Butterfly Purty Butterfly

What a cute group of kiddos, and all good little friends. It's really nice when 2 families can get together and everyone has someone to play with. Yeah!

So we start with the caterpillar.
Then we move on to the cocoon.
And then the Beautiful Butterfly.
We were told if you smell pretty you get the most butterfly's to land on you. Sicily always gets a bunch. :) If you want a lot to land on you we were told to wear some smelly lotions, they like that. Hmmm, Sicily does like her lotion, hmmmm, naw she just smells sweet naturally.
These orchids were gorgeous, and even more beautiful with the butterfly's.
We made sure everyone got to hold one. London caught quite a few, when he'd try to pass them off though they'd fly off then come right back to him.
Wow!! Dinner time, everyone likes some fruit.
Phoenix finally got one, but it landed on his head. So he had to look at my camera, after the fact, to see what it looked like. :)
These are something like Paper Butterfly's. They're bigger than your hand and look like a slight breeze would blow them off course.
These little orange guys are so friendly. This particular one went from my hand, to Aspen, to...
Julie. I think the butterfly's were as shy of Julie as she usually is of everyone else. They made good friends with each other pretty quick.
Group shot. Aspen, Julie, Belle and London. Yeah for cute kids!

HMNS: Dinos, Rocks and Friends

There's nowhere better than the Houston Museum of Natural Science. And no one smarter than "Members" like us, who know when the place opens and the fact that no one is there at that time. :) We love having the place to ourselves.

Phoenix and Sicily are never bored when it comes to dinosaurs. Phoenix always thinks he needs his picture taken next to EVERY dinosaur, especially the man eating type.
We traveled there this time with our friends the Allred's. Our kids are all pretty much the same age so it's always an adventure.

This awesome guy always has plenty to say and tell the kids about the time of the dinosaurs. This time around everyone got to hold dino-poo. Yuck! Notice Phoenix covering his nose.
And a tooth to help you eat is even better.
Little Julie is the funniest about her rocks. We think for sure she'll be a geologist one day. So we had to do a early on exploration of their rock exhibit.
My favorite part of the rock exhibit are the polished rocks. It's amazing what you can do with a little shine.
My favorite snowball. Though I wouldn't want to get smacked with this, it's kind of spiky.
I keep telling Jared he just needs to buy me one of these for my Birthday. Come on Honey! It's not THAT expensive. ;)
Phoenix centered in on the green rocks this go around. No idea why, but they were pretty pretty.
The is a Faberge Egg. It has a snow design on it. So beautiful.
I had to take this shot of Leia and Sicily. Leia is 5, Sicily is 3. This gives you a prime example of why people think she is older than she actually is.
They wouldn't let me take a picture of the actual Mummy, so this will have to do.
London and Aspen had to pay half, but we let them go on the Gyro Ride.
BLECH!! Even filming this made me sick.

I love the Museum. Our Membership is about to run out and I'm debating if we want to renew. I love it so much that we probably will, it's always fun and the kids love it too. Though the Children's Museum is calling to me too. Hmmmmm, we'll see.

Spring Break Camping Trip

What a week our Spring Break was. We started out with 3 days and 2 nights camping with 3 other families, all with boys London's age.

Let's start with the Cat Tails. We used to beat Cat Tails across the road at my Grandma Wolds house in Riverdale, ID every time we went to visit. It was the best. You'd gather 20 or so, I don't remember how many, and beat a big line of them across the road. Then we'd climb in the ditch and wait for a car to drive by. We were ever so sneaky. As soon as one went through our line, POOF, one huge cloud of fluff. The best was when they'd have their windows down, or once a motorcycle went through it. That was funny! I think the last time we did it a Cop drove through, pretty sure we didn't do it after that.

