Butterfly House

 On the first Tuesday of the month residents can get into the Butterfly house for free. We had never been before, so went to check it out.

The butterflies were amazingly beautiful and everywhere! It truly was like being on another planet. 

 Houston didn't so much care to be there.  He was pretty frightened from those unpredictable little butterflies.  If there was one sitting on the ground motionless he was curious, but if it started to fly he was clinging to my leg for dear life.

It was also SUPER humid in there, so he kept complaining about how hot it was and wanted me to carry him.

 The cocoons were really, really neat.  We got to watch a few butterflies break their way out.

 Outside the butterfly dome they have a bunch of other bugs on display, Heath especially was fascinated by all these cockroaches. Personally they kinda gave me the heebie jeebies!

 There is a mormon message story about a boy who gets stung by a scorpion because he wasn't obedient to his parents council.  (You can watch it here)  Heath loves it and asks to watch it quite frequently.  When he found this, he was ecstatic.  A real life scorpion!

 Outside they have a wonderful playground and this fun caterpillar to climb all over.  We had packed a little lunch and had fun playing around and enjoying the 80* weather.

 This friend, Miles is moving away next week.  Sad day.  : (

Oh, Daddy...

Matt has been growing his hair out for about a year now.   The other day he got it into a ponytail. He is very proud of it.

Its funny to hear Heath ask him about his hair. He'll say things like, "Dad why do you want girl hair?"  "Why do you want your hair longer than Mom's?"

The other night I was reading in Corinthians and came across this scripture.  "Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?"

I thought it was so ironic that I came across that one in my study. I just had to go show Matt. It sure made me laugh. 

His goal in all this was to wear a ponytail to white coat ceremony for school.  That is later this week, so we'll see if the hair sticks or if we will finally get to bit it farewell....

Heath

While I was texting Matt one afternoon: 
"Mom what are you talking about to Dad?" 
 "Some important Mom & Dad stuff"
 "Are you asking him about ice cream? 
"No, Why?"
 "Because ice cream is important stuff."

 While eating spinach soup: (which thanks to Popeye our boys LOVE!)

"Teeny guys don't like spinach."

 Heath is really starting to grow up on us. He seems more like a boy, rather than a little boy to me now.  He is becoming much more responsible and helpful.  He is especially helpful with Houston lately.  When Houston starts to do something knotty usually Heath will try to stop him, then come tell us what is going on.    He seems to be a lot more conscious about what he is doing, rather than just being a crazy boy all the time. 
He is also starting to get very unhappy with himself when he does do something knotty.  I remember hating to get in trouble as a kid, and I see that a lot in Heath now. 

 He loves to sing, not necessarily songs, but he'll put whatever commentary is going on in his head to a tune and let it rip.  The other day he was singing, "I just like to eat what I like to eat.... no stinky onions for me.... I like celery. Do you like celery? ..... I like to joust.... my helmet saves my head... Houston likes it too..."

 We have a lot of friends that are finished with school and moving on to new things and places.  We're losing most of the close friends we have had here. We were talking about everyone that is moving away one night and Heath said, "Hey, I know! We can have a party!"   So we invited a few of the families over one morning to play and have snacks. When I asked Heath what snacks he wanted he said, jello and home made pretzels. Odd combination, but that's what we did. The kids rolled out and made their own personalized pretzels. We had letters, snails, balls and bee's.

 Heath loves to run, and run, and run.  I'm so glad the weather is nicer now so he can do his running outside. If you asked him what his favorite animal was right now he would answer a cheetah, because they're the fastest!  Any time we are talking about speed (like how I'm going slow on this road because it's a neighborhood) he wants to put it into cheetah terms. Like is a car on this road faster or slower than a cheetah.  He always runs on his toes now, because we read in a book that that is how cheetah's run. (although he walks on his toes quite often too, so maybe it was just a good excuse for him)

 "Mom am I making magic.... or am I making SCIENCE?!"

"I think you're making dust."

Heath loves to check out non fiction books from the library.  He loves to read about how things work.  He's especially interested in weather, bodies, and the earth right now.  He just loves Bill Nye the Science guy and always wants to run over to the DVD section to see if there is a new Bill Nye he hasn't checked out yet.

Heath was finishing up in the bathroom and I went in to see what was taking him so long.  (he LOVES to play in the bathroom.) I asked him if he had washed his hands yet.  He put his hand to his chin and said, "hmmm....... 
just a minute......
I'm thinking....
my brains helping me to remember......
oh, there it is!
 Yes. Yes I did."

