The end of January marked one year of our new family, so, since then, we have been experiencing “seconds” – second Purim, second Passover, and today, our second ECC carnival.

Last year, J was not really aware of what was going on, and S was into the activities, but was not really on board with the meanings behind things. The most obvious example to me of this, and something that I have photo-documentation for, is the facepainting…

Here was S in 2010, after he insisted on being a lion, and then was sooooo disappointed that the facepainting didn’t include a mane, so we had to add a mane at home.  He was delighted with the claws painted onto the tops of each finger, which is what he’s showing off in the photo!  He was also quite pleased with the fangs.  But, I really think, at the end of the day, he thought that he was going to actually turn into a lion, and that was ultimately a disappointment.

This year, he went straight to the face-painting station, and announced that he wanted a “scary” face…we looked through the book of samples, and came across the pirate face, and both boys got so excited about being pirates….and here they are:

Don’t they look pleased??

And they followed that up by going to the balloon lady and getting a pair of “pirate swords” to fight with – it made for a perfect day, by boy standards!!