So Huntsville State Park in Huntsville, TX has Cat Tails. I showed the boys what to do with them, and they took it to the next level. I'm honestly not too sure how they got a hold of so many, I could barely get one with out falling in the lake.They only had about 10, and look at all that fluff. They proceeded to try and stuff it down Ty's older brother's (Blake) shirt. There was fluff all weekend
This game is always a winner when your kind of bored from camping. I think some of the ball and strings got stuck on the roof of our shelters a few times.
Our first night there it was COLD, low 40's. We all had nice warm sleeping bags but the kids slept with their coats on. Sicily had mine and Jared's coats, her sleeping bag and a blanket. She was toasty warm. I didn't stray too far from Jared that night, it was cold on my side of our big sleeping bag.
The following morning Jared was relishing the crisp air. Sicily was not too big of a fan, so she stole Daddy's coat. I love this picture.
We did a little fishing. London caught the most and even cooked some up in his tin foil dinner. Loved them too. Phoenix caught a couple but also managed to reel in a turtle. We let it go, don't worry, no turtle stew for us.
London, Ty, Devin and Tyler (and Devin's little brother Braeden). They're playing some random Ninja game. I don't really get it, but they do it all the time and laugh all the way through.
This is Ben Barrow. Jared brought the most GINORMOUS marshmallows I have ever seen. They were the equivelant to 4 regular large marshmallow. Ben tried to make a regular sized s'more with his and though it was tastey it didn't work out too well on the clean side. :)
We were able to do plenty of biking with the kids and even a little swimming on this trip. There are alligators in the area, so they had a section netted off for people to swim. I found the water a little cold myself, but of course my kiddos jumped right in.

All in all a good Camping Trip. And though we miss the Mountains in UT and ID we are so excited to discover there are fun places like this here that can compensate for our missing mountains.

After School Reading

Phoenix is such a good brother (sometimes). Today he was exceptionally sweet. He gets hooked on a book every now and again and wants to read it to everyone. At this point Sicily lucked out and got "The Foot Book" read to her.
And I lucked out and got picture proof of 2 things:
#1 They are definitely red heads
#2 They can get along sometimes

Dog Sitting

We had the opportunity to dog sit Jared's bosses dog, Bailey, again. The kids (and Beaux) were so excited. But mostly because, since Bailey doesn't shed, he got to sleep in there beds with them. And since we had him for a whole week, Bailey got a different bed every night, so everyone got their turn.

You can tell from this picture that Bailey just makes himself right at home.
And you can tell from this picture which dog the kids actually remembered to bring inside after playing basketball. Poor Beaux.
But he didn't mind too much. Beaux's a pretty layed back kind of dog. He plays when it's time to play, and chills when it's time to chill. Like right now, apparently.

Public Bathroom Break

I remember watching an NCIS where they were, of course, trying to paint out the picture of what happened. Some woman had died in a bathroom.

So the guy goes in there acting it out, "So she walks into the stall, puts her purse on the floor..." To which the woman officer says, "No, not on the floor, on the hook."
"Oh!" he says, "Sorry, I'm not familiar with women bathroom etiquette."

I think of that every time I'm in a public bathroom. And this time more than others. Sicily HAS to take some form of stuffed animal or baby doll with us no matter where we are going. This time it was Daisy, and Daisy needed to stay just as clean as Mommy's purse did in the Public Bathroom. Yuck! Never on the floor.

We were traveling to Utah once from Texas, by car and stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break. I didn't realize, till we were in the stall that Aspen was bare foot. EEEEEEWWWW!!! So wrong. Never again! We ALWAYS check for footwear now, BEFORE we get out of the car to go into a bathroom. Especially a gas station bathroom. YUCK! And the only thing worse are the portapotties on the beach. Makes me shiver just to think about it.

Open House Highlight

The most important part of our Open House evening was the Living History Museum. For the last 2 months every 5th Grader has been researching someone from Americas history. They made up an awesome poster and had to write a 2-3 min speech, play acting that they were the actual person.

The kids got to pick their top 3 of who they wanted to be and then the teacher had to approve it. London and I were both shocked that they actually gave him his first choice.
No one in his class knew who Brigham Young was. But they got to give their Speeches to their classes prior to the Open House, so they all know who Brigham Young is now.

