friday.  For the weekend, I told them that I would leave their candy at their places at their table and they could help themselves.  Thirty minutes before lunch and dinner, I would put it away, but other then that, it was up to them to decide how much or little they should eat.

Day 1:
Malcolm did a great job pacing himself.  He scarfs candy that belongs to others, but he is a natural saver when it is his (he's the same with his money).  Dorothy spiraled out of control.  She ate, and ate, and ate candy all day long.


Day 2:
Running this experiment combined with changing the clocks might not have been the best plan ever.  Malcolm tried to do as well as he did the day before, but struggled a bit.  In the afternoon, he came over and gave me half of a Kit Kat bar and said he wanted to share it with me.  A few minutes later, he said that he didn't really want any more, but he just couldn't stop eating the candy.  I asked him if he would like for me to put it up so he wouldn't eat anymore, and he was very relieved to take me up on it.  He struggled, but it was pretty grown up of him.

Dorothy did not fair as well.  She went right back to her habit from the day before, of eating as much as she could as fast as she could.  That girl at a lot of candy.  Dorothy was sick a couple of weeks ago, and has been telling us ever since that she is always going to be sick and how she will never get better (very dramatic).  When we started the candy experiment, I warned the kids to pay attention to how they were feeling because too much candy might make them feel a little sick.  After downing 5 or 6 pieces, Dorothy ran over to me, and told me told me that candy was never going to make her feel sick.  She went back to her spot at the table and proceeded to continue to eat her stash.  By the end of the day, her behavior spiraled out of control and she ended up in bed without a story.  On the up side, she's almost out of candy.

Conclusion:
Malcolm struggled with having completely access to that much candy, but tried really hard to be responsible.  Dorothy was a girl on a mission, and only a lack of time in the day kept her from polishing off her entire haul.  Maybe in a couple of years she will be old enough to monitor her own candy eating.  I would love to be able to just leave it out and not be the one to dole out a piece here and a piece there.