Heath is 6!?

It is hard to believe the little guy who first called me Mommy is 6 years old already!  He is our crazy, creative, happy, curious, silly, cautious, hard working, thinking, loving, snugly, helpful, happy little guy.

Matt flew out to North Carolina the day before Heath's Birthday to take part 3 (of 3) of his National Optometric Board test.  (Which he passed! No more tests ever! (cue happy dance)) His test was on Heath's Birthday so we had to celebrate without Daddy for a little while...

but Heath got the best birthday present a boy could ask for... A SNOW DAY!
(He now needs two hands to show how old he is.)

Houston

 Hannah was not having a group picture, and Heath sneezed out a yummy booger just as I took it. : ) 

 I love that these boys are such good friends, I hope with all my heart that that never changes.

 Houston Heath

 Houston was really good at pegging us all with snow balls.

 Hannah enjoyed eating the snow.

 and taking off her gloves, then crying when her hands got cold.

 I love this series of emotions.... Hannah has a plan. (completely happy with herself)

 It worked! She got Heath!

 then Houston realized she was using his shovel and tried to snatch it back. ("NOOOO!")

 Heath was SO happy!

 and ate quite a lot of snow as well.

 

 Heath requested the ever popular Cherry Berries in a Cloud for his cake.

 This is Heath's "no more pictures please Mom!" face.

 It was delicious!

 We put Hannah to bed and I let the boys stay up (till 8! They thought it was SO cool) and play games.  We all played Tsuro then they wanted to play checkers.  It was fun to just hang out with the boys. They are pretty cool. I want to do this more often.

 They were so fun to watch.

 and here is a little interview with 6 year old Heath:

What is your favorite color? Purple and Red

What is your favorite toy?   Legos

What is your favorite thing to eat?   Spinach Bread Oranges anything yummy.

What is your favorite TV show?  Wild Krats, Magic School Bus & Dragon Tales

What is your favorite outfit to wear?  Running shorts and a short sleeve shirt

Where do we live?  St Louis

What are your favorite animals? Cheetah & Dinosaurs

What does Mommy do for work? Cleans, does dishes, takes care of us, feeds us, and cooks for us.

What does Daddy do for work?  He learns to be an eye doctor. He’s not an optometrist yet.

What is your favorite book?  My Father’s Dragon

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Snow ball fight

Who is your best friend? Houston

What do you want to be when you grow up?  I’m still thinking. There are a lot of jobs I don’t know yet.

What's your favorite game to play? Grunt Grunt Piggy and Checkers and Grunt Grunt Piggy I think.

What do you like to take to bed with you? My Horsie

 What's your favorite thing to do with Mommy? Ride bikes on Grant’s Trail

What's your favorite thing to do with Daddy? Shooting bow and arrows and ice skating.

What's your favorite treat? Ooohhhh….. That is a super hard one. I would say all of them.

What is your favorite movie?  Spiderman (that he’s never seen.)

 If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go? I think it would be Africa where I could see cheetahs. And Mexico I think too, so I could buy Mexico candies.  And to the beach so I could play and play and play in the sand and water.

What makes you happy?  I think I just am happy

 What makes you sad?  Getting hurt and having my stuff destroyed that I don’t want to.  And when people take my stuff away.  

What makes you scared? Sometimes at night in my bed in the dark when Hannah and Houston already fall asleep I’m scared.

What is your favorite sport? Running races, Baseball, football, basketball, maybe all the sports… but not Cricket… I don’t know how to play that.

What's your favorite flavor of ice-cream?  Chocolate Mint

What’s your favorite song? Best day of my Life by American Authors

What’s your favorite drink? Root Beer

 What’s your favorite breakfast? Runny eggs and toast

What’s your favorite dinner? When Mom makes sou.

Happy Happy Birthday dear Heath!  We love you so much!

January recap

 Hannah & Rowan brushing teeth.  Best little buddies.

 I love going in to check on the kids and finding how they fell asleep.  Sometimes it's pretty sweet.

I left all the school work we did while we were in Spfld in a special land fill file there, so these are pictures of our favorites.

Heath made a list of things he is thankful for.

Toys
Houston & Hannah
Ankylosaurus (his favorite dinosaur)
Ninjas
Kiwi
Family
Universe
Legs

The prompt was, "I like to..."   "Robot build"

Hannah Heath Houston Grandma Grandpa
Mom Dad

 Houston and Hannah

 This was Heath's wish list for Christmas

Ninja soft sward
Sling shot
and the others I wrote so you can read...

 When we first got to Spfld Heath was complaining almost every night about his teeth hurting.  We took him into a dentist here who said that he needed oral surgery to fix the 8 cavities that he had. We were surprised because we've been pretty diligent at brushing with all of our kids, but the dentist said that since he has such soft teeth and they are shaped like crescent moons it was just a matter of time. They did a root canal on two and did metal crowns on the other 6.  I had a pretty hard time with this.  It was hard to justify putting him under for dental work, but after talking to several dentist friends and praying about it Matt and I both felt like it was the right thing to do.  The earliest they could do it was after Matt had to be back in St Louis for school so I was solo with Heath.  My Mom was so good to watch Houston and Hannah while I took Heath in.  These pictures were before they took him back.  It was a wonderful tender mercy, when we got to the hospital the nurse working Heath up was a boy I grew up with, Rusty Cane. It was nice to have a familiar face and someone who knew me and had a connection to our family helping Heath. I knew he was in good hands. 

