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!!