Cute Dressing Up Pics

If you come to our house to play with the kids, you'll probably be asked to put on a costume. Dressing up has become a huge interest for them in the past six months and is bordering on an obsession now. There was a period of about three weeks when every day they would drag out every single item of clothes they owned.

They were very cute with putting pants and tights around their heads and arms through pants, but it was tiring to put away all those clothes at the end of the day. I don't know why I didn't just shove the whole pile into a corner since they would drag everything out the next day anyways.

They also loved dressing up as princesses and princes at another friend's house. In fact, they loved the Princess dress-up trunk and shoes so much that we bought them for Alexa for Christmas.

Here's a cute but rather scary dress-up story. I was in the bathroom when I heard Alexa say, "I want to go outside, too." My heart stopped for a second. It was an extreemly cold day outside, and we were all at the tail end of the flu. I tried to finish as fast as possible, and then rushed out to the back yard.

Jared had figured out how to open the back door and was playing outside. To his credit, he did dress himeself up first. He had put on his snowpants, boots, hat and gloves on by himself. He would have put  on his coat too, but it was hanging up higher in the closet.

He said, "It's ok, Mommy. I'm dressed up for outside." Still, knowing they could get out by themselves really scared me.

It's amazing how a natural urge to dress themselves, and to a greater extent to pretend play, will naturally provide kids with the life skills of dressing themselves on their own. I've never said, "Now this is how to put on your shirt and pants." They've just naturally taught themselves on their own.

I can't wait to see in the years to come just how this natural learning process will provide them with other life skills. The experience has been amazing so far, and I'm just so blessed that my kids won't have to go through the artifical process on institutionalized education.