The Shark and the Lobster

We are all ready for Halloween at our house! The theme this year (yes, a costume theme... I plan to coordinate the boys until they are old enough to make me stop!) is ocean creatures! Quinn is crazy about sharks and loves to wear his costume around the house. He can't get enough of staring in the mirror in amazement of his awesomeness. The first time he saw himself as a shark I thought I might never get him away from the mirror; he was totally in awe!

Miles is my little lobster. It's the cutest thing ever when he crawls around in his costume with his little lobster tail swooshing behind him! (I will get some better pictures of their tails and post them... it is the best!) Miles is ten-month-old... this costume is a size 12-18 month costume... it does not come even remotely close to fitting over this fella's head! Look at how it doesn't even reach his ears! Haha, I love my fat-headed babies!!

Just a random inquiry... I have been playing around in PSE and wanted some feedback on this composition of the same pic from above... is it fun or is it too much?-

Dear Blog, I missed you.

I'm not sure what has kept me away... perhaps it's Facebook (yeah, that definitely has something to do with it...), but after a blog-break as long as this one I was needing something to be a big-deal before I broke the blog-silence. And here it is:

My apartment is a two level, tall skinny apartment with 15 fairly steep steps. Where the stairs begin is the area that we keep shoes in (right inside the front door) so we have a baby-gate to keep Miles out of the shoes. Today I was working frantically upstairs trying to finish a disk of pictures and I spaced out closing the gate. When I realized the gate was open (because Quinn kept coming up and going down) I figured that as long as the door was open I could hurry and finish what I had started... that way I could still hear Miles and keep an ear out for trouble.

Quinn ran upstairs into my computer room and slammed the door shut. I explained to him that I needed the door to stay open so I could hear Miles playing downstairs. I opened the door and Quinn ran back downstairs. No more than two minutes later, Quinn ran back up and slammed the door again. I told him, "Miles is stuck downstairs and I need to be able to hear him if he needs me. We have to keep this door open." I went over and opened the door again... and there was Miles! My 9-and-a-half month old, who has never been on a stair in his life -and has only been pulling himself up on furniture gracefully for a few weeks- successfully (thank goodness!) used his determination and Quinn's example to climb every step and come to the room that I was in! My baby!! Yay!! (And how terrifying that I underestimated him so greatly to leave the gate open!!!)
We recreated it when Travis got home (Travis followed him up while I coaxed him from the top) and Holy Cow, I was amazed how fast he found his way up!

Here's a pic of my little guy on the first step to give you an idea of his journey: