The Dickinson Boys: Happy November

Today I took some pictures of the boys after church in an attempt to get a good one for the Christmas card. As usual, I took over 100 pictures and it seems like at least one of them is either making a goofy face or not looking at the camera in each one. Neither of them likes having their picture taken so it's a big task to get a good one. I bribed them with a small candy cane and tried to get smiles out of them with ridiculous phrases like "captain underpants." So those were my children yelling captain underpants outside church (captain underpants is a book series for kids, always gets a laugh).

I got a few of Will that were pretty good. Luke seemed to have trouble keeping his eyes open while smiling.

Yesterday we went to a movie and out to lunch. We saw the new Disney movie, Big Hero 6. The boys liked it, though Luke got pretty antsy sitting in the theater that long. Will loves seeing movies in the theater and sat for over two hours without moving or talking at all, unusual for Will since he's pretty active.

We're enjoying nice fall weather in Alabama. We've been talking a lot about Thanksgiving and the boys know all about the Mayflower, pilgrims and Indians. Will even wants to "invite some Indians" to Thanksgiving dinner. The boys are counting down to Thanksgiving. Will makes sure to tell me often that he will eat turkey but he does not want any pumpkin pie. Luke keeps asking when it's "Turkey Day." They've been watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which they love.

Will has a strong sense of justice and gets upset when things don't seem fair. He sometimes asks questions about his favorite President, Abraham Lincoln. This week he was asking about who shot Abraham Lincoln, why he had to die, what happened to the man who shot him, etc. He knows all about it now and was pretty upset that someone killed Abraham Lincoln "when he was just trying to watch a show." He also was upset to hear a Bible story about an innocent man put in jail. He's troubled by things that don't seem fair.

Will has made tremendous progress with social skills. Several times over the last two weeks I've been surprised to see how easily he's interacting with kids his age and older. He started a conversations with a group of boys at Lego club and he was showing some boys the transformers he built waiting for science class to start. Turns out the other boys were Rescue Bots fans too. Will is asking and answering questions much more often and appropriately. It's nice to seem him enjoy other kids his age. Like a true introvert, however, he needs his time to play alone every day to recharge a bit. But it's nice to see him come out of his shell a little.

Luke is as sweet as ever. While Will sticks with "I'm thankful for my Legos" Luke likes to tell me he's thankful for me. He loves to hug and cuddle. Unfortunately, though, I keep waking up with a little cuddler in my bed every night. I keep having to take him back to his room.

Here are the photos from today's photo shoot.