Butterflies!

Yesterday we ventured over to the Gardens to see the butterflies that are there right now. This is our first visit this to the butterflies, but certainly not our last! It was a beautiful, sunny day so the butterflies were very active. Joshua love every minute of it, well except "all the walking". On the other hand, Matthew was excited at first but as time ticked by he seemed more frightened of the winged creatures. While we were in the observatory we even saw butterflies being collected from the bungalow and released which was pretty neat. We spent a majority of our time in the butterflies, but Joshua made sure we spent some time in seeing the Jim Dine sculptures too. Being such a beautiful day we were even able to spend some time in the children's garden and the boys were able to do some fun activities. It was a fabulous morning that we hope to go back and repeat very soon!

Joshua spent quite a bit of time studying the butterfly life cycle exhibit on display.

Peering into the butterfly bungalow watching butterflies being collected for release.

The butterfly bungalow was a busy place.

Releasing the butterflies!

Fly away!

Snack break

An odd species.....the Joshua butterfly.

A very odd species.....the cranky, I do NOT want a picture, Matthew butterfly.

Checking out the butterflies with magnifying glasses.

Dressing up like a butterfly. (He specifically wanted to dress up like a Blue Morpho to match the one tattooed on my back).

Building a butterfly.

On the way home Joshua drew the life cycle of the butterfly. Amazing how much they absorb and remember! Note: He had labeled everything with his own inventive spelling words, but ended up erasing them because he wanted to write them absolutely right (surprisingly he only had to add a 't' to hatching to make it correct).

Mini vacation

This past weekend we took the boys to Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City. We haven't been there since Joshua was little so it was fun to see how he approached things at the water park now that he is older. With two little fishes we figured the water park would be a big hit and we were right. Neither of the boys could get enough, but especially Joshua. Matthew enjoyed the kiddie pool area complete with slides, until he realized there was a hot tub which quickly became his favorite spot. Joshua went down all but one slide there, even though he declared he wouldn't go down any when we arrived - he particularly enjoyed the slides in the tree fort and became Mr. Independent running through the fort and waiting in line for his turn on the slides all on his own. This year Joshua was excited about trying out the MagiQuest game throughout the hotel and he loved every minute of his "quests" - you buy a special wand and then go on quests throughout the hallways to find the hidden objects to complete the quests and climb the ranks of "junior magi", "senior magi" and finally "master magi". He achieved "master magi" status by the end of day 2, but we didn't have time to complete the two remaining master magi quests of fighting a goblin and a dragon so he hopes to do that when we return to Great Wolf in the future. Between visits to the water park and going on quests we were also able to fit in a pajama story time with Wiley the Wolf and Violet as well as a trip to the ice cream store. We had a fabulous weekend together as a family and created some very fun memories too! Be warned, there is an excess of pictures below. . . .

Happy kid loved playing in all the water!

Trying out one of the slides.

Joshua even enjoyed the kiddie slides!

Racing brothers.

Joshua coming down his favorite slide.

Cory making a big splash! Can you see his foot in the air?!

Climbing across the lily pads.

This was a spot both boys enjoyed as they jumped and jumped and jumped into the pool.

Getting some air!

Matthew loved jumping to daddy.

Playing in the kiddie pool.

More sliding.

Matthew and his favorite person, daddy!

This pretty much sums up our weekend!

More swimming.

The littlest fish in our family.

Again, grinning from ear to ear!

One fish, two fish . . . .orange fish, blue fish!

Waiting for pajama story time to begin.

Violet and Wiley at story time.

Joshua hugging Wiley.

This is as close as Matthew would get to the characters.

Pretending to be maimed by the bear, thus the weird look on his face.

Huggin' on the stuffed wolf.

Watching the water park close for the night.

Yum, ice cream!!!!

I'm not sure why attempt to get pictures of the two of them together.

Waking up the suit of armor with his wand.

On his final quest to become a "master magi".

Opening the final treasure!

Just a couple video clips of our fun in the water park.....

Joshua is in the left of the screen dancing around in the orange swim shirt and Cory is on the far right holding Matthew in his arms. All the boys enjoyed getting drenched by the dumping bucket of water numerous times.

Keeping up with Matthew

What do I do all day?!?! Pick up the CONSTANT tornado of messes the little, active almost 2 year old boy leaves in his wake. Seriously, the kid can destroy a room in 2.2 seconds! The pictures below only capture a few minutes of the never-ending battle I seem to face every waking moment with this child. Getting him to pick up is a major challenge as his attention span only seems to last all of 30 seconds and cleaning up isn't what he finds fun. Oh how I can't wait for this stage to pass us by! All his toys in his room were subject to his dumping habits today.

And there sits the tornado of a child amidst all the stuff innocently looking at books (before those get thrown and added to the pile of chaos).

Next stop, dumping all the bathtub toys out in the bathtub and playing in the tub fully clothed of course. At least this little mess kept him happily occupied for quite some time and allowed me to clean all the other "dump" sites up.