Father

 "Fathers, you are the primary model of manhood for your sons.

 You are their most meaningful mentor, 

 and believe it or not, you are their hero in countless ways.

 Your words and your example are a great influence on them."

 M. RUSSELL BALLARD

 Thank you Daddy for being our wonderful role model, mentor, and hero. 

 We sure love you!

Royal Blue

Waiting for the game to start, playing lions.

 Pro 1 got all the workers and their families tickets to a Royal's game last weekend.  It was so fun to get out and do something fun as  a family.  The boys were so excited and asked all day if it was time to go to the baseball game yet. Finally the time came! They loved clapping and cheering and doing the wave.  They lasted most of the game really well.

The boys have been very much enjoying our nice grassy patch outside the apartment.  Finally some good outside time.

Houston is getting in 4 new teeth, His gums have been super swollen for about a week now. He's also been SUPER cranky and needy, poor little guy!

 The boys have been so happy now that we're in a bigger place.  We've been having a lot of fun doing not much of anything. We go swimming almost every day, and read lots of books and play play play.  Its kinda amazing to me how much time Im able to spend with them here where I don't have any projects I can work on. It's really nice.

As of late my life has been changed! Because Matt leaves to go to work around 1 and doesn't get home until 9,10, sometimes11 We've been eating "dinner" at lunch time, and "lunch" at dinner time.  This way Matt gets a good filling meal before he goes out to work and we get to eat the good stuff all together.  Now that we've been doing it this way for a few weeks, I don't think I may ever go back! It is so much nicer to get the dinner stress out of the way in the afternoon before everyone's tired and hungry. I get the mess cleaned up while Houston's napping.  Then have a non chaotic evening with the boys where I'm not rushing to get dinner made with two hungry & tired little boys on my tired, hungry heals, then be stressed about cleaning up the mess when I really just want to sit down and take a little rest. It really is life changing! We've just been having sandwitches (usually peanut butter & honey, or grilled cheese) or a big salad at dinner time, and it is so super aweseome!

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I just love those cute chubby legs!

I got my hair trimmed up a little bit more & I love it! It's so so easy!  Just what any Mommy needs. It takes me a total of about 5 minutes to shower and be ready in the mornings now. 

The other day Matt and I were in the other room and Heath yelled," Mom Dad! come here QUICK!" We went running in, and he said "LOOK! Donald Duck's on my leg! "

Lego's are still a #1 toy right now. Here's Heath's horse. 

Hotel Life

 So we made it to KC.  Because of the last  minute switch from Alabama, we're in a hotel until Pro1 gets the housing figured out for all 25 sellers and their families.   It hasn't been bad we've just had to be a bit creative with our time.

 Ill admit the boys have watched a bit more movies than I would like, but when you're in close quarters and have some loud crazy boys sometimes that's what you have to do.

Heath was so sad about leaving their rocking horses, they found some new ones pretty quick though.

Houston being pooped out by the penguin.

 We've tried to go somewhere every day to get wiggles out.  One of the other Moms had read about the penguin park, so we went to check it out with them . It was so awesome.  The boys really liked it. 

 Matt was finished with work at about 5pm Saturday so we decided to head to his parent's house for the weekend.  It was so fun! It's been far too long since we've seen them . Of course our boys had to ask the Ice Cream Grandma for some Ice Cream!      Rebecca and her family came over on Sunday.  Heath had so much fun with Julia! and Houston had fun chasing Isla around and calling her name.  We sure have some fun cousins.

Heath & Houston's Greatest Grandma Bennion

 Sunday afternoon we visited Grandma Bennion. She has a picture of John Bennion hanging in her living room.  When Houston saw it he started pointing at it and saying "Daddy! Daddy!"
She also had a little tub of wooden letter blocks. Heath found her an H, and a G for Grandma and sorted all the letters by color.  Houston started stacking and stacked 6 high before they fell. 

 

Heath didn't want to be in the picture....

 Monday morning we drove back to KC, only about 2.5 hours.

The boys have been enjoying hotel life....

 Houston has really discovered a love for lego's since we've been here.  Ill have to keep my eye open for good lego deals because we only have about 5 blocks I think.  He's been building and building and building.

 Houston spent about half an hour stacking those cowboys into a line, then he found a horse and put them on and said, "AHHH!" he was so proud of himself for making his plan work.  A Mega Cowboy!

Today we get to move into our apartment! We're all smiling! It's been 12 days living in a hotel, Apartment Here we COME!

Florida!

 Matt finished all of his tests on Wednesday the 22nd of May. To celebrate he brought home bbq from a place close to the school he'd been eying all semester.  We were to move to Alabama on Monday for Matt to start working.  My family was going to Florida for a week so we were going to leave the next morning to go party with them for a few days, then move up to AL on Monday.  Wednesday night we found out the company wasn't going to be able to sell in AL so were were going to be in Kansas City for the summer.  We decided to go relax for a couple days in Florida regardless. After a hard year of school we needed some kick back family time.

 It was a 12 hour drive, took us about 13, so we felt like we made really good time.   Heath & Houston did so good.  I think it really helped having extra leg room and a tv in the van.

 We passed this really sweet battleship on the way across the bridge to Pensacola Beach. (a little island off  Pensacola) If we're ever down this way again and have longer than 2 days to explore we plan to stop and check it out!  We got there Thursday night and met my family at a really fun restaurant for dinner, McGuire's. They have millions of dollar bills stapled to the ceiling of the restaurant, bagpipe players, and the food was superb.  It was a really fun place to eat. We hit the sack, and got up bright and early in the morning to go play!

