This week

James got a hold of some of my makeup and decided that he needed to powder his face. He also powdered his brother's face :)

 For our family home evening treat, James helped me make brownies. In batman underwear.

 All of his life, James has been very fussy about wearing clothes and hated being naked. I never had to struggle to keep him dressed, in fact I had to start hiding the jackets and the hats in the spring when the weather got too hot for them because he would insist on wearing them in 85 degree weather. Now he has discovered how to take his clothes off himself and loves going around the house naked or in his underwear.

We have had a rough week this week, with a lot of roller coaster emotions, tantrums, and straight up stubbornness. On the flip side, ever since James gave up his boppy, he has been a lot more affectionate than we are used to. He has started actually asking to cuddle and snuggle and crying when we leave or when he goes to bed. It seems like he has a spicy or sweet switch and he can go between either one in seconds. For example, one morning he went outside all by himself (which is unusual because he usually begs me to go out there with him), picked some flowers from our bush outside, and brought them inside just for me!

 While I was admiring the flowers, he saw some DVD's behind the gate in front of our TV and asked me if he could play with them. When I told him no and explained that they could hurt him or break, he flew into a rage, punched me in the arm, and had to go straight to time out! He went from giving me flowers to hitting me in literally minutes. His mood swings lately have been intense!

One afternoon James and I were playing with his toys and he gathered all of his "work" stuff (play doctor toys). He picked up the clipboard, ran his finger down the paper, and said in this matter-of-fact voice, "Sooo, heers the plan. I go to work, and I miss you. Then I come home and I see you. K? Thas the plan." It was so cute!! I got him to say it again for the camera, but it is a little harder to understand :)

Saturday morning James woke up in a grumpy mood and I could tell it was going to be a looooong day. Anthony works until 5pm on Saturdays so I was on my own with James. In the morning after breakfast I told him that he needed to make his bed before we played with toys or did any activities. He is used to making his bed, but usually he kind of hangs around and "helps" (or more accurately plays) while I do it. I've decided to have him start doing it on his own and it did not go over well. I told him what steps he needed to take to do it and that it didn't have to look perfect, he just had to try. He spent over 30 minutes in his room kicking, screaming, crying, basically doing anything except attempting to make his bed. After multiple reminders and check-ins from me, he finally came out and told me that he made his bed. I made a big deal about it and told him how proud and happy I was that he did it all by himself. He just made a face and growled at me. So stubborn! Even when he finally does what he is supposed to do, he doesn't want you to acknowledge it.

Here is the final result of James' bed made all by himself :)

 Anthony's sister Robin gave us this playset that her kids have outgrown and Anthony and I set it up today. James loves it! He was nervous to go down the slide at first, he said it was too high. He finally tried it out and decided he liked it :)

 For some reason, he told us that he can also use the slide for sleeping and wanted to show us what that would look like:

 Rett is pulling up on everything! He crawled right up to James in the bathtub, stood up and checked out what he was doing. Then he started investigating the faucets. This boy is so curious! He gets into everything! We haven't done that great a job of making sure small objects are out of his reach and I am almost ashamed to admit to some of the things we have pulled out of his mouth. It is so much harder to keep things baby proof with a busy older sibling around!

Saturday afternoon I was exhausted and Anthony was about an hour late coming home from work, so I put on the TV for James and dozed rested my eyes on the couch. About 15 minutes later I woke up to find Rett had discovered an open box of graham crackers in the pantry and dumped it all over the kitchen floor. Then he had apparently crawled into the dining room, found a cup of cheerios, and dumped that on the floor. When I caught up to the mischief maker he had his cheeks full like a chipmunk! You would think we never feed him! :)

Everett is 10 months old!

Rett is just growing and growing! Taking pictures of him has gotten to be such a hard job. The kid never stops moving!! Half of the pictures we took today ended up blurry because he wouldn't sit still. A good amount had to get deleted because he couldn't stop grabbing the camera. Busy and curious, that is our little munchkin.

 He still doesn't have any teeth, but if we look closely we can see two tooth-sized bulges on his bottom gums, so we think they are getting ready to break through. It would make sense since he has been a little more fussy (for him anyway!) the last few weeks.

 Love this face!

 His favorite thing to do is to pull up on any and everything, get stuck there and then cry for help :) He also loves holding our hands while we walk him around. He just giggles and giggles when we do that!

 This is my favorite picture of him right now! He is eating his giraffe and grinning at me at the same time :)

He had a check up a few weeks ago and here are his stats:

-9th percentile in length

-16th percentile in weight

I am always surprised to see him be on the lower end of the chart for weight because he looks so plump and juicy to us! On top of that, he is growing out of his clothes again and is now in the 12 month size!

He loves, loves, loves eating table food, especially if he can feed it to himself. His favorites right now are bananas, peas, black beans, raisins, and cheerios. He also will eat anything I spoon feed him and happily eats squash, carrots, green bean puree, applesauce of all flavors, and yogurt. So far the only things I have found that he doesn't like are Ritz crackers (weird because he used to like them. Now he throws them on the floor immediately), and oatmeal.

Before we know it, it will be his birthday! This year went fast!

James goes to the movies

I took James to his very first trip to the movie theater, or as he calls it, the "movie heater". We had a great time! Anthony watched Rett and James and I went to the 4pm showing of Planes: Fire and Rescue. James asked me soooooo many questions on the drive there: "where is the movie heater? Whas it look like? Where is the movie?". When we walked up to the entrance James said, "I never been to this kind of place afore!"

