The week in pictures.

I am percolating a blog post about Family Movie Night. But! Until then! Let's look at some pictures!(Sorry if you've seen most of these in Facebook!)

This old friend went into the trash today (but not after Arlo slept on top of it for a night. In his bed. On top of the cracked plastic that has cushioned thousands of diaper changes for all three kids).

Yes, this one. After learning my lesson with Oscar (potty training took over 9 months and most of those months ended with both of us in tears) I took the Arlo approach. When he turned three I asked him every morning "Sweetie, do you want to pee and poop in the potty today?" He'd say no, we'd move on with the day. Until one day he said yes, we brought out the jelly beans and sticker charts, and he was trained in two weeks.

Lucy? She took two DAYS. Two days of training pants (the padded cotton undies from Gerber), a couple accidents near the potty, a couple of fifteen-minute bouts on the potty while she played with the iPhone. And then, magically, she woke up the third day with a dry diaper and stayed dry and accident free all day. Two days later I realized that she had been dry all night, so we made a trip to Target, bought Rapunzel and unicorn panties and a waterproof mattress pad, and she went to bed in panties. Not one accident since.

I should write a book! A book called "Lazy Toilet-Training: How I Just Waited Until My Kids Were Sick Of Sitting in Their Own Filth!" C'mon, wouldn't you buy it?

The boys were 100% supportive of Lucy during all of this. They clapped, they danced, they wanted to pick out what color star went on her chart. There was certainly a bit of "hey, why don't I get a star every time I pee?" (Answer: Because you pee all over the seat, Arlo) but in general, they were super proud and helpful in this. Honestly, if we were back in SOMA, I don't know that that would be the case. The kids still bicker and fight and get into crazy competition with each other, but there's been a certain cleaving of the family that wasn't there before. We have each other's back. The kids are a little bit kinder to each other, a little bit more inclined to include their siblings in what they're doing, a little bit more inclined to be proud of each other.

So when Lucy filled up her star chart, she earned any Barbie from Target that she wanted. (We are connoisseurs of Barbie [or, as the Goose sez, "Garbie"] movies in our household. The Burbank libraries have a huge selection, and I check them out in the happy knowledge that they will need to leave my house in less than seven days.) We walked into Target and there, front and center on the main endcap, is the Barbie Dreamhouse. I gulped. But the Goose had other ideas.

It's nice to know that Barbie has lots of mundane shores as well.

The Goose settled on a $3.99 Princess phone. Man, did I dodge that.

Later that evening I made this recipe. The previous Saturday I got talked into buying 10 lbs of organic heirloom tomatoes for $15. I used a bunch for homemade pico de gallo when we had the boys over, and then I eat one for breakfast almost every day. But I needed to use some up. The recipe was divine -- follow the commenters' advice and up the garlic. But the kids HATED it.

Lucy and I visited a local pet shop to procure some catnip to make mousies for Auntie JoJo's kitties. It's a great store that actually serves as a cat rescue. There's a million adorable cats and kittens in the store ready for adoption. Lucy and I like to visit and talk to the kittens. We fell in love with a pair of pale grey tabbies with ice-blue eyes.

They were super sweet and Lucy, of course, said "When we can get kitties, can we bring them home?" I told her that no, we can't get kitties, because they make her sick. She erupted in a full-on temper tantrum saying NO THE KITTIES DON'T MAKE ME SICK!

Sigh. I'm a cat person married to a ambivalent-pet person and we produced three dog- and cat-loving kids who are all allergic to cats.

Later that day, Godzilla and Arlo played chess.

Also: Middle of October. When my internal clock says I should be wearing sweaters, making soup, and unpacking and assessing everyone's winter gear.

102 degrees. In the middle of October.

I've started on the Halloween costumes. Oscar expressed a strong desire to be Ash of Pokemon fame. Since I can't find my sewing machine, want Oscar to be admired and accepted by his peers, and I am a complete sucker, I bought him a cosplay Ash costume on Etsy for a STUPID amount of money.

MAMA SCORED.

Arlo wanted to be a policeman, so we bought him a SWAT Team costume from Costco. (First storebought costume in seven years, since one-year-old Oscar's frog costume handed down from cousin Hayden.) He has since decided he wants to be a cat policeman, so we will add ears and a tail.

Lucy went through a bunch of princesses, until I said, why don't you be Oscar's Pikachu? She said yes, and I ordered the supplies from my favorite craft website. So I will be making at least one costume this year.

My neighbor showed up at kindergarten pickup with a basket of these from her back yard.

Amie, we're not in New Jersey anymore.

We had one awesome day where we had 10 lizard sightings in one afternoon. This guy was the biggest we've seen, probably 10 inches from head to tail.

We also spied a three inch praying mantis that had the bad judgment to lay her egg sac on a sidewalk. Lucy and I going to get Arlo at 11:38: just the bug. Lucy, Arlo and Elizabeth (Arlo's friend who is a Late Bird and goes to school later than he does) at 12:38: bug and weird blob that I thought was some food someone dropped. Pickup for Oscar at 2:40: Blob and PROTECTIVE bug, following us with her weird head.

The next day we found the squashed blob (which I found was an egg sac) and a squashed mantis. Next time we will gather them up and transport them to our back yard.

Friday night, Family Movie Night. I'll write a post about it soon, but realize that it's based on this.

Friday night I also got my new iPhone! The camera is really spectacular. Evan got a new phone on the last round but it was my turn this time. I offered Evan the new phone and I'd take his 4G, but he pointed out how great the camera was, and since I'm the family blogger, I gots me a new iPhone. Here's Oscar B at a park in Burbank with a ladybug. I was able to focus on the ladybug and then crop and image correct the image right there. Awesome.

Saturday! Saturday mornings mean that I drag Oscar to the Burbank Farmer's Market

We were invited to Auntie JoJo's house for a pumpkin carving party. We took ice cream:

This is the place we get our supplies for our weekly ice-cream tasting. We brought Olive Oil with roasted pine nuts and Spiced Strawberry Sorbet.

I also got a call from my mom -- my brother bought her an iPad as an-almost-retirement present. We clicked on Facetime and let me tell you, it was like a heartwarming Steve Jobs commercial. I miss seeing my folks' faces! It was lovely to chat with them to see my niece Abby, to walk the phone around the house so they can see where we live. It made me realized how much I miss being near to my folks and how awesome the technology is that we can do this.

So we went to Auntie JoJo's, and we gave her the mousies we made. I felt very Mormon while making my kids art direct and cut out the mousies so I could sew them together. We stuffed them with catnip and jingle bells and fiberfill.

JoJo and Dan made some awesome Brats (boiled in beer, mais oui) and then came the carving. I didn't want to muss the new iPhone with pumpkin guts, so not too many pictures. But JoJo's dad Gil was there, and maybe I'll be able to share his pictures soon.

End result: carved pumpkins, happy parents, exhausted kids.