 

 Houston wasn't so sure about this beach thing.  He wouldn't go anywhere near the water and would scream if I did.  I think he thought it was a big loud scary monster or something, that was going to eat me.  He was pretty content to just stand and watch everything going on.  Later, once he got everything figured out he was pretty happy to play in the sand.

the Pier

It was everything we could do to stop heath from playing for like 3 seconds to snap a picture.

Heath trying to boogie board

Matt trying to coax Houston into playing.

There we go!

 Once Heath got to go out in the water, he kept begging to, "Go into the DEEP!"  He loved it!

That salt water tastes SO good!

Heath loved to be buried in the sand. Im pretty sure he was buried 10+ times while we were there.

Sterling the natural skim boarder.

Houston very much enjoyed all the snacks Grandma had brought down to the beach.

I love those fat little fingers!

Nile and Brit

Heath wanted to skim board so badly.

Its been a day or two since Nile last skimmed.  He jumped right back on and did pretty well.  I was too chicken, thought Id probably get hurt.  Back in the day Nile and I were pretty good at it.

The camp.

 I had this brilliant idea to bury the big ball and jump off of it. It was super awesome!

 Then Nile thought it'd be sweet to jump onto his bum.  It didn't work quite as well, but then everyone else had to try it too.  ouch!

 I don't know what was the deal was, but every time we would bury Sterling, Heath would climb up and give him a hug.  It was pretty cute. Not sure why he felt compelled to do that.

Poor Dallin being tortured: they started pouring ice water on his face while he was buried.

Heath begging to be buried again...

"Mom, I'm cooking"

"PiZZA!"

The whole Motley Crew: Grandma, Houston, Me, Grandpa, Heath, Sterling, Brittany, Nile, Dallin, and Matt

 After dinner on the dock we walked over to the pier.   Heath & Houston were fighting on the way over.  We told them we only wanted nice brothers, they took that and started kissing.  They were fight pecking each other on the cheek, and laughing hysterically the whole way there.  It was pretty funny.

Moon rise

 The view from the pier was BEAUTIFUL!  I was so glad we went.

We saw several Manta Rays.  They were really neat.

 There are men that fish off the side of the pier.  These fish were flopping around on the deck.  The boys went running up to see them, then they flopped, and Houston screamed. They weren't quite so eager to be close then.

Nile, you sly dog.

Grandma & Grandpa brought a spiderman tent for Heath to sleep in. It was brilliant, he was so excited about it he would go right to bed (and sleep bc he was so tired) every night.

 Every morning at breakfast the hotel staff would bring around a goody basket for the kids.  Heath picked out a painting set the second morning, and note to self: Painting at the beach, Genius! He loved it and was able to make all the mess he wanted to.

Matt out boogie boarding,  sadly he couldn't play as hard as he wanted to because of his surgery a couple weeks prior, stomach muscles were still pretty weak.

Houston spent a good part of the morning moving all these flags and sticks around to select locations in the sand.

Houston bossing Grandma around.  He sure would tell her what's what when they would play in the sand.

Heath wanted to catch a fish so badly.

Matt took the air mattress out to sea for a ride.  A few people on the beach came over and were asking about it. They thought it was so funny.  My Dad said he's just a guy from a small town in Missouri who hasn't spent much time at the beach.  Im not quite sure what the big deal was.  It was perfect! (and Im pretty sure my Dad would have done the same thing)

Another walk on the pier

 While we were on the Pier, this kid caught a Remora.  They're the fish that stick themselves to the side of sharks or other larger marine animals.  He was trying to get someone to stick it to their stomach, I said, why don't you do it? so he did.

 He only left it on for a couple seconds, but it left a huge weird striped hickey on his stomach. 

 After some fun with it, he threw it back into the ocean.  It sure was neat to see up close in person!

Heath's little toes.

 Note to self: Kids Spray-on Coppertone SPF 50 sun screen was perfect.  None of us really got burnt. Even after two days of playing on the beach all day. And it was supper easy to apply to little boys that just wanted to GO!

 Our last night we went to play put put.  Heath had never been before and was so excited.  He actually did really good waiting for his turn and being patient.  I decided golf is a really good game for 3 year olds.  It teaches them a lot of good lessons.

Two Peas in a Pod

 Next door to our hotel was a really tall hotel.  We went up to their top floor to look over the balcony. It was such a beautiful scene, with the sound of the ocean in the background and the moon rising on the water. 

I was reaching for something and Matt grabbed the camera and said, "CEGAN!" and snapped this...

Sunday morning we got up bright and early and started driving. We stopped at 9 at a tiny branch in Mississippi. They were all so kind and excited to have us there.  We got back to St Louis around 7pm, put the boys to bed and loaded up our stuff for Kansas city. (All our stuff was ready except for Matt's things so we had the van packed and were in bed by 10) Then we got up at 4am and drove to Kansas City for Matt to work Memorial Day.  It was pretty crazy, but we made it!

Oh and as we were leaving the hotel in Florida, bright and early I was carrying Heath down some stairs and thought I was at the bottom but still had a step left and rolled my ankle pretty bad and came down on my back. I've got a nasty bruise on my back bone too.  It was not fun. But all I had to do all day was sit in the van so I guess that's good.