"Mom, everybody likes me.  I'm really cool.   I'm a hot shot."

"Mom, I love you." "Thanks for saying that Heath.  I love you too.  You know how to show me you love me?"  "How?"  "By being obedient."   "oh, ok.  I'll be obedient to you now."    

(I love his willingness, but If it were only that simple. He really does try though.)

 Heath loves "bowenarrows"  Pretty much anything he can turn into a bow or an arrow becomes that. Because Heath loves them, so does Houston.

 Heath loves to do his preschool work book. He is pretty good at doing it on his own now.  He'll ask me what the instructions say at the top of the page, then will do the work on his own. 

 He also is really getting into drawing, not just scribbling as much color as he can on a paper, but actually drawing things.  Most times after he has finished a picture he scribbles all over it though.

Matt: "I'm going to eat you guys... roarrrr!" 
"Dad, you're just kidding right?" 
"Nope!"
"Dad, please can you be kidding."

 "Mom, even though it's hot outside, I just want to drink hot chocolate all the day every day."

"Mom, do some flower seeds grow as tall as the sun?"
"No, the sun is super far away.   Too far for a flower to grow to it."
"But Dad always eats some that do when he's driving." 

Heath is FULL of questions. I'm pretty sure I answer about 500 questions a day.  He is constantly trying to figure things out.

He is really into building and creating lately.  This is his tooth xray machine.  He will play with these link toys all day long and be totally content making all kinds of creations. 

He is also really into legos.  This is his CVD machine (DVD) he made today.  The green lego in the front center slides in and out of the hole for "different movies"   He loves to make lances and swards for he and Houston. And barns for his horses and Houses.  He's told me that he is practicing his building skills so that he can make his house for he and his mommy (his wife) and his kids someday.

Look at me Hannah Jane!

 When Houston is trying to get Hannah to smile he says, "Look at me Hannah Jane. Say Cheese!"

At 8 weeks, Hannah is still in newborn diapers (our first baby to really ever use them, she's so tiny!) but just graduated from newborn size clothes to 0-3 month. (Also our first baby to really use those.)  she's super long and skinny. She usually goes to sleep around 9 or 10pm, and sleeps until 6-7am, Eats, then sleeps till about 10am. It has sure been wonderful to sleep consistently! It's also nice to have some time in the morning alone with the boys where we can get all ready for the day and do pre school.  She is super smilie and pretty well smiles at anyone that looks at her and makes eye contact.  I love it when I go to feed her and she just can't latch on because she is too busy smiling at me. She eventually realizes she is hungry, but it is just so cute!

 We had a good stormy day last week.  Houston stood at our glass door watching the rain come down while slowly rubbing his head on the glass.

After a few minutes he yelled, "Ouch my HEAD!" and had these to show.

 I made up a pattern for these cute little shoes.
I just think they're adorable and I love the cute little baby modeling them.
I'm hoping to get patterns written out for more sizes, then maybe sell it on etsy.  Any info on that would be helpful : )

 Hannah has been awake a lot more lately.  With this we have also realized she is pretty cross eyed at times.  About half the time she is awake and alert she is like this. Good thing her Daddy is going to school for eyes. His teachers said to just take note of how often and long it lasts for now.  Hopefully she will grow out of it.

 Every morning first thing Houston says in a super high pitch voice, "Where's my Hannah Jane?"

 Heath and I went to the dentist.  No cavities to be seen here! Yay!

Heath was super excited and did great. 

 We spent a Sat afternoon at Meramic park. It's huge and beautiful! 

Daddy's been fishing there on his own before, but this time we all went along. We all just loved it!

 The boys love to give Hannah their baby doll.  Houston carries it around in one of Hannah's blankets quite often.

This little Houston boy has been quite the little rascal lately.  He is so sweet but is also so squirrely. It seems every time I sit down to feed Hannah he runs to find some trouble.  He loves to climb up onto our counter tops and get all kinds of food from the cupboards, he broke the lock on our fridge trying to get the milk out, so we moved the lock from the freezer down, then he broke that lock too. He loves to play in the bathroom sink (he put a pillow in the sink a few days ago, plugged it, and filled it with water.) Throwing clothes & diapers all over their room, nothing too crazy, but just  rascally enough to be a little bum.