I wasn't sure if there would be a long line for concessions, so I didn't know if we would get anything. The line ended up being super short and I had a $5 coupon to use from redeeming some codes on cereal boxes, so I got him a kid's box with popcorn, fruit snacks, and a drink for $1!

We decided to sit on the first aisle as you walk in, so nobody would be in front of us. It turned out to be a great decision because James spent most of the movie either standing in front of the railing or sitting on the floor. The poor kid couldn't sit back in his own seat because it would fold up on him!

In awe of the previews:

Ready for the classic roller coaster AMC ad:

During the movie, he had a great time. He laughed loudly at the funny parts, repeated his favorite lines, and asked questions at full volume (he doesn't have a whisper setting). I was so glad that it was an afternoon showing with lots of other kids! :)

After the movie, we played at the arcade for a little bit.

Then we walked to a little playground they have in the strip mall and made a pit stop at the bathrooms. Finally we made our way home and James was wired!! Anthony was sure the drink they gave him was caffeinated, but I think the pure sugar rush did the trick since he drank most of it on the drive home :)

We had fun on our mommy and me adventure, daddy can't wait for his turn! I'm sure it will involve fishing :)

Sprinklers, 4th of July, & the Boppy Fairy

Our latest favorite at home activity is to go outside and play in the sprinklers. We have an in ground sprinkler system for the yard, so we actually went and bought sprinklers at the hardware store (or hard-works store as James calls it) just for playing in. One afternoon we came across a gopher tortoise staring at us! James was so excited to play with it, but it was not in the mood. It crawled away surprisingly fast :)

 For the rest of the afternoon, James was a turtle.

Another afternoon we decided to play with the larger sprinkler that goes back and forth. James ran around for a long time, trying to dodge the water.

Since James is loving the show "Super Why" lately, so we had to buy Alpha Bits cereal for him. He loved that his cheerios were letters and he kept pulling them out and saying things like, "Hey! An X!" The back of the box had a cut out where you could make a super why mask. It was a hit!

For the 4th of July, Anthony went fishing in the morning and we just relaxed at home with my mom and my brother. In the evening we went to the fireworks and James had so much fun running around with the other kids. When the actual fireworks started, James could not stop laughing hysterically screaming things like, "OH MY GOODNESS!!". The people in front of us kept turning around and laughing :) Rett was mesmerized by the fireworks and didn't even flinch once! Dang that baby is easy going! (We also happened to go into a shoe store that day and found his cool Planes sneakers on clearance. Those sneakers are size 9 1/2!!!)

The next day we finally bit the bullet and had James say goodbye to his pacifiers. We have felt like he was way too big to still have them for a long time, but he is so dang attached to them! He only has them when he is in his bed, and if he has a tantrum and has to go to his room to calm down his pacifiers help him calm down a lot. He had such a rough time after Rett was born, I just didn't want to take away his comfort thing, you know? We had some friends whose daughter was really attached to her pacifier too, and they told us they had the "Pacifier Fairy" (or "boppy fairy" since James calls it a boppy) come and take away the pacifiers to give to other little babies who needed it and leave them a big kid present in return. We have been talking about the boppy fairy for awhile and James really didn't like the idea. Sometimes he would say, "Close my door so the boppy fairy doesn't get in!!", like he was afraid of it. The day after the fireworks we made it official, the boppy fairy was coming and it was time for him to say goodbye. He was reluctant, but wasn't too difficult to convince.

Putting the boppys by the front door for her:

 In the morning he seemed let down when there wasn't anything at the front door for him. Then we told him that she told us that his present was on the back porch. We found this ATV toy out by someone's trash last Thanksgiving and it only needed a battery. He has played on it on our back porch since then, but it doesn't go anywhere. We told him to get on it and push the pedal. He excitedly jumped on and when he pushed the pedal, it lurched forward! His face was priceless!! It was a mixture of excitement, fear and surprise all rolled into one. He said, "the boppy fairy waved her magic wand and made my motorcycle work!"

Zooming around the back yard:

From pacifiers to ATV's. Growing up fast!!




Beach Bums

We have been really enjoying the beach this summer! We spent a few late afternoons fishing for whiting on the beach and James had so much fun catching the little fish. The fish are small but you can catch a large amount in just a short time, so it makes it worth it.

 I thought Rett would just play on the blanket and crawl around, but instead he wouldn't stop eating the sand! I mean, nonstop handfuls!! After a few minutes I ended up having to hold him and carry him around the rest of the time. He also really liked this golf ball :)

 Going for the sand!

James loved playing on his boogie board. I think this was his first time actually on the boogie board. Every time he has brought it with us to the beach before, he just dragged it around behind him.

 The next time we went to the beach, I brought an old pack and play for Rett (to keep him from eating ALL the sand at the beach :) and some friends!

James loved playing with his buddy Layton. They are both the perfect amount of rough and tumble boy for each other so they get along really well. Rett spent a lot of time in the pack and play next to baby Livy, so we decided it was their first date :) They better get used to each other because we have already decided that they need to get married one day!

James got really brave and actually wanted me to take him far into the waves, I think because Layton loves to swim out there with his life jacket on. I need to find one that is good for swimming like he has so that James can try it out, I think he would really like the freedom once he got used to it. We sure do love the beach around here!