The Harvey Family: March {2017}

House hunting is in full swing and that has been the focus of a lot of our spare time and energy this month. We've found a handful of houses worth looking at and they all had deal-breakers except 1 which we made an offer on and were out-bid (I am still pretty heart-broken over it). Most of the problems come from bad lots. We are really hoping to spend a lot more time outside than we did in Florida so having a good driveway (for basketball in the future, we hope) and a big enough yard to play in (either back or more likely front) are very important. It's crazy how many of the homes have terrible lots or are right next to busy roads. Hopefully we can find what we're looking for in the next couple months so we can be settled before kindergarten starts the middle of August.

This month Brett:

has an evil laugh that he copied from Blake. It's your standard "Mwahahaha" and he totally uses it correctly. Most of the time it is accompanied by an evil scowl as well which pretty much makes me crack up.
has started letting me brush his teeth but only to brush off his "sugar bugs". I had to explain to him what would happen to his teeth if he didn't brush them and finally I came up with the sugar bug story and he lets me brush his teeth and he even reminds me to make sure I rinse them off his toothbrush and make them go down the drain. We only battle about 50% of the time now...
can count to 29. He can finally make it through the teens and apparently he has been paying attention to Blake's counting and taught himself to count through the 20s. We haven't talked about what comes next, but I was really impressed!
watches High 5 House on Netflix and loves all the songs and dances and bright colors. It is 5 Australian actors that do singing/dancing, skits, and tell stories but man he just loves that show. Blake will even sit down and watch it too which is not normally the type of show he likes to watch.
loves wearing safety glasses. He got them for Blake's birthday party as protective wear for the science experiments. They came in handy for the Hot Wheels race track that flings the cars around the track so I made them both wear the glasses while playing with that, but now Brett will just wear them around and even watch tv with them on. Hopefully once they get enough finger prints on them, he'll realize he can't see and will give up on them.
likes reading Skippyjon Jones books. At first I was so confused with this series of books. They're about this little Siamese cat who goes into his closet and turns into a Chihuahua and goes on adventures. There is a bunch of Spanish thrown into the adventures and I think Brett enjoys learning new words. I can recall as lot of them (I try to tell him the English meaning right after the Spanish word) but there are definitely some words I had to look up, so I'm learning too!

This month Blake:

says 10 hundred everything. If he wants to exaggerate and say there is a ton of something, he'll say there are 10 hundred of them. I tried to explain that he could easily just say a thousand, but he won't have it.
loves coloring and making abstract designs. To say he loves the new art set that he got for his birthday is an understatement. He uses it for hours each day and he is really getting much more creative with his art. He is proud of his abstract creations and loves making lots of "shape drawings and designs". He'll even use a pencil to outline designs and shapes and then ask us what color each little section should be (he knows all 64 crayon names by heart).
favorite movie is A.C.O.R.N.S. operation crackdown. It is like an animated version of Oceans 11 with forest animals as the main characters. It's actually a really cute movie so I can see the appeal. It revolves around planning a heist and a small part love story (still feels weird to watch movies with my children about love stories).
puts his eyes in the water. His swim lessons seem to be very slowly moving along because he hasn't fully jumped over the biggest hurdle which is putting his head in the water. His latest teacher got him to play a game of Simon Says and eventually she got him to put his eye in the water. He'll do it for me too, but it lasts .5 seconds and he spits like crazy and wipes said eye with both hands repeatedly afterward. And he won't wear goggles/masks of any kind which doesn't help the situation. If we're getting closer to face in swimming, it is the slowest path ever.
commands everyone to make art as he stands over their shoulder. Since he loves drawing and coloring so much, he assumes that everyone does. He likes to make 4 copies of his designs so that each person in the family can color them. He doesn't care if you haven't eaten or gone to the bathroom in the past 6 hours, art must come first. If I say that I need to eat first he'll sit next to me and ask me between each bite if I'm done and ready to color yet. Once you finish a drawing, you might have an hour or 2 seconds before being expected to complete another art task.

Pics: (Wow, just 4 pics?? Sorry, I'll try and do better next month.)

Blake got a crystal growing set for his birthday and it worked really well.