Catching Up

I have been a bad blogger, missing all sorts of fun things in my family's life, so here is a rundown of what we did in May and April:

Ethan and his cousin Nate have become great buddies as my sister Rachel and I have been doing babysitting swaps since we both have been going to the doctor frequently (she's due with a little girl in August). These two are fun to watch as they play in their 2-year-old way. Ethan likes to pick what they are doing, and he likes it when Nate follows him. They like to run from one room to the next in my house. Ethan leading, and then waiting to see if Nate follows. In the picture with the rocks, Ethan sat down, and waited for Nate, got a rock for the two of them. Then Ethan would put the rock on the step above or below him, wait for Nate to do the same, and then he would switch. These two are really funny the way they play together. If I were to ever have twins, I hope their personalities go together as well as these two boys. They aren't mischievous, and they share pretty well. When they aren't together, it is a common thing to hear Ethan asking for Nate.

I took Jayden and Ethan to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens to see the tulip festival. I have been wanting a pass to Thanksgiving Point for the last 2 years, and I finally splurged and bought one. The boys enjoyed the garden for the most part, but of course they love the Dinosaur Museum so much more. We've only had our pass about a month, and we have been to the museum around 4 or 5 times! I figure, even if we can only stay an hour, its so close and gives us something fun and free (in a sense) to do.

Dylan is loving that there are bugs outside. He spends hours outside almost every single day looking for bugs. He loves to find roly-polies and puts them in his jar. He also has a few grasshoppers, ants, and worms in there - I just don't know if anything is actually alive anymore. And to my dismay, he has insisted he wants to try to collect spiders - so he has what he calls his spider jar. I don't know if has caught anything yet. I told him it better not ever come in my house or the garage. He is such a fun little boy.

Dylan also just finished Kindergarten. He has learned so much and especially loved the last few months as his class did units on animals and bugs. I got to go with him to the Zoo when they did their field trip. I took my camera with me, and when we passed the tiger cage it was right there - like 6 feet from us. I grabbed my camera, and found that my batteries were dead. I was bummed. But we sure had fun watching that tiger pace back and forth with just a wood fence, and then the strong metal fence between us.

Jayden finished his first year of preschool. He loves his teacher Miss Suzee, who does preschool in her home, and he will have her again next year. His only disappointment is that he doesn't get to be in Kindergarten yet. Jayden was lucky and had a bunch of kids from the neighborhood in his class. His best friend Zane was one of them. They had a cute Mother's Day program for the Moms. For the Christmas Program, I forgot my video camera, so this time I made sure to charge up the batteries and take it along. About a minute into the first song my tape ran out, and I didn't bring any extras. I guess at least I got a minute! I did take this still picture as well. Jayden is in blue, 4th from the right, and Zane is in blue, 3rd from the left.

I am loving spring, and as we come into summer. We spend tons of time outside. One of my favorite parts - and I think one of the boys - is that they can eat lunches outside. Its a lot less messy for my floor, and it gets them playing. The only downside is that sometimes the playing starts before they finish lunch. The favorite spot for a while was sitting on a push toy at the bench on our deck. We just recently bought a patio table and chairs, which is starting to become the preferred place to sit, but they still love it on the push cars, too.

Random funny things going on:

Yesterday at church Jayden was looking at the ward map that was passed out, and asked "Mom, where is heaven?" If you think about that, when you consider we were sitting at church together as a family, you could get kind of deep about that.

Ethan is on a kick of having something small in his hands to carry around the house and when we go places. We have two tiny plastic dogs, one fluorescent pink and the the other fluorescent orange that we have had since Dylan was two. I don't know how we haven't lost them by now, but they were a favorite of Dylan's and now they have gone many places in Ethan's hands. If you look at the first picture of the tulip festival, you may notice the pink one in Ethan's hands. Another favorite of his are bouncy balls.

Dylan just informed me the other day that his hands are robots. He curls them kind of like claws. One hand has the pointer finger for a head, and the other hand the middle finger is the head. One is good and one is bad. I can't remember which was which, but it would be funny if the middle finger one was the bad one. That kid has the greatest imagination!

Dylan also was telling me last night as we talked before bed how when we make bad choices its like a shark eats up all the good ones we've done. I'm not quite sure what he meant by that, but I think he's got the right idea.