Around This Haws House

Rain. Rain to the point of the ocean creeping in upon us. By the time it stopped raining when I took these pictures, I had to wade through 4 inches of water just to get groceries out of our van. In Utah it would have been flash floods. Here, it just hangs around for awhile (it's so flat, it has nowhere to go) until it seeps into the ground and sewer system and by that time we have QUADRUPLED our already too large mosquito population. Then they come with a massive truck and empty out the sewers all around our complex. We have crazy thunderstorms every afternoon. But this rain, this rain was ESPECIALLY intense.

Umm..this girl and her crazy huge eyes. She is the boss of this house, make no mistake. Is that why her brother is so set on pinching and biting and hitting her lately?!? SOOO done with that.

She is also trouble-make extraordinaire and climbs onto everything! 

Sweetest baby smile EVER!

Climbing.

???

My favorite thing about Molly right now is how she blows on her food. Will is obsessed with worrying about how hot his food is and blows and blows before he takes his first bite. Molly, watching him, will now start blowing every time we put food in front of her (hot or cold). But she can't blow forward, she makes this little half-circle in the corner of her mouth and blows--straight up into her face! It makes her blink and her hair fly up! It is SOOOOO hilarious and sweet and perfect. I try to get her to blow on her food all the time, just to watch.

Ruth is great at reading stories to Will, and Will loves listening to Ruthie read stories. This was a monster book we checked out specifically for Joy School and by the end Ruth had it completely memorized. I love their dangling toes. This is also some of the only moments of peace I have around here with those two. They play really well, but man they can fight so ferociously!

These are my Joy School kids on Thursdays. We have such a great time with them!

Other random news: Will's potty training has been going INCREDIBLY WONDERFUL! I have been SHOCKED at how easy it has been. Until, of course, last night he took OFF his diaper before falling asleep and went 1&2 in the middle of the night. Not so awesome. Especially because Ruthie had an accident as well (she has been doing AWESOME at not wearing a diaper to bed). But since these are the first infractions in almost a week, I am still happy about life. I think we are already down a pack of diapers at least, right?!!? Haha. 

Swimming weather is probably winding down (I think middle of October is when we stopped swimming last year, our pool is not heated) so I am trying to fit in more of that. Luckily, that is all we do for playgroup (it's too hot for anything else!) so we get at least one swim day in a week. My kids are still loving story time. We have a new director, who already knows my kids' names, and I sit with Annie and her three boys (pictured above) in the story time room afterwards and let our kids color and wrestle all over the mats. They really enjoy it. It also stretches the activity out quite a bit more so that when we come home it's time for lunch and nap times--what a great day! I'm starting to get used to gluten-free cooking. Haha. Ha. Ha. Okay, so not really. But I am learning that making those gluten-free recipes are ridiculous, and finding alternatives is key. Instead of making or finding a gluten-free roll for Sterling the other day when we had chicken salad sandwiches, he just ate it in a wrap. Instead of trying gluten-free muffins (which have all kinds of crazy ingredients like four types of gluten free flour and xantham gum (to make things stick without yeast) and whatever else) I just find recipes that have no flour without trying. Like banana oat muffins. They were delicious because they were never meant to have flour in the first place. Or the really good peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I made on Sunday. No flour required, but not a gluten-free recipe. Just made that way. Anyway, seems like a simple enough idea, but I'm a little slow. It's been an adjustment. Other than that, my kids are cute, life is moving along, and so quickly too!