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It was time, once again, for Simon to break his poor mother’s heart.

Simon grows his hair out all winter and then cuts it short for summer.  Just like last year (OMG, has Simon grown in a year!), I was quite annoyed by his messy locks at first but as they grew I came to love them. I was once again crushed when he chopped them off without a second thought.

Sy’s hair got LONG this year! Before:

(here he is showing us what sarcastic little stinkers nine year olds are)

And after:

Would you even recognize him!? I didn’t for a few days!

Quinn and Kieran got haircuts too. Nothing so dramatic though (and neither would post for a before picture anyway):

Beckett did NOT get his hair cut (oh, hush, he’s my last baby!). He was, however, devastated when his father left him to get his own hair cut. I was submitted to fifteen minutes of his worried face, which looks like this:

The kid wanted his dad, alright? And he was incensed that I wouldn’t go get him for him!

Simon and Kieran were born 9 days short of five years apart. They had similar personalities as babies: both needed everything just so and screamed a lot to let us know about how everthing wasn’t just right for them. As they’ve grown they’ve developed an interesting dynamic between them. Out of all my kids these two fight the most fiercely with each other. Simon is best friends with Quinn and exceptionally protective and caring towards Beckett but he will go out of his way to irritate Kieran. They bug the holy heck out of each other. They are so much alike it’s like they have a direct line on what would irritate the other the most and they go for it. Often. But at the same time Kieran worships Simon. He consistently identifies Simon as his favorite brother and asks all day when Simon will come home. Simon creates games that are only for Kieran and then coaxes and teaches Kieran until Kieran can play them. Their dynamic is just fierce in every way.

I’m interested to see how their relationship develops as they grow up. I wonder if, as adults, they’ll dislike each other or if they’ll end up being really good friends. Both at once, probably.

Now that it’s warm out my kids live outdoors and love every minute of it. We are having so much fun this spring!

Quinn spends two-thirds of his time climbing. This day he had a 103° fever and had to miss school but he rallied for a few hours which was long enough to climb trees in his PJs.

We are enjoying walking to pick up “the brothers” every day again. The kids play this perverse game where they run ahead and then quickly lay on the ground until someone shouts “road kill” at which point they stand up and run away, laughing hysterically. I don’t get it either. But I like that it cracks us all up.

Road kill!

In a field next to the school this silly little tree bloomed. It’s really a nothing little thing but when it was in bloom it was spectacular.

Of course Quinn was up the tree immediately and then refused to come down so we could go home.

And with the warmth has come one of our favorite afternoon pastimes: bubbles and popsicles. I don’t think bubbles were ever this funny when I was a kid.

I crack up every time I see this picture

Ah, it’s good to be a kid in spring!

 
I’d like to note that Kieran doesn’t even stop talking to have his picture taken. Love that kid and all the things on his mind.

I had epic plans for Spring Break. We got a horrible virus instead. I think there’s a pin on Pinterest about that, somewhere! At the beginning of the week I was determined that we would proceed as planned and have an epic adventure each day despite the virus. We made it to the zoo on Monday and that was the beginning and the end of our Epic Spring Break.

We powered through strong winds, sick Dads and kids coming down with the plague and arrived at the zoo only to find all of the parking lots full. Always the adventurers we just parked in City Park and took some time to eat lunch and play before we headed (the long way, as it turned out!) to the zoo.

Beckett is intermittently obsessed with his hat and this day was an obsessed day.  He was so cute that strangers took pictures of him.  I’ve never had that happen before!

The main goal of this visit was to see Tropical Discovery (note: this was also the main goal of half the population of Denver that day). All I have to say about Tropical Discovery is that fear of snakes, even really particularly poisonous snakes like this one, must be learned.

Because Beckett and the snake had quite the discussion:

Simon is reading the Percy Jackson series and is convinced that he is a half-blood. His main problem is that he’s not sure which god he’s descended from so sometimes he has to try out all his powers to check. Today he thought he might be son of Zeus so he commanded the (hurricane force that day) wind:

This is just so….Simon. I need to frame this one

Apparently it worked, the wind bowed to his command so Simon must be part-Zeus. Quinn wished Simon would command the wind not to blow him down.