Capes

Matthew has been begging me to make him a new "Batman BEYOND" cape (even though I won't let him watch Batman Beyond.  I don't think it's age appropriate.  I do let him watch The Batman or Batman the Animated Series, but I grew up on those!  Thus his obsession with what he can't have)  And of course Hailey had to have a cape too.  Hers is a pink princess.

We have pretty much been living in our sunglasses eating popsicles over here!

Inspecting what daddy was doing with the car.

The majority of the photos I catch of Matthew lately are dramatic like this!  He really puts a lot of effort into his expressions!!!

Swimming Lessons!

The kids had their first swimming lessons the last two weeks!  They both did really well, but Matthew especially improved so much!  He has always been very timid of the water, so I put him in the class especially for timid 3-5 yr olds.  His class only had three kids in it.  The funny thing is that the other boy in the class was also a matthew!  My Matthew loved that and decided they were destined to be best friends because they shared a name.  Of the three kids apparently Matthew was the only one who became comfortable putting his head under, which is huge for him.  Hailey on the other hand refused to put her head under.  She and I did a mommy and me class.  I put her in a class more because I didn't know what else to do with her for the 30 minute time slot.  I would have felt terrible sitting by the water telling her she couldn't get in every day.  We had a lot of fun and she did finally the last day decide it was fun to blow bubbles and put her nose in but NOT her eyes :)  Matthew's other huge accomplishment was when they gave them a day in life jackets.  He was able to doggy paddle around all by himself all over the deep end!  He was thrilled about that, as was I!

Here's a video of some of our fun!  If you listen really close at the end Matthew says something HILARIOUS

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Bugs

The little duck/nature park here in Rexburg is a perfect place to catch bugs!  We went there to burn some time this evening  and had a blast!  The only problem was the HEAT!  But I truly do love summers in Rexburg!!

 Mostly all we caught was damselflies, but there were a few butterflies.  Matthew brought his own little net and was so proud of himself when he would catch one!

 Of course Curt had to find the snake :)

Great day in every way!

Who needs popsicles?

Plain old frozen water in a cup is a thrill!  Matthew helped me put the water in the freezer the night before and was so ecstatic to see that yes, it truly did freeze in the "freezer."  Ice Ice baby

 brain freeze!

 He told me his ice was too cold (go figure) and thought holding it in the sun would make the ice warmer.  

Mighty Hunter Matthew

We had no idea how much of the "hunting lingo" Matthew had picked up.  He talks like he's been hunting a dozen times.  Lately he's been big into telling me that he has to go shoot a deer to eat while he goes camping.  Then he shoots it, pretends to gut it out, and "throws it on his shoulders to carry out."  It is too funny! 

Father's Day

I got this idea from Pinterest (of course.  I am not this creative).  Curt also got an awesome little shop vac (a steal of a deal we just couldn't pass up haha) for father's day and $20 to add to his "metal detector" fund.  

Curt is an amazing father, and nothing I could give him or do for him would be enough for what he is and does for our family all the time!  I love you, Curt!

Summer days with the cousins

Vicky and her kids came up for a few day visit.  Hailey adores Adessa and Matthew and Jexten are "brothers.  even when we fight sometimes, that's ok, we're still brothers." says matthew.  In fact we were asked today if they were twins!  haha  Matching buzz cuts and red sweaters can do that I guess, but the similarities end there.  They get along PERFECTLY though.  In fact I teared up a little the other night thinking about what a tender mercy Jexten is in Matthew's life.  Jexten is.....loud :)  In the nicest way possible.  and you all know Matthew's hearing issues.  But their conversations go on and on and on and they match each other's high vocabulary level so they stay on the same page.  They played everything from spy kitties to Aliens eating "space radishes" (cheese balls).

We were able to do a lot of really fun activities with them.  We will miss them a lot when they go home Saturday!

 Curt and I are just big kids.  Who doesn't love cotton candy?  You're weird if you don't.

 This is where Matthew and Jexten took most of their meals.

 We got dinner and a show one night!

 And then we slept out in tents.  Ok, Hailey and I slept in the trailer and Grandpa and Grandma had a peaceful quiet night inside the house.  But Vicky toughed it out with Adessa, and Curt slept in the boys' tent to make sure they went to sleep eventually.  Actually I think everyone was exhausted by the time we climbed in our beds and it didn't take long for them to go to sleep.

 We set hailey up a spot and she played in there with Adessa until I was able to convince her that sleeping in the trailer was a good idea.

 And we finally got them out to the duck pond with bread so they could feed the ducks.  The usual huge crowd of duckies wasn't there for some reason, so it was actually pleasant to feed them without them trying to eat your hand too.  Oh, actually I think we were mostly just missing the geese.  That was the difference.  They get ferocious!

 While feeding the ducks Hailey had this little guy sneaking up trying to snatch the crumbs she was dropping right at her feet!

Water Balloons

One warm morning this last week while waiting for Adessa and Jexten we decided to fill up water balloons.  They were actually regular balloons.  That was nice for me because they had a hard time popping them, so we didn't get any broken BEFORE getting them outside!  Otherwise it would have been a very wet kitchen after all the fumbling.

Hailey very proudly carried this pink "baby" all day long until we got home in the evening from running around all day long and daddy accidentally dropped it and her world about ended.  It didn't help that she missed her nap that day and only got to snooze for a few minutes before dinner.

Matthew wanted to draw faces on all of them.  They each had their own personality and name to go with it.  My favorite was "AHHH."  He is yellow on the front row with his mouth open wide saying ahhh