Some random recent pictures:

And a special bonus video:

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Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to finishing up my Thanksgiving and Christmas posts. *sighs*

Ian has a little play cooking set that his great-Grandmother ordered for him for Christmas last year.  One of the items in it is a play muffin tin with 4 little plastic muffins (or cupcakes, as Ian calls them).  Tonight when it was almost bedtime, Ian noticed it sitting on the table and wanted to take it into his room.  He carried it in and set it on the floor near the foot-and-a-half-tall plastic lawn gnome that hangs around his room as “decoration” (and playing with).  I suggested that he should share his muffins with the gnome, so he pushed it over near the gnome.  A few minutes later, when he turned around to get his diaper out of the drawer, I reached down and pocketed one of the muffins, and said “Oh!  The gnome ate a muffin!”  Ian looked at the gnome for a couple of minutes, and looked around for the muffin, but then went back to getting jammies (”jeebies!”) on.  A few minutes later, when he went in the bathroom to brush his teeth, I pocketed another one, and when he got back, told him that the gnome had eaten another one, and that the gnome said “Thank you” and “that he made very tasty muffins.”  He took a long hard look at the gnome, so I told him that the gnome also said that he would stay in Ian’s room and make sure he had a good sleep.  He grabbed the other 2 muffins, and climbed into bed with them and said he was going to share them with Mister Bear.

When I got up to give him his hug before bed, I snuck the other two muffins into my pocket and told him that Mister Bear also said “thank you” for the muffins.  He once again looked dubious, but rolled over to go to sleep.  A couple of minutes later, though, his curiosity got the better of him, and he climbed down, claiming “need to go pee!”, but made a point of picking up the gnome on his way.  He then proceeded to take the gnome into the bathroom, turn it over, look very carefully in the bottom, and then set the gnome on his training potty while he went pee so the gnome could go pee too.

Then he carried the gnome back in to his room, climbed into bed, tucked the gnome in next to him, and went to sleep.  So sweet.

(Of course, I’m sure this little episode will come back to haunt me later, but still … so sweet.)