The night of London was a little nervous. We got him all dressed up and ready to go. The teachers placed their posters at random places around the school. Though London's class was all in one area, he got placed right in the doorway. Which turned out to not be such a good idea for everyone else.

The kids each had a button (sticker) on themselves that people would push, then they would start their speech. London was talking pretty much straight for the entire 30-40 mins that he was at his station, crowding up that doorway more than ever. There were a few other families that were members of the church that pushed his button. But he had plenty of friends families, and the random ones that said, "Brigham Young? Like BYU?'' "Yep!" Then they'd push his button.

It was such a fun night. And I was so proud of how well he did. It passed off a grade and was an awesome Missionary experience.
I can't get this video to turn the right direction. So sorry. But you can still hear his speech amongst the chaos of the evening.

And notice little Sophia push London, when I told her to push his button. :) Too funny!

We even had one 5th Grade friend, when we pushed his button instead of starting his speech he said, "Out of Order!" I had to laugh.

I just listened to that whole video and you really can't hear his speech at all. Here's a second sideways video (It just won't flip) that we took at home where you can actually hear him. He did a lot of hard work on this, and normally had note cards. So don't mind the slight pauses here and there.

School Open House

Mid way through the school year is time for the 2nd Open House. This is the chance for the kids to show off all their awesome work and excellent accomplishments. Phoenix was SOOOOO very excited to show us his classroom. He walked us from station to station talking as fast as he could, dancing around with a smile on his face all night. I honestly thought he needed to use the restroom he was dancing so much, but when I asked him, he said no. I guess he really was just excited to show off his work.

The Kindergarten Theme right now is Cowboys. They each got to decorate a boot however they wanted. We had fun turning his into the ocean.
The Texas State Flower is the Blue Bonnet. They made one out of tissue paper. And amongst the leaves in the tree they also made the State Bird, the Magpie.
Aspens class room, though not as bright as Phoenix's, had just as much to look at. Her little group made this life size picture of one of them. With footprints to show how tall they are...or something like that.
In Science Aspen was studying beetles. Here's one of the beetles with one of it's babies. Blech! I think the baby is pretty much a meelworm. Blech!

Family Bike Ride

Most Sunday afternoons we take a family bike ride. Either to the "Secret Tunnel" to make echoes, the "Bumpy Bridge" to feed the turtles, or around the "Big Block" to see if the alligator is out.

This last Sunday the older 2 wanted to do roller blades instead of bikes. But I think Jared did all the work. Tied to his bike with old jump ropes, 2 miles later his legs were burning.Sicily thought it was great and egged them on trying to get them to catch up.
l
But of course Phoenix and Sicily had to get in on the action. This was a few days later even, round and round the circle they went.

Mardi Gras

Our awesome friends, the Hamiltons, invited us over for a Mardi Gras Party. My poor kids had no idea what that was, though that's probably a good thing. They got to make little masks, we had a parade where they all got to throw beaded necklaces, and did some crazy dancing. All while enjoying Dirty Rice, Beans and Rice, Jambalaya and other yummy Cajun food. Thanks Melissa and David for having us over.

Play Date

Sicily was so excited to have her little friend, Bailey Ward, come over to play. It was beautiful Spring weather, so we packed us a lunch and loaded into the bike for a picnic at the park (2 1/2 miles away). They were so cute in the trailer. Giggling over every bump, singing songs and just playing. I love that they love eachother.
Parks are the absolute best place to get your wiggles out. And let me tell you, 2 little 3 year olds have a lot of wiggles. :)
Swing, swing...swing, swing. All day long if I'd let them.
Don't forget the locals. We caught a little Ladybug. Which the girls loved until it started climbing up Sicily's shirt sleeve, then she started freaking out.
And best of all they both almost fell asleep on the way home and then took a 2 hour nap once we'd gotten home. :)

Strike a Sleep Pose

There are so many times when we tuck the kids in to bed that we call each other in for a second opinion (meaning a good laugh together). These 2 girls always get in to best sleep positions. They did used to do it great on their own, but it's even better now that they share.