 Heath wasn't very nervous at all and happy to play on the ipad they had for him.  Then they gave him some sleepy medicine to drink and he said he doesn't remember anything after that.  It took about an hour. I wasn't too worried while he was back.  I actually felt a lot better than I thought I would. When they came to get me Heath was still all curled up asleep.  The nurse started to wake him and he started thrashing around and hit his head on the rail of the bed pretty hard.  So we made him a nest of pillows to get him awake enough to get into a wheel chair so I could take him home.  It was funny talking to him later he remembers watching finding Nemo in the bed, then it flashes to driving home. He hardly remembers the hospital at all.  Drugs are pretty crazy!

 That first night home Heath was coming off the anesthesia still and woke up about every hour just crying and screaming.  We were staying at my parents house in the spare room so all of us were together.  Most times he woke up by the time I got him calmed down Houston and Hannah had woken up. So I didn't really sleep at all that night.  Mom and Dad had to work all that week, so no nap for me.  The next day Heath pretty much wanted to lay around all day doing nothing.   The next night the pain was getting to him so no sleep for me again.  Then the following night, night 3,  he started running a fever. The Dr told me that sometimes when anesthesia is wearing off you can spike a fever on day 3 or 4. He said that if it gets above 102.5 to call him and go to the ER. Well Heaths went up to 102.9 so he and I spent the next night being monitored in the ER. After several hours they said they didn't see any signs of infection (which is the primary concern) so we went home to try and get some more sleep. Thankfully everything was ok, but I was sure tired by the time Matt made it back to come get us.

 Houston the bed hog.

 Hannah's new favorite thing to do is take off her jammies.

 Our last night in Spfld Grandma treated us to Chick fil A for dinner.  They were doing their special family night so the boys got to do a craft and get free ice cream on top of dinner and the play place.  Heath was very much back to himself by now! It was so good to have him back to normal happy Heath.

 Almost home to St Louie.

 The boys found some graph paper and did what they always see Daddy doing on it.  This is Heath's house someday.

 and here's Houston's

  My pregnant self. :)  I think Houston took this.

 Hannah taking good care of her ducky.

 These kids love books.

 For Heath's birthday we had fruity pebbles for breakfast.  He was so excited.  Pretty different from the norm (oatmeal)

 Grandma Fo sent us home with a little box of gifts. Heath was so excited.

 He absolutely loved his art set. He uses it every day when he does his school work.  Very cool indeed.

 We gave him hunting hats (one for Houston too) and told him his present was flying home with Daddy on the plane.

Houston got a little cooking set from Grandma too.  He LOVES it!

 It snowed a good snow so Hannah was patiently waiting for everyone to be ready so we could go outside.

 Spiderman puzzle from Grandma.

 Hannah had to come in for a nap but the boys wanted to keep playing so we brought the snow inside.

 Then we made gack.  They loved it.

 The boys and I stayed up late (well till 8pm) playing games after Hannah went to bed. It was so fun. They are pretty cool.

 When Daddy got home Heath got to open his present. It was a bow.

 He and Matt took it right outside to practice.  :)

 Heath finished level 1 of his reading program. He did so well. Each sticker is a book he read all on his own to pass it off.

Little Hannah spiderwoman

Houston & Heath

The boys unload the dishwasher every day as part of their chores, Hannah chimed in one day. It was pretty cute. 

Growing bigger.... glad to have such a sweet couch potato to join me at the end of the day. 

 I have been trying to work out in the garage getting things packed each day while Hannah naps. I know we're going to have a new baby when it's move time so I'm trying to get as much doing now as I can. The boys have loved it. They have been finding all kinds of treasures with me.  This is an old book of paper dolls. They loved it, trying on all kinds of outfits.

.... and this is what happens when you don't put Hannah to bed in a backwards sleeper with the zipper up her back so she can't remove it.   At least she didn't get it EVERYWHERE this time. 

 Going to visit Grandma & Grandpa

 Got their bags packed and ready to go up to Pratts house to be babysat.  The last couple months Matt had to work till 9pm on Wednesdays. Since I work with the Youth at church from 7-8:30pm the Pratts offered to watch the kids for us.  I was SO grateful. They can be quite a distraction with all those teenagers.

 Our favorite library remodeled it's children's section. Its so much nicer. Way easier to keep track of your kids with only one way in and one way out.

 Midnight superbowl party.  Parker Daddy and Jaren.  Since Matt decided he wasn't going to watch sports on Sunday anymore these guys recorded the game, then watched it in the wee hours of the morning before school and clinic.  Nachos were a must.

Hannah prefers to eat her paint.

 Grandma & Grandpa got the kids a trampoline for Christmas. We set it up in the Garage and it has been so awesome! They get so many wiggles out in it every day! Perfect for when it's too cold to go to a park.

Teaching Gage all about star wars from their favorite library book. 

 Hannah just adores Gage.

 The city museum with Rebecca's family

Gwen and Renata

 Hannah & Nina

 Benji and Houston

 The kids passed these out to their friends this year. Heath said to me,  "You know, Sunday is a really good day for Valentines day. Yeah, on Sunday you want to remember Jesus as much as you can, and all he did was love people. He just loved everybody and Valentines day is about loving people."

Houston finished the month our with another bout of pneumonia. This is his 4th time having it.  Poor kid.