Grandma comes to visit

My mom came to visit for a few weeks and we had a blast! We took James to get his first haircut at a salon. Normally I would cut it, but he puts up such a fuss that I decided it would be worth the money to have someone else do it and not have yet another battle that day (we are going through a rough 3 year old rebellion stage).

He did really well! He listened to her directions on when to move his head and he stayed still for most of it:

 Showing off his new look:

 After looking his hair over, I found a lot of missed spots of different lengths, so I don't think we will be doing this again. Even though it is a pain, it ends up looking much better and more even when I do it with the clippers.

We took a trip to the pirate ship park and found that the new splash pad was open! I brought a towel just in case, but James didn't have any swim things on. He was fine with just his shorts :) He was cold and shivering, but he didn't want to leave.

 The concrete was painted without any non-slip materials added to it, so it was very slippery. James fell at least 3 times, and that was even while he was walking slowly. A few days after we went, I saw a notice online that they closed it down indefinitely because of how many kids were falling. It was such bad planning! They spent so much time and effort into building it and only days after opening they had to close it down. Such a shame.

James wanted to ride his bike to the fire station in our neighborhood. It is a long bike ride for him, but he insisted that he wouldn't get tired. He was right! I put Rett in the sling and we walked the entire 1.3 miles there. They were out on a call when we got there, so we sat and waited for a few minutes in case they came back. Luckily for us, they did! They invited James right over to see the fire trucks. He was star struck! This kid who literally talks nonstop from the moment he gets up, could barely eek a word out in front of the firefighter.

 On the way home I asked James if he wanted to be a firefighter when he grows up. He said that when he gets bigger, his shirt will turn into a firefighter shirt, his pants will turn into firefighter pants, and his bike helmet will turn into a firefighter helmet. So, I guess the answer is yes :)

Friday morning we finally got to check out the new Chuck-e-Cheese that just opened in January. I had no idea that it was going to be so much fun! James had the time of his life!! I told him in the morning that we were going to go somewhere fun as a surprise, and after we went he couldn't stop talking about the "fun surprise".

He loved all the games and wanted to do each and every one. We didn't bring much cash on us, so we ended up only spending about $5 between the quarters and the dollar bills we had in our wallets. I couldn't believe how affordable it was!

 Anthony tried to show him how his running wheel worked, but James did not want to get in it!

 We got there right as they opened and one of he workers was going around testing all of the machines, so we started to follow him around to get all of the tickets he was leaving behind. He had to fix this simulator and when he left, he smiled at James and said, "free ride!". Anthony and James jumped on and they loved it! It was definitely one of the favorites.

 Flying the spaceship:

 This one was one of my favorites to watch James do. He loved it so much!! It was a pretend popcorn bucket that you move around to try to catch falling balls. James would scream and move the bucket back and forth yelling, "This is so much fun!!" and "This is crazy!!". After a few minutes he just combined the two and now his new phrase is, "This is so much crazy!!"

After discovering how much fun the splash pad was for James, we were determined to find another one. A friend told me about a public splash pad at a park in South Daytona that is much bigger and isn't slippery. After soccer pictures Saturday morning we decided to check it out and it was great! James had so much fun running around in the water and playing with the kids there. Next time we will have to bring water toys, all the other kids had some and we had a few disagreements when James wanted to play with them :)

The last full day my mom was here, we got take out from a local seafood place and ate a picnic at a local park that has a small beach. I put the umbrella up so that we could have some shade, and James immediately started exploring. After lunch, my mom stayed with Rett in the shade while James and I collected hermit crabs and snails in our buckets. I would point them out in the water and James would run up with the bucket yelling, "Ohhh yeahhhh! Lemme get 'em!". Rett enjoyed himself too, he got to gnaw on my mom's dill pickle spear and he didn't even make a face! I guess we can add pickles to the list of things he likes :)