Grandad's Little Helper

There's nothing Cody likes better lately than to feel "big." He's no longer the baby in the house, but at the same time he's not quite ready to do a lot of things that Jacks can, like read, draw cool train pictures, ride a 2-wheeler bike, etc. He really likes hearing me read the line in Horton Hears A Who: "A person's a person no matter how small."

So anything that makes him feel like he's helping out and doing big important work is SO valuable. Today he helped Granded wheel the trash can out to the street because tomorrow is trash day. He was so proud. His little chest puffed up as he walked by us.

Now to find more things to help him feel that way. My little big man deserves to FEEL big every day.

Butterflies!

For Christmas, Aunt Beth gave the boys a butterfly habitat which also included a certificate to send away for caterpillars. Well, we finally ordered them and they arrived a couple of week ago.

We watched the caterpillars climb to the top of their little cup and hang upside down from the lid, turning into chrysalides. Once they were all in their cocoons, we moved them into the habitat and waited for the butterflies to emerge.

We had a small mishap where the little paper the chrysalides were hanging from fell from the side of the habitat to the bottom, and we were worried that might have damaged/injured them. But in the end, we had 5 beautiful Painted Lady butterflies hatch!! And after a few days of feeding them sugar water and oranges, we decided they deserved a taste of freedom, so we had a little release party in the backyard, and let them go.

Here's the paper with the empty cocoons still attached. The tape was our first method of attaching it to the wall of the habitat, but when that failed, we used a bent paper-clip to pin it.


Jacks took the habitat out to the perfect spot in the middle of the backyard and got ready to open it up.


Both boys talked to the butterflies, trying to convince them to come out and give the world a try! :)

3 flew out pretty quickly, but the last 2 didn't want to leave their tasty oranges behind!

The final one took some coaxing. Jacks picked up the slice of orange she was on and she climbed right over onto his hand!

This was such a cool project! The boys got a huge kick out of checking on the butterflies' progress every day...who am I kidding, we ALL enjoyed that! Thanks so much, Aunt Beth! Great present!!

Sidewalk Chalk Art

Jacks made a giant version of himself in the driveway last week. It was so cool! He even added a little speech bubble, and he covered his hand in chalk to make a real handprint at the end of the arms. This kid is mad clever and so amazingly creative. He is his Daddy's son, for sure. I'm going to have such a hard time keeping up with his fast little mind. :)

Sneak Peek

We had family pictures done on Saturday by a fabulous photographer who also happens to be a mommy friend of mine who I have known a long time. She took our family Christmas picture the year of Cody's surgeries, and we will cherish those shots of Cody the Survivor forever. And now that we're about to make another big change in our lives with our move to DC (and just around Luke's 6mo. birthday), I thought it was time for a few more...and also for our first as a family of 5.

Here are the few sneak peeks I got the day of the shoot...I'll share the rest when I get them.

Scarborough Faire

To keep us from missing Daddy too much on Saturday, we headed out into the sunshine to the Scarborough Renaissance Festival (though we went there WITH him last year, so we DID miss him quite a bit!).

The first thing the boys HAD to do was get their faces painted. Jacks was talking about the dragon he was going to get (same as last year) for days beforehand. Cody chose a snake (last year he would have NOTHING to do with anyone touching him) and sat very still and serious for the lady. I even had a little something done. :)


Jacks and Cody both did the joust, riding down a small slope on a little wooden horse. Cody chose to just enjoy the ride, while Jacks actually held the wooden pole and tried to poke it through a ring...and he did it!!

Then we headed to the Pirate Ship swing, which Jackson, Gramma and Daddy rode last year. I was really surprised that Cody wanted to try it this time, and though he held on so tightly his knuckles turned white and looked mostly terrified, he said he liked it. :)


The boys' favorite activity today was the bungee trampoline (what this has to do with the Renaissance, I have no idea). When we walked up to it, there were teenagers on there, bouncing in these special harnesses way up in the air and doing flips. I knew Jacks would be all over it because he'd done it 2 summers ago on the top of Vail mountain and loved it. But I figured Cody would balk. Nope. He wanted to try, too. They both had such a blast. Again, Cody looked scared out of his mind but when I'd ask if he wanted to stop, he'd say no. And just when I'd think he was about to puke, he'd smile! They both tried it 2 times, they loved it so much.




We had a really great time. I hope we're able to find something similar up in the DC area, because it's been so fun visiting this RenFest every year.

Cody Loves Horton

Prince Luke after his Bath

Hugs!

Jacks Lost Tooth #2!

He bit into his PBJ sandwich at lunch and his tooth popped right out! Apparently the kids who got hot lunch from the cafeteria had rice today. Well hmm, guess who dropped his tooth on the floor? :P So Jackson's 7-months-pregnant teacher was down on the floor, along with one of the other Kinder teachers and a parent volunteer, eyes peeled for the tooth, saying, "Aha, I found it! No, noo, it's just rice." LOL

So he got to go to the nurse and rinse his mouth, and she put the tooth in a special tiny tooth-shaped box that he got to wear around his neck the rest of the day. His teacher made him swear he wouldn't open it until he got home. :)

Jacks told me he hoped the tooth fairy would bring him a paper dollar this time (apparently gold dollar coins are just NOT "real" money), and I guess she heard him, because she obliged. ;)

Zoo!

We were so excited to have Anthony home this past weekend, and we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather on Saturday and headed to the zoo.

Our first stop was Stingray Bay, a special exhibit where we were able to plunge our hands into the stingray tank and touch them as they swam by. We were all a little nervous about it LOL, but Jacks and Cody were both very brave and got a big kick out of it.



It was pretty hard to get all 4 boys looking in the right direction for a picture, but here's a pretty cute one:


Cool butterfly bench!



At the end of our morning, we went over to the children's zoo and the boys got in the water. Boy, did they have a blast, and despite our best efforts, Cody ended up with soaking wet pants. :)


On our way out, the boys played on the big spider web...you can see Cody's pants are so wet that they've fallen down underneath his little hiney and his underpants are showing. LOL

And right before we left, Jacks found this cool rainbow on the ground made by the sun shining through a prism!