what do you get when you mix an elephant with a cement mixer?

we usually just hang out and play or read books after the boys wake up from their nap.  sometimes i'll put a show on for them if i'm working on dinner or painting.  i like that time of day because it's usually calm and pretty chill, unless pace has woken up on the dramatically crabby side of the bed (ha ha).  

max has recently found a new love for his elephant halloween costume.  he often asks to wear it around the house, refuses to take it off if we have to run errands, and on this particular day, wanted to wear it during his nap.  max loves squeezing the trunk, and making an elephant noise.  oh, another cute thing max does:  if he's trying to find something, he'll walk around saying "blanket, where are you?"  although in maxwell-ese it comes out, "et, weeoo?"

pace always asks me to "play cars and trucks" with him.  we decided to get the cement mixer and the crane truck and do a big job of pouring fuzzy ball cement on the tent floor.  i think the master scheme was to build a parking garage.  pace loves it when we talk about the building plans in our deep, gravelly truck voices.  

i LOVE this angle.  i die laughing every time i see this little puffy elephant bottom.  and then checking everything out...good thing that trunk stays out of the way!

i also threw in some educational play and asked maxwell to find certain color fuzzes to throw into the mixer.  he did not disappoint!

another new favorite game:  ghost fighters.  a few weeks ago, pace starting building "fighters".  we have never played with guns, we don't watch shows with guns...and here is pace, building and using guns (although he doesn't know that's what they are called, just that they are used for fighting, and he calls them "fighters").  he loves fighting ghosts...also not sure how this one popped up, but we run from room to room, making shooting noises and clearing out all the bad ghosts, and gathering the good ones in our pockets.  after we have cleared a room, pace wipes his forehead and says, "phew!  that was close!"  max has picked up on the shooting thing very quickly, "pew, pew!", pointing his fighter, too!  ha ha ha.  

pace ingeniously installed binoculars on the end of his fighter so he could spy the bad ghosts.  i bet the ghostbusters didn't have those!